Prosodies in the management of turn-taking

Richard Ogden
Department of Language & Linguistic Science, University of York
YORK YO10 5DD, England
rao1@york.ac.uk, http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~rao1

Introduction.
The term ‘prosody’ in modern phonology goes back at least to Hjelmslev & Uldall (1934), and Firth (1948). In those theories, ‘prosody’ is defined by function and domain, not by phonetic extent.

>From lecture notes taken by Elizabeth Anderson (1938-9):

“Phonetics—study of social actions.”
“You can only study [the individual’s] activity in relation to the system which he tends to construct and maintain in function.”
“You’ve got to find the values of the elements you analyse out. To be interpreted from the point of view of the person whose values they are and who’s performing the action.”

2. Rhythmic stretches. (Extracts 4-6)
Another common device is the deployment of very rhythmical pieces. This work is more speculative at the moment. Rhythmic pieces often seem to occur after some kind of problem in the course of a second pair part. They are often characterised by other ‘poetic’ devices like repetition of words, alliteration, puns, ‘singing’ intonation.

Extract 1
Maajussin tytär 2/20-26

20 C ?oon:´ ?oon kyllä hh maajussin tyt:ärenä
be-1SG be-1SG certainly peasant-GEN daughter-ESS
I was I was of course

{C} {C--------------------}{f}
21 Æ kirj{a}mmellises(*) synt{yny ja kasvanu ^j}{a}=
literal-ADV be born-PPC and grow-PPC and
literally born and brought up as a peasant’s daughter and

22 P =.hhh

23 no kerrotko sitte kaikile kuulijoille että
PRT tell-2SG-QCLI then all-PL-ALL listener-PL-ALL COMP
well why don’t you tell all the listeners then what

24 {C} {C-}{W-}
Æ mikä tää sun t{o}iv{e:}{on}
what this 2SG-GEN wish is
your request is

25 ?? .hh

26 C {C-}
nii se on semmone kun maatalouskoneet muist{aa}kseni
PRT it is such as farm-machine-PL remember-INF1-TRA-1SGPOS
yeah, it’s something with farm machines as far as I remember

Extract 2

Äijö 1/1-5

1 P {C-}
onkos meillä nyt Liisa Johanss{on}
is=QCLI=CLI 1PL-ADE now name name
do we now have Liisa Johansson

2 C kyllä on [h
certainly is
you certainly do

3 P {C------}
[k{uulolla}
hearing-ADE
on the line

4 {C--}
tervet:uloa muk{aan}.
welcome-PART with
welcome to the programme

5 C {H-}
kiitoks{ia}h.
thanks-PL-PAR
thank you

Extract 3
Pelimanni poika 1/14-16.
14 P {C-}
mikäs siihen liitt{yy}.
what it-ILL connect-3SG
what is connected to that ((choice))

15 Æ {all------ ------{C,p-----------}
{mitä:[p|] (.) mitä t{u[lee mieleen}].
what what come-3SG mind-ILL
what what comes to mind

16 C [no sii]hen- siihen liittyy
PRT it-ILL it-ILL connect-3SG
well it’s- it’s connected with…

69 {C-}{W--}
onks sulle tuttu täm{mö}{nen}h
be-3SG-QCLI 2SG-ALL known this-kind-of
have you heard of them

70 C ei o
NEG be
no I haven’t

71 (0.8)

72 P2 {C---}
siin on kolme mahtavaa t{ätii} jotka laulaa
3SG-INE be-3SG three powerful-PAR aunt-PAR which-PL sing-3SG
there’s three powerful old ladies that sing

73 {C}{tense-------------}
mahtavalla /äänellä maht{a}{via sovituksia}
powerful-ADE voice-ADE powerful-PL-PAR arrangement-PL-PAR
in a powerful voice powerful pieces

74 C [mmm]

75 P2 [.hh] ja sitte toinen on bulgarkan junior kvartet
and then another be-3SG name-GEN name name
and then another is Bulgarka Junior Quartet

((4 more lines about this group))
C how do you say this mystery choil- choir in Finnish

Extract 6
1 A Jackie looked up
2 hey that was the same spot we took off for Honolulu
3 (0.4)
4 where they put him on
5 (0.6)
6 at that chartered pla[ce
7 B [oh really?

