This paper presents an analysis of the distribution and linguistic features of interruptions in British English and Italian ordinary conversations. Following earlier studies carried out with the paradigm of Conversation Analysis, it is shown that analyses of interruptions require an interpretative study of conversational activities and that interactional factors other than competitive ones may be at work in irregularly marked Speaker Switches. Contrary t o a common belief among native Speakers, no relevant differences in frequency of interruptions äs violations of conversational rules are found in the two contexts fviz. English vs. Italian conversations). Significant differences are foundin terms of the lexical selection of pragmatic particles recurrently marking interruptive turns. Thus, the common use ofindirect interruptive pre-starts in English such äs well or tokens of agreement contrasts with an overwhelming use of direct contrastive markers like ma ('but') in Italian. It is suggested that such findings reflect different cultural understanding and preferences in linguistic in teraction.
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