Abstract
Little research has focused on extended concurrent speech, unexpected floor taking, or topic switching, since it has been deemed rare (Schegloff 2000. Overlapping talk and the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language in Society 29(1). 1–63.) or inappropriate (Goldberg 1990. Interrupting the discourse on interruptions: An analysis in terms of relationally neutral, power- and rapport-oriented acts. Journal of Pragmatics 14(6). 883–903; Giora 1998. Discourse coherence is an independent notion: A reply to Deirdre Wilson. Journal of Pragmatics 29(1). 75–86). This study integrated Spencer-Oatey’s (2008. Face, (im)politeness and rapport. In Helen Spencer-Oatey (ed.), Culturally speaking: Culture, communication and politeness theory, 11–47. London: Continuum) rapport management model with the community of practice model (Wenger 1998. Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) to investigate extended concurrent speech for floor taking or topic switching. Data were derived from approximately 49 hours of conversations at the English-Corner community of practice and follow-up interviews with ten of the participants. Interactional sociolinguistic methods were employed. Extended concurrent speech for floor taking or topic switching was found to be used as a resource for rapport management. Most of the instances appeared to be face-maintaining and rapport-maintaining; some were face-enhancing and rapport-enhancing. The few potentially face-threatening instances turned out to be rapport-maintaining. These might result from the participants’ interactional goals, rights preservation, or identity revelation/negotiation, and the informality of the context. The ten interviewees provided insights that corroborated the analysis.
Acknowledgements
This study is part of a larger research project that was partially funded by Language Learning. I would like to thank Prof. Jun Wang for her help with the project. I am also indebted to the editor and anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. All remaining errors are my own.
Transcription conventions (adapted from Schiffrin 1987)
- :
Speaker turn start
- []
Overlapping utterances
- =
Contiguous utterances after an interruption
- ...
Omission
- _
A short untimed pause
- @
Laughter
- italics
Emphasis
- (coughs)
Characteristics of the talk
- (indistinct)
Items in doubt
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