A SIMPLEST SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION
OF TURN-TAKING FOR CONVERSATION
HARVEY SACKS EMANUEL A. SCHEGLOFF GAIL JEFFERSON
University of California, University of California, University of Pennsylvania
Irvine Los Angeles
The organization of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well
as to other speech-exchange systems. A model for the turn-taking organization for
conversation is proposed, and is examined for its compatibility with a list of grossly
observable facts about conversation. The results of the examination suggest that,
at least, a model for turn-taking in conversation will be characterized as locally man-
aged, party-administered, interactionally controlled, and sensitive to recipient design.
Several general consequences of the model are explicated, and contrasts are sketched
with turn-taking organizations for other speech-exchange systems.*
1. INTRODUCTION. Turn-taking is used for the ordering of moves in games, for
allocating political office, for regulating traffic at intersections, for serving customers
at business establishments, and for talking in interviews, meetings, debates, cere-
monies, conversations etc.-these last being members of the set which we shall
refer to as 'speech exchange systems'. It is obviously a prominent type of social
organization, one whose instances are implicated in a wide range of other activities.
For socially organized activities, the presence of 'turns' suggests an economy,
with turns for something being valued-and with means for allocating them, which
affect their relative distribution, as in economies. An investigator interested in the
sociology of a turn-organized activity will want to determine, at least, the shape of
the turn-taking organization device, and how it affects the distribution of turns
for the activities on which it operates.
For the investigator of turn-taking systems per se, it is not surprising that turn-
taking systems can be workably built in various ways. Since they are used to
organize sorts of activities that are quite different from one another, it is of partic-
ular interest to see how operating turn-taking systems are characterizable as
adapting to properties of the sorts of activities in which they operate. Again, an
investigator interested in some sort of activity that is organized by a turn-taking
system will want to determine how the sort of activity investigated is adapted to, or
constrained by, the particular form of turn-taking system which operates on it.
The subject of this report is the turn-taking system for conversation, and the
foregoing are among the questions to which it will be addressed. Others have noted
that the organization of taking turns at talk is one type of organization operative
in conversation, and have located a range of interesting features and details of that
sort of organization.1 But no account of the systematics of the organization of
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the Sociology of
Language and Theory of Speech Acts, Bielefeld, Germany, April 1973.
1 For example, Goffman 1955, 1964, 1971; Albert 1964; Kendon 1967; Yngve 1970; Duncan
1972a,b, 1973. Thus Goffman (1964:135-6):
Card games, ball-room couplings, surgical teams in operation, and fist fights provide
examples of encounters; all illustrate the social organization of shared current orientation,
and all involve an organized interplay of acts of some kind. I want to suggest that when
696
A SIMPLEST SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION
OF TURN-TAKING FOR CONVERSATION
HARVEY SACKS EMANUEL A. SCHEGLOFF GAIL JEFFERSON
University of California, University of California, University of Pennsylvania
Irvine Los Angeles
The organization of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well
as to other speech-exchange systems. A model for the turn-taking organization for
conversation is proposed, and is examined for its compatibility with a list of grossly
observable facts about conversation. The results of the examination suggest that,
at least, a model for turn-taking in conversation will be characterized as locally man-
aged, party-administered, interactionally controlled, and sensitive to recipient design.
Several general consequences of the model are explicated, and contrasts are sketched
with turn-taking organizations for other speech-exchange systems.*
1. INTRODUCTION. Turn-taking is used for the ordering of moves in games, for
allocating political office, for regulating traffic at intersections, for serving customers
at business establishments, and for talking in interviews, meetings, debates, cere-
monies, conversations etc.-these last being members of the set which we shall
refer to as 'speech exchange systems'. It is obviously a prominent type of social
organization, one whose instances are implicated in a wide range of other activities.
For socially organized activities, the presence of 'turns' suggests an economy,
with turns for something being valued-and with means for allocating them, which
affect their relative distribution, as in economies. An investigator interested in the
sociology of a turn-organized activity will want to determine, at least, the shape of
the turn-taking organization device, and how it affects the distribution of turns
for the activities on which it operates.
For the investigator of turn-taking systems per se, it is not surprising that turn-
taking systems can be workably built in various ways. Since they are used to
organize sorts of activities that are quite different from one another, it is of partic-
ular interest to see how operating turn-taking systems are characterizable as
adapting to properties of the sorts of activities in which they operate. Again, an
investigator interested in some sort of activity that is organized by a turn-taking
system will want to determine how the sort of activity investigated is adapted to, or
constrained by, the particular form of turn-taking system which operates on it.
The subject of this report is the turn-taking system for conversation, and the
foregoing are among the questions to which it will be addressed. Others have noted
that the organization of taking turns at talk is one type of organization operative
in conversation, and have located a range of interesting features and details of that
sort of organization.1 But no account of the systematics of the organization of
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the Sociology of
Language and Theory of Speech Acts, Bielefeld, Germany, April 1973.
1 For example, Goffman 1955, 1964, 1971; Albert 1964; Kendon 1967; Yngve 1970; Duncan
1972a,b, 1973. Thus Goffman (1964:135-6):
Card games, ball-room couplings, surgical teams in operation, and fist fights provide
examples of encounters; all illustrate the social organization of shared current orientation,
and all involve an organized interplay of acts of some kind. I want to suggest that when
696
A SIMPLEST SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION
OF TURN-TAKING FOR CONVERSATION
HARVEY SACKS EMANUEL A. SCHEGLOFF GAIL JEFFERSON
University of California, University of California, University of Pennsylvania
Irvine Los Angeles
The organization of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well
as to other speech-exchange systems. A model for the turn-taking organization for
conversation is proposed, and is examined for its compatibility with a list of grossly
observable facts about conversation. The results of the examination suggest that,
at least, a model for turn-taking in conversation will be characterized as locally man-
aged, party-administered, interactionally controlled, and sensitive to recipient design.
Several general consequences of the model are explicated, and contrasts are sketched
with turn-taking organizations for other speech-exchange systems.*
1. INTRODUCTION. Turn-taking is used for the ordering of moves in games, for
allocating political office, for regulating traffic at intersections, for serving customers
at business establishments, and for talking in interviews, meetings, debates, cere-
monies, conversations etc.-these last being members of the set which we shall
refer to as 'speech exchange systems'. It is obviously a prominent type of social
organization, one whose instances are implicated in a wide range of other activities.
For socially organized activities, the presence of 'turns' suggests an economy,
with turns for something being valued-and with means for allocating them, which
affect their relative distribution, as in economies. An investigator interested in the
sociology of a turn-organized activity will want to determine, at least, the shape of
the turn-taking organization device, and how it affects the distribution of turns
for the activities on which it operates.
For the investigator of turn-taking systems per se, it is not surprising that turn-
taking systems can be workably built in various ways. Since they are used to
organize sorts of activities that are quite different from one another, it is of partic-
ular interest to see how operating turn-taking systems are characterizable as
adapting to properties of the sorts of activities in which they operate. Again, an
investigator interested in some sort of activity that is organized by a turn-taking
system will want to determine how the sort of activity investigated is adapted to, or
constrained by, the particular form of turn-taking system which operates on it.
The subject of this report is the turn-taking system for conversation, and the
foregoing are among the questions to which it will be addressed. Others have noted
that the organization of taking turns at talk is one type of organization operative
in conversation, and have located a range of interesting features and details of that
sort of organization.1 But no account of the systematics of the organization of
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the Sociology of
Language and Theory of Speech Acts, Bielefeld, Germany, April 1973.