Conclusions

Jørgen Rischel (1992): phonology has so far been based on “very exaggerated idealisations of speech and exaggerated idealisations about the power of rule machinery as the format in which to take care of variation”.

There’s more to ‘prosody’ than intonation: participants in interactional talk use other phonetic resources in eg. the management of turn-taking. A satisfactory linguistic statement needs to take into account factors such as lexical choice, phonological structure and syntactic structure. Linguistic phoneticians need start to make sense of real talk, rather than just specially elicited material; we have to observe patterns of variability, but we will also need to work out what linguistic and interactional mechanisms drive that variability.

References.

ABERCROMBIE, DAVID (1965). Studies in Phonetics and Linguistics. Third impression, 1971. London, Oxford University Press.
COUPER-KUHLEN, ELIZABETH & MARGRET SELTING (1996). Towards an interactional perspective on prosody and a prosodic perspective on interaction. In Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen & Margret Selting (eds.) Prosody in Conversation. Interactional Studies. Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics 12. Cambridge, CUP, 11-56.
DILLEY, L, S SHATTUCK-HUFNAGEL & M OSTENDORF (1996). Glottalization of word-initial vowels as a function of prosodic structure. Journal of Phonetics 24, 423-444.
FIRTH, J R (1957). A Synopsis of Linguistic Theory. In Studies in Linguistic Analysis, Special Volume of the Philological Society.Oxford, Blackwell, 1-32.
FORD, CECILIA E & SANDRA A THOMPSON (1996). Interactional units in conversation analysis: syntactic, intonational and pragmatic resources for the management of turns. In Ochs et al. 134-184.
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RISCHEL, JØRGEN (1992). Formal linguistics and real speech. Speech Communication 11, 379-392.
SACKS, HARVEY, EMANUEL SCHEGLOFF & GAIL JEFFERSON (1974). A simplest systematics for the organisation of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50.4, 696-735.
SCHEGLOFF, EMANUEL (1987). Recycled turn beginnings: A precise mechanism in conversation's turn-taking organisation. In Graham Button and John R.E. Lee (eds.) Talk and social organisation, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 70-85.
SCHEGLOFF, E (1993). Reflections on quantification in the study of conversation. Research on Language & Social Interaction 26 (1), 99-128.
SCHEGLOFF, EMANUEL (1996). Turn organisation: one intersection of grammar and interaction. In Ochs, et al, 52-133.
SCHEGLOFF, EMANUEL (1998). Reflections on studying prosody in talk-in-interaction. Language & Speech 41 (3-4), 235-263,
SORJONEN, MARJA-LEENA (1996). On repeats and responses in Finnish conversations. In Ochs et al, 277-327.
WELLS, B & MACFARLANE, S. (1998) Prosody as an interactional resource: turn-projection and overlap. Language and Speech 41, Nos 3-4 (special issue on Prosody and Conversation), 265-298.

Transcription conventions.

CASE Abbreviation APPROXIMATE MEANING
ablative ABL off,from
accusative ACC object
adessive ADE at, on
allative ALL on to, to, for
essive ESS as
genitive GEN possession, object, subject
elative ELA out of, about
illative ILL into, for
inessive INE in
instructive INS with, by
nominative NOM subject, object
partitive PAR ‘some’, subject, object
translative TRA new state

Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by a grant from the Academy of Finland (Suomen Akatemia). Thanks are due to Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Auli Hakulinen, and members of the group working on spoken interaction at the University of Helsinki and the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland (Kotimaisten Kielten Tutkimuskeskus) for their help, support and enthusiasm; and to Traci Curl, Paul Foulkes, John Local, Marja-Leena Sorjonen, and Bill Wells for comments on earlier drafts of the paper.

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