Predicting conversational turns: Signers' and nonsigners' sensitivity to language-specific and globally accessible cues

Abstract

Precision turn-taking may constitute a crucial part of the human endowment for communication. If so, it should be implemented similarly across language modalities, as in signed vs. spoken language. Here, in the first experimental study of turn-end prediction in sign language, we find support for the idea that signed language, like spoken language, involves turn-type prediction and turn-end anticipation. In both cases, turns like questions that elicit specific responses accelerate anticipation. We also show remarkable cross-modality predictive capacity: nonsigners anticipate signed turn ends surprisingly well. Finally, we show that despite nonsigners' ability to intuitively predict signed turn ends, early native signers do it much better by using their access to linguistic signals (here, question markers). As shown in prior work, question formation facilitates prediction, and age of sign language acquisition affects accuracy. The study thus sheds light on the kinds of features that may facilitate turn-taking universally, and those that are language-specific.*

Acquisition of turn-taking in sign language conversations: An overview of language modality and turn structure

“…The early availability of turn-taking behaviors has implications for DHH children acquiring a sign language at older stages of development. Particularly in combination with evidence that some pragmatic cues for turn-taking in sign languages appear to be available to hearing adults with co-speech gesture experience but no sign language experience ( de Vos et al, 2022 ). These two pieces of evidence might suggest that DHH signing children would have intuitions about pragmatics and turn-taking in sign language, even if they enter the signing classroom with minimal sign language experience from home.…”

“…Due to the difficulty of constructing stimuli, as well as recruiting participants, there have been very few studies of turn prediction in sign languages. Here we review de Vos et al (2022) , one of the first studies that uses similar methods to the studies discussed above, in which participants viewed signed naturalistic dyadic conversations between adult signers of NGT and pressed a button when they thought the current signer was about to end their turn. The researchers compared signers and non-signers to determine (1) whether participants could accurately anticipate turn ends, (2) whether participants were more likely to anticipate turn ends that contained questions, and (3) whether signers were more likely to anticipate turn ends in questions that included non-iconic question markers (lexical items) from NGT.…”

Gesture links language and cognition for spoken and signed languages

“…Gestures can signal when the current turn might end 194,195 and foreshadow what information will be expressed in speech 14,196 , providing cues used by the recipient for efficient turn-taking. Turn-taking in sign languages involves visual cues that can be either linguistic (such as question signs) or gestural (such as a palm-up questioning gesture or raised eyebrows), and both signers and non-signers can use gestural cues to predict conversational turn ends in signing 197 . In addition, eye gaze in signing is a powerful turn-taking regulator because it determines who has the floor 198 .…”