1 For example, Goffman 1955, 1964, 1971; Albert 1964; Kendon 1967; Yngve 1970; Duncan
1972a,b, 1973. Thus Goffman (1964:135-6):
Card games, ball-room couplings, surgical teams in operation, and fist fights provide
examples of encounters; all illustrate the social organization of shared current orientation,
and all involve an organized interplay of acts of some kind. I want to suggest that when
696
A SIMPLEST SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION
OF TURN-TAKING FOR CONVERSATION
HARVEY SACKS EMANUEL A. SCHEGLOFF GAIL JEFFERSON
University of California, University of California, University of Pennsylvania
Irvine Los Angeles
The organization of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well
as to other speech-exchange systems. A model for the turn-taking organization for
conversation is proposed, and is examined for its compatibility with a list of grossly
observable facts about conversation. The results of the examination suggest that,
at least, a model for turn-taking in conversation will be characterized as locally man-
aged, party-administered, interactionally controlled, and sensitive to recipient design.
Several general consequences of the model are explicated, and contrasts are sketched
with turn-taking organizations for other speech-exchange systems.*
1. INTRODUCTION. Turn-taking is used for the ordering of moves in games, for
allocating political office, for regulating traffic at intersections, for serving customers
at business establishments, and for talking in interviews, meetings, debates, cere-
monies, conversations etc.-these last being members of the set which we shall
refer to as 'speech exchange systems'. It is obviously a prominent type of social
organization, one whose instances are implicated in a wide range of other activities.
For socially organized activities, the presence of 'turns' suggests an economy,
with turns for something being valued-and with means for allocating them, which
affect their relative distribution, as in economies. An investigator interested in the
sociology of a turn-organized activity will want to determine, at least, the shape of
the turn-taking organization device, and how it affects the distribution of turns
for the activities on which it operates.
For the investigator of turn-taking systems per se, it is not surprising that turn-
taking systems can be workably built in various ways. Since they are used to
organize sorts of activities that are quite different from one another, it is of partic-
ular interest to see how operating turn-taking systems are characterizable as
adapting to properties of the sorts of activities in which they operate. Again, an
investigator interested in some sort of activity that is organized by a turn-taking
system will want to determine how the sort of activity investigated is adapted to, or
constrained by, the particular form of turn-taking system which operates on it.
The subject of this report is the turn-taking system for conversation, and the
foregoing are among the questions to which it will be addressed. Others have noted
that the organization of taking turns at talk is one type of organization operative
in conversation, and have located a range of interesting features and details of that
sort of organization.1 But no account of the systematics of the organization of
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the Sociology of
Language and Theory of Speech Acts, Bielefeld, Germany, April 1973.
1 For example, Goffman 1955, 1964, 1971; Albert 1964; Kendon 1967; Yngve 1970; Duncan
1972a,b, 1973. Thus Goffman (1964:135-6):
Card games, ball-room couplings, surgical teams in operation, and fist fights provide
examples of encounters; all illustrate the social organization of shared current orientation,
and all involve an organized interplay of acts of some kind. I want to suggest that when
696
A SIMPLEST SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION
OF TURN-TAKING FOR CONVERSATION
HARVEY SACKS EMANUEL A. SCHEGLOFF GAIL JEFFERSON
University of California, University of California, University of Pennsylvania
Irvine Los Angeles
The organization of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well
as to other speech-exchange systems. A model for the turn-taking organization for
conversation is proposed, and is examined for its compatibility with a list of grossly
observable facts about conversation. The results of the examination suggest that,
at least, a model for turn-taking in conversation will be characterized as locally man-
aged, party-administered, interactionally controlled, and sensitive to recipient design.
Several general consequences of the model are explicated, and contrasts are sketched
with turn-taking organizations for other speech-exchange systems.*
1. INTRODUCTION. Turn-taking is used for the ordering of moves in games, for
allocating political office, for regulating traffic at intersections, for serving customers
at business establishments, and for talking in interviews, meetings, debates, cere-
monies, conversations etc.-these last being members of the set which we shall
refer to as 'speech exchange systems'. It is obviously a prominent type of social
organization, one whose instances are implicated in a wide range of other activities.
For socially organized activities, the presence of 'turns' suggests an economy,
with turns for something being valued-and with means for allocating them, which
affect their relative distribution, as in economies. An investigator interested in the
sociology of a turn-organized activity will want to determine, at least, the shape of
the turn-taking organization device, and how it affects the distribution of turns
for the activities on which it operates.
For the investigator of turn-taking systems per se, it is not surprising that turn-
taking systems can be workably built in various ways. Since they are used to
organize sorts of activities that are quite different from one another, it is of partic-
ular interest to see how operating turn-taking systems are characterizable as
adapting to properties of the sorts of activities in which they operate. Again, an
investigator interested in some sort of activity that is organized by a turn-taking
system will want to determine how the sort of activity investigated is adapted to, or
constrained by, the particular form of turn-taking system which operates on it.
The subject of this report is the turn-taking system for conversation, and the
foregoing are among the questions to which it will be addressed. Others have noted
that the organization of taking turns at talk is one type of organization operative
in conversation, and have located a range of interesting features and details of that
sort of organization.1 But no account of the systematics of the organization of
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the Sociology of
Language and Theory of Speech Acts, Bielefeld, Germany, April 1973.
1 For example, Goffman 1955, 1964, 1971; Albert 1964; Kendon 1967; Yngve 1970; Duncan
1972a,b, 1973. Thus Goffman (1964:135-6):
Card games, ball-room couplings, surgical teams in operation, and fist fights provide
examples of encounters; all illustrate the social organization of shared current orientation,
and all involve an organized interplay of acts of some kind. I want to suggest that when
696
A SIMPLEST SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION
OF TURN-TAKING FOR CONVERSATION
HARVEY SACKS EMANUEL A. SCHEGLOFF GAIL JEFFERSON
University of California, University of California, University of Pennsylvania
Irvine Los Angeles
The organization of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well
as to other speech-exchange systems. A model for the turn-taking organization for
conversation is proposed, and is examined for its compatibility with a list of grossly
observable facts about conversation. The results of the examination suggest that,
at least, a model for turn-taking in conversation will be characterized as locally man-
aged, party-administered, interactionally controlled, and sensitive to recipient design.
Several general consequences of the model are explicated, and contrasts are sketched
with turn-taking organizations for other speech-exchange systems.*
1. INTRODUCTION. Turn-taking is used for the ordering of moves in games, for
allocating political office, for regulating traffic at intersections, for serving customers
at business establishments, and for talking in interviews, meetings, debates, cere-
monies, conversations etc.-these last being members of the set which we shall
refer to as 'speech exchange systems'. It is obviously a prominent type of social
organization, one whose instances are implicated in a wide range of other activities.
For socially organized activities, the presence of 'turns' suggests an economy,
with turns for something being valued-and with means for allocating them, which
affect their relative distribution, as in economies. An investigator interested in the
sociology of a turn-organized activity will want to determine, at least, the shape of
the turn-taking organization device, and how it affects the distribution of turns
for the activities on which it operates.
For the investigator of turn-taking systems per se, it is not surprising that turn-
taking systems can be workably built in various ways. Since they are used to
organize sorts of activities that are quite different from one another, it is of partic-
ular interest to see how operating turn-taking systems are characterizable as
adapting to properties of the sorts of activities in which they operate. Again, an
investigator interested in some sort of activity that is organized by a turn-taking
system will want to determine how the sort of activity investigated is adapted to, or
constrained by, the particular form of turn-taking system which operates on it.
The subject of this report is the turn-taking system for conversation, and the
foregoing are among the questions to which it will be addressed. Others have noted
that the organization of taking turns at talk is one type of organization operative
in conversation, and have located a range of interesting features and details of that
sort of organization.1 But no account of the systematics of the organization of
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the Sociology of
Language and Theory of Speech Acts, Bielefeld, Germany, April 1973.
