How phonetic features project more talk

Abstract

Investigations into the management of turn-taking have typically focussed on pitch and other prosodic phenomena, particularly pitch-accents. Here, non-pitch phonetic features and their role in turn-taking are described. Through sustained phonetic and interactional analysis of a naturally occurring, 12-minute long telephone call between two adult speakers of British English, sets of talk-projecting and turn-projecting features are identified. Talk-projecting features include the avoidance of durational lengthening, articulatory anticipation, continuation of voicing, the production of talk in maximally close proximity to a preceding point of possible turn-completion, and the reduction of consonants and vowels. Turn-projecting features include the converse of each of the talk-projecting features, and two other distinct features: release of plosives at the point of possible turn-completion, and the production of audible outbreaths. We show that features of articulatory and phonatory quality and duration are relevant factors in the design and treatment of talk as talk-or turn-projective.

Actions in practice: On details in collections

“…One such area of distinct expertise, lying outside the disciplinary origins of CA, is phonetics. 21 So, for example, our understanding of turn-taking has been enhanced by observations made by Local and Walker (2012) regarding the role of phonetic features in projecting either more talk, or turn completion, in English; and by Ogden (2004), who examines non-modal voice quality (informally, 'creaky voice') in signaling turn-transition in Finnish. Similarly, Clayman and Raymond (2015) offer an analysis of what they term 'modular pivots', focusing on how the phonetic realization of these items plays a demonstrably significant role in circumventing potential turn-transfer and retaining the floor beyond a projected transition-relevance place.…”

Coordinating Utterances During Turn-Taking: The Role of Prediction, Response Preparation, and Articulation

“…Listeners may delay preparation until they can predict the speaker's turn-end, most likely toward the end of the utterance. Alternatively, listeners may only begin preparation once the speaker displays a turn-final cue, which usually occurs towards the end of the speaker's turn (linguistic or nonlinguistic; Beattie et al, 1982;Gravano & Hirschberg, 2011;Hjalmarsson, 2011;Local & Walker, 2012).…”

“…Regardless of whether listeners launch articulation of their response on the basis of turn-final cues (Beattie et al, 1982;Gravano & Hirschberg, 2011;Hjalmarsson, 2011;Local & Walker, 2012) or a prediction of the speaker's turn-end (De Ruiter et al, 2006;Magyari et al, 2014), failure to fully comprehend the speaker's utterance because of preparing, buffering, and rehearsing a response may impact the listener's ability to respond at the appropriate moment, which may lead to more overlaps or gaps between utterances. On the other hand, the speaker's utterance generally becomes increasingly predictable as the turn unfolds.…”

“…This inability means that the listener cannot predict when the speaker will reach the end of their turn and can only begin response preparation toward the end of the utterance. In these instances the listener likely times their response on the basis of turn-final cues (Beattie, Cutler, & Pearson, 1982;Gravano & Hirschberg, 2011;Hjalmarsson, 2011;Local & Walker, 2012). To achieve inter-turn intervals of 200 ms (Stivers et al, 2009), the processes of response preparation and articulation must overlap: The listener must have to articulate the first syllable of their response while simultaneously preparing subsequent words (i.e., response preparation must be incremental; Ferreira & Swets, 2002).…”

Form ≠ Function: The Independence of Prosody and Action

“…Though it is not immediately apparent from the transcript shown above, Curl, Local & Walker (2006:1744 provide this as part of the description of the phonetic characteristics of a double: "second parts are shorter in duration than first parts". However, longer durations are one of the indicators of turn finality, as shown by Local & Walker (2012). Therefore, it is clear that simply describing the duration, even if done as a relationship between one realization and another (eg., lengthened or shortened) is vastly preferable to using a (misleading) label that incorporates any mention of an interactional function, since the functions that shorter durations can be put to are in this case nearly opposite.…”