Awkward Silences: Behavioral Antecedents and Consequences of the Conversational Lapse

Abstract

Audio tape-recordings of 30-minute conversations between pairs of strangers (N=90) were scored for the frequency and duration of conversnrional lapses, interactive silences of three or more seconds occumnp at the recognizable completion of a turn-constructional unit. Ten-utterance segments of conversation immediately prior and immediately subsequent to lapses were transcribed from the tapes of45 of the conversations characterized by multiple lapses. Pre-and postlapse behaviors were coded as (A) (B) discloses, questions, edifies, acknowledges, advises, interprets, confirms, reflects.Also coded were gaps and laughter outbursts. Lag sequential analysis of the prelapse data indicated that behavior sequences prior to lapses were characterized by a pattern of "minimal response" by one of the participants. Postlapse sequences were characterized by the presence of question-answer adjacency pairs.Perhaps you are one of those people who have a wealth of interesting subjects at their conversational fingertips, but are scared to make use of them. Don't be afraid of being labeled an intellectual or an egghead. This doesn't mean that in the midst of an awkward silence a bright young thing should blast the silence with something she learned in Ancient History: "Did you know that Socrates' wife, Xanthippe, used to pare his toenailsfor him?" Such a conversational contribution, apropos of nothing said before, would be effective all right, but in the wrong way! However. if the conversation were on toenuils, think what a smash tidbit this would be. -Robert Loeb, She-MannersSocial encounters whose primary focus is conversation (for example, the dinner date or the dinner party) provide the ordinary individual with one of life's more severe tests of communicative competence. On such occasions participants operate under an implicit but nonetheless very compelling obligation to sustain interaction so as to avoid or at least minimize potential gaps (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1978). As most students of social interaction are aware, lapses in conversation are so potentially embarrassing that participants

Interpreting Pauses and Ums at Turn Exchanges

“…The um was preceded by a .5-s pause to make the turn exchange sound natural, as an um coincident with the offset of the last speaker's turn sounded premature. The 1-s versus 3-s pause conditions should replicate earlier research that uncomfortably long interturn pauses yield negative attributions (McLaughlin & Cody, 1982).…”

“…The um was preceded by a .5-s pause to make the turn exchange sound natural, as an um coincident with the offset of the last speaker's turn sounded premature. The 1-s versus 3-s pause conditions should replicate earlier research that uncomfortably long interturn pauses yield negative attributions (McLaughlin & Cody, 1982).The outcome of the um condition is less predictable. If ums are filtered out and ignored (the filter hypothesis), we might expect attributions for the um condition to 40 FOX TREE be more similar to the 1-s condition than the 3-s condition (ignoring um, there is a .5-s difference between the um and 1-s conditions, compared to 1.5-s difference between the um and 3-s conditions).…”

“…Very long pauses, such as those over 6 s, can often be attributed to nonverbal activities interlocutors are engaged in at the time that they are talking (Jefferson, 1989). Pauses over 3-s long, without ongoing activities to attribute them to, make interlocutors uncomfortable (McLaughlin & Cody, 1982), and people probably try to avoid silences of this length; in one study of conversations, almost all pauses were under 2 s in length, and none were over 3 s (Goldman-Eisler, 1968).…”

“…Very long pauses, such as those over 6 s, can often be attributed to nonverbal activities interlocutors are engaged in at the time that they are talking (Jefferson, 1989). Pauses over 3-s long, without ongoing activities to attribute them to, make interlocutors uncomfortable (McLaughlin & Cody, 1982), and people probably try to avoid silences of this length; in one study of conversations, almost all pauses were under 2 s in length, and none were over 3 s (Goldman-Eisler, 1968).In Experiment 1, I compared the three turn intervals of a 1-s pause, a 3-s pause, and a .5-s pause plus um plus 1-s pause (the um condition). The um was preceded by a .5-s pause to make the turn exchange sound natural, as an um coincident with the offset of the last speaker's turn sounded premature.…”

When Nightingales Break the Law: Silence and the Construction of Reality

“…It is not surprising, then, that silence plays a key role, in conjunction with turn-taking, in managing remote conversations (Szymanski et al 2006). Among strangers, minimal conversational response is likely to precede silences, and question and answer series follow (McLaughlin and Cody 1982). The ability to manipulate silence in such ways is so important a skill that it is considered a marker of language fluency (Macias 2006).…”