1 For example, Goffman 1955, 1964, 1971; Albert 1964; Kendon 1967; Yngve 1970; Duncan
1972a,b, 1973. Thus Goffman (1964:135-6):
Card games, ball-room couplings, surgical teams in operation, and fist fights provide
examples of encounters; all illustrate the social organization of shared current orientation,
and all involve an organized interplay of acts of some kind. I want to suggest that when
696
A SIMPLEST SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION
OF TURN-TAKING FOR CONVERSATION
HARVEY SACKS EMANUEL A. SCHEGLOFF GAIL JEFFERSON
University of California, University of California, University of Pennsylvania
Irvine Los Angeles
The organization of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well
as to other speech-exchange systems. A model for the turn-taking organization for
conversation is proposed, and is examined for its compatibility with a list of grossly
observable facts about conversation. The results of the examination suggest that,
at least, a model for turn-taking in conversation will be characterized as locally man-
aged, party-administered, interactionally controlled, and sensitive to recipient design.
Several general consequences of the model are explicated, and contrasts are sketched
with turn-taking organizations for other speech-exchange systems.*
1. INTRODUCTION. Turn-taking is used for the ordering of moves in games, for
allocating political office, for regulating traffic at intersections, for serving customers
at business establishments, and for talking in interviews, meetings, debates, cere-
monies, conversations etc.-these last being members of the set which we shall
refer to as 'speech exchange systems'. It is obviously a prominent type of social
organization, one whose instances are implicated in a wide range of other activities.
For socially organized activities, the presence of 'turns' suggests an economy,
with turns for something being valued-and with means for allocating them, which
affect their relative distribution, as in economies. An investigator interested in the
sociology of a turn-organized activity will want to determine, at least, the shape of
the turn-taking organization device, and how it affects the distribution of turns
for the activities on which it operates.
For the investigator of turn-taking systems per se, it is not surprising that turn-
taking systems can be workably built in various ways. Since they are used to
organize sorts of activities that are quite different from one another, it is of partic-
ular interest to see how operating turn-taking systems are characterizable as
adapting to properties of the sorts of activities in which they operate. Again, an
investigator interested in some sort of activity that is organized by a turn-taking
system will want to determine how the sort of activity investigated is adapted to, or
constrained by, the particular form of turn-taking system which operates on it.
The subject of this report is the turn-taking system for conversation, and the
foregoing are among the questions to which it will be addressed. Others have noted
that the organization of taking turns at talk is one type of organization operative
in conversation, and have located a range of interesting features and details of that
sort of organization.1 But no account of the systematics of the organization of
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the Sociology of
Language and Theory of Speech Acts, Bielefeld, Germany, April 1973.
1 For example, Goffman 1955, 1964, 1971; Albert 1964; Kendon 1967; Yngve 1970; Duncan
1972a,b, 1973. Thus Goffman (1964:135-6):
Card games, ball-room couplings, surgical teams in operation, and fist fights provide
examples of encounters; all illustrate the social organization of shared current orientation,
and all involve an organized interplay of acts of some kind. I want to suggest that when
696
A SIMPLEST SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION
OF TURN-TAKING FOR CONVERSATION
HARVEY SACKS EMANUEL A. SCHEGLOFF GAIL JEFFERSON
University of California, University of California, University of Pennsylvania
Irvine Los Angeles
The organization of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well
as to other speech-exchange systems. A model for the turn-taking organization for
conversation is proposed, and is examined for its compatibility with a list of grossly
observable facts about conversation. The results of the examination suggest that,
at least, a model for turn-taking in conversation will be characterized as locally man-
aged, party-administered, interactionally controlled, and sensitive to recipient design.
Several general consequences of the model are explicated, and contrasts are sketched
with turn-taking organizations for other speech-exchange systems.*
1. INTRODUCTION. Turn-taking is used for the ordering of moves in games, for
allocating political office, for regulating traffic at intersections, for serving customers
at business establishments, and for talking in interviews, meetings, debates, cere-
monies, conversations etc.-these last being members of the set which we shall
refer to as 'speech exchange systems'. It is obviously a prominent type of social
organization, one whose instances are implicated in a wide range of other activities.
For socially organized activities, the presence of 'turns' suggests an economy,
with turns for something being valued-and with means for allocating them, which
affect their relative distribution, as in economies. An investigator interested in the
sociology of a turn-organized activity will want to determine, at least, the shape of
the turn-taking organization device, and how it affects the distribution of turns
for the activities on which it operates.
For the investigator of turn-taking systems per se, it is not surprising that turn-
taking systems can be workably built in various ways. Since they are used to
organize sorts of activities that are quite different from one another, it is of partic-
ular interest to see how operating turn-taking systems are characterizable as
adapting to properties of the sorts of activities in which they operate. Again, an
investigator interested in some sort of activity that is organized by a turn-taking
system will want to determine how the sort of activity investigated is adapted to, or
constrained by, the particular form of turn-taking system which operates on it.
The subject of this report is the turn-taking system for conversation, and the
foregoing are among the questions to which it will be addressed. Others have noted
that the organization of taking turns at talk is one type of organization operative
in conversation, and have located a range of interesting features and details of that
sort of organization.1 But no account of the systematics of the organization of
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the Sociology of
Language and Theory of Speech Acts, Bielefeld, Germany, April 1973.
1 For example, Goffman 1955, 1964, 1971; Albert 1964; Kendon 1967; Yngve 1970; Duncan
1972a,b, 1973. Thus Goffman (1964:135-6):
Card games, ball-room couplings, surgical teams in operation, and fist fights provide
examples of encounters; all illustrate the social organization of shared current orientation,
and all involve an organized interplay of acts of some kind. I want to suggest that when
696
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SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING
turn-taking for conversation is yet available. Here, on the basis of research using
audio recordings of naturally occurring conversations, we attempt to characterize,
in its simplest systematic form, the organization of turn-taking for conversation,
and to extract some of the interest of that organization.
Aspects of the organization we call turn-taking have forced themselves on
investigators of 'small-group' behavior-who, in dealing with problems concerning
the distribution of talk among participants in small groups,2 or the kinds of
'acts' which form sequences in small-group sessions,3 have encountered problems
conditioned in central ways by the turn-taking system, though for the most part
they have not addressed them in this light. Again, students of'interview' behavior,
and such two-party conversation as approximates it in form,4 have concerned
themselves with the distribution of talk among the parties, the distribution of
silences, the sequences in which the talk shifted from one to another or was retained
by a single party, and the way such transfer or retention was co6rdinated. These
workers have also dealt with questions on which turn-taking has a central bearing;
but they attacked them only peripherally in turn-taking terms, or accounted for
them unsatisfactorily because of weaknesses in the turn-taking models explicitly
or implicitly employed. In anthropology, some investigators have explicitly noted
aspects of turn organization;5 but their observations have been, for the most part,
speaking occurs it does so within this kind of social arrangement; of course what is
organized therein is not plays or steps or procedures or blows, but turns at talking. Note
then that the natural home of speech is one in which speech is not always present.
I am suggesting that the act of speaking must always be referred to the state of talk that
is sustained through the particular turn at talking, and that this state of talk involves a
circle of others ratified as coparticipants. (Such a phenomenon as talking to oneself, or
talking to unratified recipients as in the case of collusive communication, or telephone talk,
must first be seen as a departure from the norm, else its structure and significance will be
lost.) Talk is socially organized, not merely in terms of who speaks to whom in what
language, but as a little system of mutually ratified and ritually governed face-to-face
action, a social encounter. Once a state of talk has been ratified, cues must be available for
requesting the floor and giving it up, for informing the speaker as to the stability of the
focus of attention he is receiving. Intimate collaboration must be sustained to ensure that
one turn at talking neither overlaps the previous one too much, nor wants for inoffensive
conversational supply, for someone's turn must always and exclusively be in progress.
2 E.g. Stephan & Mishler 1952; Bales 1950, 1970; Coleman 1960.
3 Cf. Bales 1950.
4 Cf. Jaffe & Feldstein 1970, Matarazzo & Wiens 1972.
5 E.g., Mitchell (1956:79) says:
Important headmen also have the right of walking in front of their juniors. If there are
three or four headmen returning from, say, a court case, they arrange themselves in the
pathway in an order which reflects their rank. As they file down the narrow field paths the
leader is the most senior among the group. After him come the other headmen and last of
all the commoners. This order of precedence is also followed when initiands pass through
the tribal initiation ceremonies.
Or, to quote Beardsley et al. (1959:88):
Father and mother take the small children in to bathe with them, granny scrubs the men's
backs, and relatives or neighbors who have no bath (three houses in Niiike) come to chat
while waiting their turn at the end of the day. The senior male of the household finishes
his bath first and the family follows in regular order of sex and age precedence. The first
bather gets the hottest water.
turn-taking for conversation is yet available. Here, on the basis of research using
audio recordings of naturally occurring conversations, we attempt to characterize,
in its simplest systematic form, the organization of turn-taking for conversation,
and to extract some of the interest of that organization.
Aspects of the organization we call turn-taking have forced themselves on
investigators of 'small-group' behavior-who, in dealing with problems concerning
the distribution of talk among participants in small groups,2 or the kinds of
'acts' which form sequences in small-group sessions,3 have encountered problems
conditioned in central ways by the turn-taking system, though for the most part
they have not addressed them in this light. Again, students of'interview' behavior,
and such two-party conversation as approximates it in form,4 have concerned
themselves with the distribution of talk among the parties, the distribution of
silences, the sequences in which the talk shifted from one to another or was retained
by a single party, and the way such transfer or retention was co6rdinated. These
workers have also dealt with questions on which turn-taking has a central bearing;
but they attacked them only peripherally in turn-taking terms, or accounted for
them unsatisfactorily because of weaknesses in the turn-taking models explicitly
or implicitly employed. In anthropology, some investigators have explicitly noted
aspects of turn organization;5 but their observations have been, for the most part,
speaking occurs it does so within this kind of social arrangement; of course what is
organized therein is not plays or steps or procedures or blows, but turns at talking. Note
then that the natural home of speech is one in which speech is not always present.
I am suggesting that the act of speaking must always be referred to the state of talk that
is sustained through the particular turn at talking, and that this state of talk involves a
circle of others ratified as coparticipants. (Such a phenomenon as talking to oneself, or
talking to unratified recipients as in the case of collusive communication, or telephone talk,
must first be seen as a departure from the norm, else its structure and significance will be
lost.) Talk is socially organized, not merely in terms of who speaks to whom in what
language, but as a little system of mutually ratified and ritually governed face-to-face
action, a social encounter. Once a state of talk has been ratified, cues must be available for
requesting the floor and giving it up, for informing the speaker as to the stability of the
focus of attention he is receiving. Intimate collaboration must be sustained to ensure that
one turn at talking neither overlaps the previous one too much, nor wants for inoffensive
conversational supply, for someone's turn must always and exclusively be in progress.
2 E.g. Stephan & Mishler 1952; Bales 1950, 1970; Coleman 1960.
3 Cf. Bales 1950.
4 Cf. Jaffe & Feldstein 1970, Matarazzo & Wiens 1972.
5 E.g., Mitchell (1956:79) says:
Important headmen also have the right of walking in front of their juniors. If there are
three or four headmen returning from, say, a court case, they arrange themselves in the
pathway in an order which reflects their rank. As they file down the narrow field paths the
leader is the most senior among the group. After him come the other headmen and last of
all the commoners. This order of precedence is also followed when initiands pass through
the tribal initiation ceremonies.
Or, to quote Beardsley et al. (1959:88):
Father and mother take the small children in to bathe with them, granny scrubs the men's
backs, and relatives or neighbors who have no bath (three houses in Niiike) come to chat
while waiting their turn at the end of the day. The senior male of the household finishes
his bath first and the family follows in regular order of sex and age precedence. The first
bather gets the hottest water.
turn-taking for conversation is yet available. Here, on the basis of research using
audio recordings of naturally occurring conversations, we attempt to characterize,
in its simplest systematic form, the organization of turn-taking for conversation,
and to extract some of the interest of that organization.
Aspects of the organization we call turn-taking have forced themselves on
investigators of 'small-group' behavior-who, in dealing with problems concerning
the distribution of talk among participants in small groups,2 or the kinds of
'acts' which form sequences in small-group sessions,3 have encountered problems
conditioned in central ways by the turn-taking system, though for the most part
they have not addressed them in this light. Again, students of'interview' behavior,
and such two-party conversation as approximates it in form,4 have concerned
themselves with the distribution of talk among the parties, the distribution of
silences, the sequences in which the talk shifted from one to another or was retained
by a single party, and the way such transfer or retention was co6rdinated. These
workers have also dealt with questions on which turn-taking has a central bearing;
but they attacked them only peripherally in turn-taking terms, or accounted for
them unsatisfactorily because of weaknesses in the turn-taking models explicitly
or implicitly employed. In anthropology, some investigators have explicitly noted
aspects of turn organization;5 but their observations have been, for the most part,
speaking occurs it does so within this kind of social arrangement; of course what is
organized therein is not plays or steps or procedures or blows, but turns at talking. Note
then that the natural home of speech is one in which speech is not always present.
I am suggesting that the act of speaking must always be referred to the state of talk that
is sustained through the particular turn at talking, and that this state of talk involves a
circle of others ratified as coparticipants. (Such a phenomenon as talking to oneself, or
talking to unratified recipients as in the case of collusive communication, or telephone talk,
must first be seen as a departure from the norm, else its structure and significance will be
lost.) Talk is socially organized, not merely in terms of who speaks to whom in what
language, but as a little system of mutually ratified and ritually governed face-to-face
action, a social encounter. Once a state of talk has been ratified, cues must be available for
requesting the floor and giving it up, for informing the speaker as to the stability of the
focus of attention he is receiving. Intimate collaboration must be sustained to ensure that
one turn at talking neither overlaps the previous one too much, nor wants for inoffensive
conversational supply, for someone's turn must always and exclusively be in progress.
2 E.g. Stephan & Mishler 1952; Bales 1950, 1970; Coleman 1960.
3 Cf. Bales 1950.
4 Cf. Jaffe & Feldstein 1970, Matarazzo & Wiens 1972.
5 E.g., Mitchell (1956:79) says:
Important headmen also have the right of walking in front of their juniors. If there are
three or four headmen returning from, say, a court case, they arrange themselves in the
pathway in an order which reflects their rank. As they file down the narrow field paths the
leader is the most senior among the group. After him come the other headmen and last of
all the commoners. This order of precedence is also followed when initiands pass through
the tribal initiation ceremonies.
Or, to quote Beardsley et al. (1959:88):
Father and mother take the small children in to bathe with them, granny scrubs the men's
backs, and relatives or neighbors who have no bath (three houses in Niiike) come to chat
while waiting their turn at the end of the day. The senior male of the household finishes
his bath first and the family follows in regular order of sex and age precedence. The first
bather gets the hottest water.
turn-taking for conversation is yet available. Here, on the basis of research using
audio recordings of naturally occurring conversations, we attempt to characterize,
in its simplest systematic form, the organization of turn-taking for conversation,
and to extract some of the interest of that organization.
Aspects of the organization we call turn-taking have forced themselves on
investigators of 'small-group' behavior-who, in dealing with problems concerning
the distribution of talk among participants in small groups,2 or the kinds of
'acts' which form sequences in small-group sessions,3 have encountered problems
conditioned in central ways by the turn-taking system, though for the most part
they have not addressed them in this light. Again, students of'interview' behavior,
and such two-party conversation as approximates it in form,4 have concerned
themselves with the distribution of talk among the parties, the distribution of
silences, the sequences in which the talk shifted from one to another or was retained
by a single party, and the way such transfer or retention was co6rdinated. These
workers have also dealt with questions on which turn-taking has a central bearing;
but they attacked them only peripherally in turn-taking terms, or accounted for
them unsatisfactorily because of weaknesses in the turn-taking models explicitly
or implicitly employed. In anthropology, some investigators have explicitly noted
aspects of turn organization;5 but their observations have been, for the most part,
speaking occurs it does so within this kind of social arrangement; of course what is
organized therein is not plays or steps or procedures or blows, but turns at talking. Note
then that the natural home of speech is one in which speech is not always present.
I am suggesting that the act of speaking must always be referred to the state of talk that
is sustained through the particular turn at talking, and that this state of talk involves a
circle of others ratified as coparticipants. (Such a phenomenon as talking to oneself, or
talking to unratified recipients as in the case of collusive communication, or telephone talk,
must first be seen as a departure from the norm, else its structure and significance will be
lost.) Talk is socially organized, not merely in terms of who speaks to whom in what
language, but as a little system of mutually ratified and ritually governed face-to-face
action, a social encounter. Once a state of talk has been ratified, cues must be available for
requesting the floor and giving it up, for informing the speaker as to the stability of the
focus of attention he is receiving. Intimate collaboration must be sustained to ensure that
one turn at talking neither overlaps the previous one too much, nor wants for inoffensive
conversational supply, for someone's turn must always and exclusively be in progress.
2 E.g. Stephan & Mishler 1952; Bales 1950, 1970; Coleman 1960.
3 Cf. Bales 1950.
4 Cf. Jaffe & Feldstein 1970, Matarazzo & Wiens 1972.
5 E.g., Mitchell (1956:79) says:
Important headmen also have the right of walking in front of their juniors. If there are
three or four headmen returning from, say, a court case, they arrange themselves in the
pathway in an order which reflects their rank. As they file down the narrow field paths the
leader is the most senior among the group. After him come the other headmen and last of
all the commoners. This order of precedence is also followed when initiands pass through
the tribal initiation ceremonies.
Or, to quote Beardsley et al. (1959:88):
Father and mother take the small children in to bathe with them, granny scrubs the men's
backs, and relatives or neighbors who have no bath (three houses in Niiike) come to chat
while waiting their turn at the end of the day. The senior male of the household finishes
his bath first and the family follows in regular order of sex and age precedence. The first
bather gets the hottest water.
turn-taking for conversation is yet available. Here, on the basis of research using
audio recordings of naturally occurring conversations, we attempt to characterize,
in its simplest systematic form, the organization of turn-taking for conversation,
and to extract some of the interest of that organization.
Aspects of the organization we call turn-taking have forced themselves on
investigators of 'small-group' behavior-who, in dealing with problems concerning
the distribution of talk among participants in small groups,2 or the kinds of
'acts' which form sequences in small-group sessions,3 have encountered problems
conditioned in central ways by the turn-taking system, though for the most part
they have not addressed them in this light. Again, students of'interview' behavior,
and such two-party conversation as approximates it in form,4 have concerned
themselves with the distribution of talk among the parties, the distribution of
silences, the sequences in which the talk shifted from one to another or was retained
by a single party, and the way such transfer or retention was co6rdinated. These
workers have also dealt with questions on which turn-taking has a central bearing;
but they attacked them only peripherally in turn-taking terms, or accounted for
them unsatisfactorily because of weaknesses in the turn-taking models explicitly
or implicitly employed. In anthropology, some investigators have explicitly noted
aspects of turn organization;5 but their observations have been, for the most part,
speaking occurs it does so within this kind of social arrangement; of course what is
organized therein is not plays or steps or procedures or blows, but turns at talking. Note
then that the natural home of speech is one in which speech is not always present.
I am suggesting that the act of speaking must always be referred to the state of talk that
is sustained through the particular turn at talking, and that this state of talk involves a
circle of others ratified as coparticipants. (Such a phenomenon as talking to oneself, or
talking to unratified recipients as in the case of collusive communication, or telephone talk,
must first be seen as a departure from the norm, else its structure and significance will be
lost.) Talk is socially organized, not merely in terms of who speaks to whom in what
language, but as a little system of mutually ratified and ritually governed face-to-face
action, a social encounter. Once a state of talk has been ratified, cues must be available for
requesting the floor and giving it up, for informing the speaker as to the stability of the
focus of attention he is receiving. Intimate collaboration must be sustained to ensure that
one turn at talking neither overlaps the previous one too much, nor wants for inoffensive
conversational supply, for someone's turn must always and exclusively be in progress.
2 E.g. Stephan & Mishler 1952; Bales 1950, 1970; Coleman 1960.
3 Cf. Bales 1950.
4 Cf. Jaffe & Feldstein 1970, Matarazzo & Wiens 1972.
5 E.g., Mitchell (1956:79) says:
Important headmen also have the right of walking in front of their juniors. If there are
three or four headmen returning from, say, a court case, they arrange themselves in the
pathway in an order which reflects their rank. As they file down the narrow field paths the
leader is the most senior among the group. After him come the other headmen and last of
all the commoners. This order of precedence is also followed when initiands pass through
the tribal initiation ceremonies.
Or, to quote Beardsley et al. (1959:88):
Father and mother take the small children in to bathe with them, granny scrubs the men's
backs, and relatives or neighbors who have no bath (three houses in Niiike) come to chat
while waiting their turn at the end of the day. The senior male of the household finishes
his bath first and the family follows in regular order of sex and age precedence. The first
bather gets the hottest water.
turn-taking for conversation is yet available. Here, on the basis of research using
audio recordings of naturally occurring conversations, we attempt to characterize,
in its simplest systematic form, the organization of turn-taking for conversation,
and to extract some of the interest of that organization.
Aspects of the organization we call turn-taking have forced themselves on
investigators of 'small-group' behavior-who, in dealing with problems concerning
the distribution of talk among participants in small groups,2 or the kinds of
'acts' which form sequences in small-group sessions,3 have encountered problems
conditioned in central ways by the turn-taking system, though for the most part
they have not addressed them in this light. Again, students of'interview' behavior,
and such two-party conversation as approximates it in form,4 have concerned
themselves with the distribution of talk among the parties, the distribution of
silences, the sequences in which the talk shifted from one to another or was retained
by a single party, and the way such transfer or retention was co6rdinated. These
workers have also dealt with questions on which turn-taking has a central bearing;
but they attacked them only peripherally in turn-taking terms, or accounted for
them unsatisfactorily because of weaknesses in the turn-taking models explicitly
or implicitly employed. In anthropology, some investigators have explicitly noted
aspects of turn organization;5 but their observations have been, for the most part,
speaking occurs it does so within this kind of social arrangement; of course what is
organized therein is not plays or steps or procedures or blows, but turns at talking. Note
then that the natural home of speech is one in which speech is not always present.
I am suggesting that the act of speaking must always be referred to the state of talk that
is sustained through the particular turn at talking, and that this state of talk involves a
circle of others ratified as coparticipants. (Such a phenomenon as talking to oneself, or
talking to unratified recipients as in the case of collusive communication, or telephone talk,
must first be seen as a departure from the norm, else its structure and significance will be
lost.) Talk is socially organized, not merely in terms of who speaks to whom in what
language, but as a little system of mutually ratified and ritually governed face-to-face
action, a social encounter. Once a state of talk has been ratified, cues must be available for
requesting the floor and giving it up, for informing the speaker as to the stability of the
focus of attention he is receiving. Intimate collaboration must be sustained to ensure that
one turn at talking neither overlaps the previous one too much, nor wants for inoffensive
conversational supply, for someone's turn must always and exclusively be in progress.
2 E.g. Stephan & Mishler 1952; Bales 1950, 1970; Coleman 1960.
3 Cf. Bales 1950.
4 Cf. Jaffe & Feldstein 1970, Matarazzo & Wiens 1972.
5 E.g., Mitchell (1956:79) says:
Important headmen also have the right of walking in front of their juniors. If there are
three or four headmen returning from, say, a court case, they arrange themselves in the
pathway in an order which reflects their rank. As they file down the narrow field paths the
leader is the most senior among the group. After him come the other headmen and last of
all the commoners. This order of precedence is also followed when initiands pass through
the tribal initiation ceremonies.
Or, to quote Beardsley et al. (1959:88):
Father and mother take the small children in to bathe with them, granny scrubs the men's
backs, and relatives or neighbors who have no bath (three houses in Niiike) come to chat
while waiting their turn at the end of the day. The senior male of the household finishes
his bath first and the family follows in regular order of sex and age precedence. The first
bather gets the hottest water.
turn-taking for conversation is yet available. Here, on the basis of research using
audio recordings of naturally occurring conversations, we attempt to characterize,
in its simplest systematic form, the organization of turn-taking for conversation,
and to extract some of the interest of that organization.
Aspects of the organization we call turn-taking have forced themselves on
investigators of 'small-group' behavior-who, in dealing with problems concerning
the distribution of talk among participants in small groups,2 or the kinds of
'acts' which form sequences in small-group sessions,3 have encountered problems
conditioned in central ways by the turn-taking system, though for the most part
they have not addressed them in this light. Again, students of'interview' behavior,
and such two-party conversation as approximates it in form,4 have concerned
themselves with the distribution of talk among the parties, the distribution of
silences, the sequences in which the talk shifted from one to another or was retained
by a single party, and the way such transfer or retention was co6rdinated. These
workers have also dealt with questions on which turn-taking has a central bearing;
but they attacked them only peripherally in turn-taking terms, or accounted for
them unsatisfactorily because of weaknesses in the turn-taking models explicitly
or implicitly employed. In anthropology, some investigators have explicitly noted
aspects of turn organization;5 but their observations have been, for the most part,
speaking occurs it does so within this kind of social arrangement; of course what is
organized therein is not plays or steps or procedures or blows, but turns at talking. Note
then that the natural home of speech is one in which speech is not always present.
I am suggesting that the act of speaking must always be referred to the state of talk that
is sustained through the particular turn at talking, and that this state of talk involves a
circle of others ratified as coparticipants. (Such a phenomenon as talking to oneself, or
talking to unratified recipients as in the case of collusive communication, or telephone talk,
must first be seen as a departure from the norm, else its structure and significance will be
lost.) Talk is socially organized, not merely in terms of who speaks to whom in what
language, but as a little system of mutually ratified and ritually governed face-to-face
action, a social encounter. Once a state of talk has been ratified, cues must be available for
requesting the floor and giving it up, for informing the speaker as to the stability of the
focus of attention he is receiving. Intimate collaboration must be sustained to ensure that
one turn at talking neither overlaps the previous one too much, nor wants for inoffensive
conversational supply, for someone's turn must always and exclusively be in progress.
2 E.g. Stephan & Mishler 1952; Bales 1950, 1970; Coleman 1960.
3 Cf. Bales 1950.
4 Cf. Jaffe & Feldstein 1970, Matarazzo & Wiens 1972.
5 E.g., Mitchell (1956:79) says:
Important headmen also have the right of walking in front of their juniors. If there are
three or four headmen returning from, say, a court case, they arrange themselves in the
pathway in an order which reflects their rank. As they file down the narrow field paths the
leader is the most senior among the group. After him come the other headmen and last of
all the commoners. This order of precedence is also followed when initiands pass through
the tribal initiation ceremonies.
Or, to quote Beardsley et al. (1959:88):
Father and mother take the small children in to bathe with them, granny scrubs the men's
backs, and relatives or neighbors who have no bath (three houses in Niiike) come to chat
while waiting their turn at the end of the day. The senior male of the household finishes
his bath first and the family follows in regular order of sex and age precedence. The first
bather gets the hottest water.
turn-taking for conversation is yet available. Here, on the basis of research using
audio recordings of naturally occurring conversations, we attempt to characterize,
in its simplest systematic form, the organization of turn-taking for conversation,
and to extract some of the interest of that organization.
Aspects of the organization we call turn-taking have forced themselves on
investigators of 'small-group' behavior-who, in dealing with problems concerning
the distribution of talk among participants in small groups,2 or the kinds of
'acts' which form sequences in small-group sessions,3 have encountered problems
conditioned in central ways by the turn-taking system, though for the most part
they have not addressed them in this light. Again, students of'interview' behavior,
and such two-party conversation as approximates it in form,4 have concerned
themselves with the distribution of talk among the parties, the distribution of
silences, the sequences in which the talk shifted from one to another or was retained
by a single party, and the way such transfer or retention was co6rdinated. These
workers have also dealt with questions on which turn-taking has a central bearing;
but they attacked them only peripherally in turn-taking terms, or accounted for
them unsatisfactorily because of weaknesses in the turn-taking models explicitly
or implicitly employed. In anthropology, some investigators have explicitly noted
aspects of turn organization;5 but their observations have been, for the most part,
speaking occurs it does so within this kind of social arrangement; of course what is
organized therein is not plays or steps or procedures or blows, but turns at talking. Note
then that the natural home of speech is one in which speech is not always present.
I am suggesting that the act of speaking must always be referred to the state of talk that
is sustained through the particular turn at talking, and that this state of talk involves a
circle of others ratified as coparticipants. (Such a phenomenon as talking to oneself, or
talking to unratified recipients as in the case of collusive communication, or telephone talk,
must first be seen as a departure from the norm, else its structure and significance will be
lost.) Talk is socially organized, not merely in terms of who speaks to whom in what
language, but as a little system of mutually ratified and ritually governed face-to-face
action, a social encounter. Once a state of talk has been ratified, cues must be available for
requesting the floor and giving it up, for informing the speaker as to the stability of the
focus of attention he is receiving. Intimate collaboration must be sustained to ensure that
one turn at talking neither overlaps the previous one too much, nor wants for inoffensive
conversational supply, for someone's turn must always and exclusively be in progress.
2 E.g. Stephan & Mishler 1952; Bales 1950, 1970; Coleman 1960.
3 Cf. Bales 1950.
4 Cf. Jaffe & Feldstein 1970, Matarazzo & Wiens 1972.
5 E.g., Mitchell (1956:79) says:
Important headmen also have the right of walking in front of their juniors. If there are
three or four headmen returning from, say, a court case, they arrange themselves in the
pathway in an order which reflects their rank. As they file down the narrow field paths the
leader is the most senior among the group. After him come the other headmen and last of
all the commoners. This order of precedence is also followed when initiands pass through
the tribal initiation ceremonies.
Or, to quote Beardsley et al. (1959:88):
Father and mother take the small children in to bathe with them, granny scrubs the men's
backs, and relatives or neighbors who have no bath (three houses in Niiike) come to chat
while waiting their turn at the end of the day. The senior male of the household finishes
his bath first and the family follows in regular order of sex and age precedence. The first
bather gets the hottest water.
697 697 697 697 697 697 697 697
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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974)
in the service of other interests-e.g., stratification, the legal system, etc.-and little
effort has been directed at either gathering or attending materials in sufficient
detail to permit appreciation or treatment of turn-taking as a central phenomenon
in its own right.6 In all these domains of inquiry, what has attracted investigators'
attention has been some particular outcome or product of the operation of turn-
taking, interpretably relevant to some other problem-but not the organization and
operation of the system that allowed or produced such an outcome. Those ap-
proaches which have addressed turn-taking head-on, with proper appreciation of
the depth of its implications and the detailed character of its organization, have
been largely programmatic or only beginningly empirical; in any case, no syste-
matic account is available.7
For the last half dozen years we have been engaged in research, using tape
recordings of natural conversation, that has been increasingly directed to extracting,
characterizing, and describing the interrelationships of the various types of sequen-
tial organization operative in conversation. The disciplinary motivation for such
work is sociological. Our concern with the organization of turn-taking has the
Earlier, Isaacs (1933:222-3), a psychologist doing what amounted to an ethnography of
children, wrote:
'Taking turns' is one of the hardest lessons for children under five years to learn ... the
young child cannot without much experience believe that 'his turn' really will come in due
time. All that he knows is that the others 'have got it' and he hasn't. A few minutes is an
eternity when one is eagerly waiting for a prized pleasure such as riding on a tricycle or a
see-saw. Nor does one believe in the goodwill of the others who are enjoying their turns
first-one knows only too well how readily one would exclude THEM if one were allowed!
Only the proved evenness of justice of the controlling adult will make a transition possible
from the impetuous assertion of 'I want it NOW' to that trust in the future which makes
'taking turns' possible.
6 Among anthropologists, Albert (1964: 40-41) has come the closest to addressing turn-taking
per se:
The order in which individuals speak in a group is strictly determined by seniority of
rank. If the eldest present is lower in social rank than some other individual, age gives way
before social status. Thus, a nephew may be older than his uncle, but the uncle is of higher
rank and will speak before him. A prince or chief may be younger than others present, but
speaks first by virtue of his higher rank. There are no recorded instances of confusion or
conflict in the matter of determining order of precedence, even in very large groups.
In public, the rule for servants, females, and other inferiors is to speak when spoken to
but otherwise to maintain silence. Nevertheless, the pattern is so arranged that younger or
socially inferior persons are in due course able to express their views. Thus, the senior
person will speak first; the next in order of rank opens his speech with a statement to the
effect, 'Yes, I agree with the previous speaker, he is correct, he is older, and knows best,
etc.' Then, depending on circumstances and issues, the second speaker will by degrees or at
once express his own views, and these may well be diametrically opposed to those previously
expressed. No umbrage is taken, the required formula of acknowledgement of the superior
having been used. If the umukuru, senior person, is truly very aged and weak, his son may
speak first, explaining his departure from the rules at the outset; 'My father is old, his
memory is not good, he wishes me to speak for him,' or some other appropriate excuse is
given. It is not unusual for the formal order of precedence to be abandoned in the latter
part of a protracted discussion, and for loud voices to be heard even among upper-class
individuals.
7 Except, perhaps, for Samuel Beckett's The lost ones (1972).
in the service of other interests-e.g., stratification, the legal system, etc.-and little
effort has been directed at either gathering or attending materials in sufficient
detail to permit appreciation or treatment of turn-taking as a central phenomenon
in its own right.6 In all these domains of inquiry, what has attracted investigators'
attention has been some particular outcome or product of the operation of turn-
taking, interpretably relevant to some other problem-but not the organization and
operation of the system that allowed or produced such an outcome. Those ap-
proaches which have addressed turn-taking head-on, with proper appreciation of
the depth of its implications and the detailed character of its organization, have
been largely programmatic or only beginningly empirical; in any case, no syste-
matic account is available.7
For the last half dozen years we have been engaged in research, using tape
recordings of natural conversation, that has been increasingly directed to extracting,
characterizing, and describing the interrelationships of the various types of sequen-
tial organization operative in conversation. The disciplinary motivation for such
work is sociological. Our concern with the organization of turn-taking has the
Earlier, Isaacs (1933:222-3), a psychologist doing what amounted to an ethnography of
children, wrote:
'Taking turns' is one of the hardest lessons for children under five years to learn ... the
young child cannot without much experience believe that 'his turn' really will come in due
time. All that he knows is that the others 'have got it' and he hasn't. A few minutes is an
eternity when one is eagerly waiting for a prized pleasure such as riding on a tricycle or a
see-saw. Nor does one believe in the goodwill of the others who are enjoying their turns
first-one knows only too well how readily one would exclude THEM if one were allowed!
Only the proved evenness of justice of the controlling adult will make a transition possible
from the impetuous assertion of 'I want it NOW' to that trust in the future which makes
'taking turns' possible.
6 Among anthropologists, Albert (1964: 40-41) has come the closest to addressing turn-taking
per se:
The order in which individuals speak in a group is strictly determined by seniority of
rank. If the eldest present is lower in social rank than some other individual, age gives way
before social status. Thus, a nephew may be older than his uncle, but the uncle is of higher
rank and will speak before him. A prince or chief may be younger than others present, but
speaks first by virtue of his higher rank. There are no recorded instances of confusion or
conflict in the matter of determining order of precedence, even in very large groups.
In public, the rule for servants, females, and other inferiors is to speak when spoken to
but otherwise to maintain silence. Nevertheless, the pattern is so arranged that younger or
socially inferior persons are in due course able to express their views. Thus, the senior
person will speak first; the next in order of rank opens his speech with a statement to the
effect, 'Yes, I agree with the previous speaker, he is correct, he is older, and knows best,
etc.' Then, depending on circumstances and issues, the second speaker will by degrees or at
once express his own views, and these may well be diametrically opposed to those previously
expressed. No umbrage is taken, the required formula of acknowledgement of the superior
having been used. If the umukuru, senior person, is truly very aged and weak, his son may
speak first, explaining his departure from the rules at the outset; 'My father is old, his
memory is not good, he wishes me to speak for him,' or some other appropriate excuse is
given. It is not unusual for the formal order of precedence to be abandoned in the latter
part of a protracted discussion, and for loud voices to be heard even among upper-class
individuals.
7 Except, perhaps, for Samuel Beckett's The lost ones (1972).
in the service of other interests-e.g., stratification, the legal system, etc.-and little
effort has been directed at either gathering or attending materials in sufficient
detail to permit appreciation or treatment of turn-taking as a central phenomenon
in its own right.6 In all these domains of inquiry, what has attracted investigators'
attention has been some particular outcome or product of the operation of turn-
taking, interpretably relevant to some other problem-but not the organization and
operation of the system that allowed or produced such an outcome. Those ap-
proaches which have addressed turn-taking head-on, with proper appreciation of
the depth of its implications and the detailed character of its organization, have
been largely programmatic or only beginningly empirical; in any case, no syste-
matic account is available.7
For the last half dozen years we have been engaged in research, using tape
recordings of natural conversation, that has been increasingly directed to extracting,
characterizing, and describing the interrelationships of the various types of sequen-
tial organization operative in conversation. The disciplinary motivation for such
work is sociological. Our concern with the organization of turn-taking has the
Earlier, Isaacs (1933:222-3), a psychologist doing what amounted to an ethnography of
children, wrote:
'Taking turns' is one of the hardest lessons for children under five years to learn ... the
young child cannot without much experience believe that 'his turn' really will come in due
time. All that he knows is that the others 'have got it' and he hasn't. A few minutes is an
eternity when one is eagerly waiting for a prized pleasure such as riding on a tricycle or a
see-saw. Nor does one believe in the goodwill of the others who are enjoying their turns
first-one knows only too well how readily one would exclude THEM if one were allowed!
Only the proved evenness of justice of the controlling adult will make a transition possible
from the impetuous assertion of 'I want it NOW' to that trust in the future which makes
'taking turns' possible.
6 Among anthropologists, Albert (1964: 40-41) has come the closest to addressing turn-taking
per se:
The order in which individuals speak in a group is strictly determined by seniority of
rank. If the eldest present is lower in social rank than some other individual, age gives way
before social status. Thus, a nephew may be older than his uncle, but the uncle is of higher
rank and will speak before him. A prince or chief may be younger than others present, but
speaks first by virtue of his higher rank. There are no recorded instances of confusion or
conflict in the matter of determining order of precedence, even in very large groups.
In public, the rule for servants, females, and other inferiors is to speak when spoken to
but otherwise to maintain silence. Nevertheless, the pattern is so arranged that younger or
socially inferior persons are in due course able to express their views. Thus, the senior
person will speak first; the next in order of rank opens his speech with a statement to the
effect, 'Yes, I agree with the previous speaker, he is correct, he is older, and knows best,
etc.' Then, depending on circumstances and issues, the second speaker will by degrees or at
once express his own views, and these may well be diametrically opposed to those previously
expressed. No umbrage is taken, the required formula of acknowledgement of the superior
having been used. If the umukuru, senior person, is truly very aged and weak, his son may
speak first, explaining his departure from the rules at the outset; 'My father is old, his
memory is not good, he wishes me to speak for him,' or some other appropriate excuse is
given. It is not unusual for the formal order of precedence to be abandoned in the latter
part of a protracted discussion, and for loud voices to be heard even among upper-class
individuals.
7 Except, perhaps, for Samuel Beckett's The lost ones (1972).
in the service of other interests-e.g., stratification, the legal system, etc.-and little
effort has been directed at either gathering or attending materials in sufficient
detail to permit appreciation or treatment of turn-taking as a central phenomenon
in its own right.6 In all these domains of inquiry, what has attracted investigators'
attention has been some particular outcome or product of the operation of turn-
taking, interpretably relevant to some other problem-but not the organization and
operation of the system that allowed or produced such an outcome. Those ap-
proaches which have addressed turn-taking head-on, with proper appreciation of
the depth of its implications and the detailed character of its organization, have
been largely programmatic or only beginningly empirical; in any case, no syste-
matic account is available.7
For the last half dozen years we have been engaged in research, using tape
recordings of natural conversation, that has been increasingly directed to extracting,
characterizing, and describing the interrelationships of the various types of sequen-
tial organization operative in conversation. The disciplinary motivation for such
work is sociological. Our concern with the organization of turn-taking has the
Earlier, Isaacs (1933:222-3), a psychologist doing what amounted to an ethnography of
children, wrote:
'Taking turns' is one of the hardest lessons for children under five years to learn ... the
young child cannot without much experience believe that 'his turn' really will come in due
time. All that he knows is that the others 'have got it' and he hasn't. A few minutes is an
eternity when one is eagerly waiting for a prized pleasure such as riding on a tricycle or a
see-saw. Nor does one believe in the goodwill of the others who are enjoying their turns
first-one knows only too well how readily one would exclude THEM if one were allowed!
Only the proved evenness of justice of the controlling adult will make a transition possible
from the impetuous assertion of 'I want it NOW' to that trust in the future which makes
'taking turns' possible.
6 Among anthropologists, Albert (1964: 40-41) has come the closest to addressing turn-taking
per se:
The order in which individuals speak in a group is strictly determined by seniority of
rank. If the eldest present is lower in social rank than some other individual, age gives way
before social status. Thus, a nephew may be older than his uncle, but the uncle is of higher
rank and will speak before him. A prince or chief may be younger than others present, but
speaks first by virtue of his higher rank. There are no recorded instances of confusion or
conflict in the matter of determining order of precedence, even in very large groups.
In public, the rule for servants, females, and other inferiors is to speak when spoken to
but otherwise to maintain silence. Nevertheless, the pattern is so arranged that younger or
socially inferior persons are in due course able to express their views. Thus, the senior
person will speak first; the next in order of rank opens his speech with a statement to the
effect, 'Yes, I agree with the previous speaker, he is correct, he is older, and knows best,
etc.' Then, depending on circumstances and issues, the second speaker will by degrees or at
once express his own views, and these may well be diametrically opposed to those previously
expressed. No umbrage is taken, the required formula of acknowledgement of the superior
having been used. If the umukuru, senior person, is truly very aged and weak, his son may
speak first, explaining his departure from the rules at the outset; 'My father is old, his
memory is not good, he wishes me to speak for him,' or some other appropriate excuse is
given. It is not unusual for the formal order of precedence to be abandoned in the latter
part of a protracted discussion, and for loud voices to be heard even among upper-class
individuals.
7 Except, perhaps, for Samuel Beckett's The lost ones (1972).
in the service of other interests-e.g., stratification, the legal system, etc.-and little
effort has been directed at either gathering or attending materials in sufficient
detail to permit appreciation or treatment of turn-taking as a central phenomenon
in its own right.6 In all these domains of inquiry, what has attracted investigators'
attention has been some particular outcome or product of the operation of turn-
taking, interpretably relevant to some other problem-but not the organization and
operation of the system that allowed or produced such an outcome. Those ap-
proaches which have addressed turn-taking head-on, with proper appreciation of
the depth of its implications and the detailed character of its organization, have
been largely programmatic or only beginningly empirical; in any case, no syste-
matic account is available.7
For the last half dozen years we have been engaged in research, using tape
recordings of natural conversation, that has been increasingly directed to extracting,
characterizing, and describing the interrelationships of the various types of sequen-
tial organization operative in conversation. The disciplinary motivation for such
work is sociological. Our concern with the organization of turn-taking has the
Earlier, Isaacs (1933:222-3), a psychologist doing what amounted to an ethnography of
children, wrote:
'Taking turns' is one of the hardest lessons for children under five years to learn ... the
young child cannot without much experience believe that 'his turn' really will come in due
time. All that he knows is that the others 'have got it' and he hasn't. A few minutes is an
eternity when one is eagerly waiting for a prized pleasure such as riding on a tricycle or a
see-saw. Nor does one believe in the goodwill of the others who are enjoying their turns
first-one knows only too well how readily one would exclude THEM if one were allowed!
Only the proved evenness of justice of the controlling adult will make a transition possible
from the impetuous assertion of 'I want it NOW' to that trust in the future which makes
'taking turns' possible.
6 Among anthropologists, Albert (1964: 40-41) has come the closest to addressing turn-taking
per se:
The order in which individuals speak in a group is strictly determined by seniority of
rank. If the eldest present is lower in social rank than some other individual, age gives way
before social status. Thus, a nephew may be older than his uncle, but the uncle is of higher
rank and will speak before him. A prince or chief may be younger than others present, but
speaks first by virtue of his higher rank. There are no recorded instances of confusion or
conflict in the matter of determining order of precedence, even in very large groups.
In public, the rule for servants, females, and other inferiors is to speak when spoken to
but otherwise to maintain silence. Nevertheless, the pattern is so arranged that younger or
socially inferior persons are in due course able to express their views. Thus, the senior
person will speak first; the next in order of rank opens his speech with a statement to the
effect, 'Yes, I agree with the previous speaker, he is correct, he is older, and knows best,
etc.' Then, depending on circumstances and issues, the second speaker will by degrees or at
once express his own views, and these may well be diametrically opposed to those previously
expressed. No umbrage is taken, the required formula of acknowledgement of the superior
having been used. If the umukuru, senior person, is truly very aged and weak, his son may
speak first, explaining his departure from the rules at the outset; 'My father is old, his
memory is not good, he wishes me to speak for him,' or some other appropriate excuse is
given. It is not unusual for the formal order of precedence to be abandoned in the latter
part of a protracted discussion, and for loud voices to be heard even among upper-class
individuals.
7 Except, perhaps, for Samuel Beckett's The lost ones (1972).
in the service of other interests-e.g., stratification, the legal system, etc.-and little
effort has been directed at either gathering or attending materials in sufficient
detail to permit appreciation or treatment of turn-taking as a central phenomenon
in its own right.6 In all these domains of inquiry, what has attracted investigators'
attention has been some particular outcome or product of the operation of turn-
taking, interpretably relevant to some other problem-but not the organization and
operation of the system that allowed or produced such an outcome. Those ap-
proaches which have addressed turn-taking head-on, with proper appreciation of
the depth of its implications and the detailed character of its organization, have
been largely programmatic or only beginningly empirical; in any case, no syste-
matic account is available.7
For the last half dozen years we have been engaged in research, using tape
recordings of natural conversation, that has been increasingly directed to extracting,
characterizing, and describing the interrelationships of the various types of sequen-
tial organization operative in conversation. The disciplinary motivation for such
work is sociological. Our concern with the organization of turn-taking has the
Earlier, Isaacs (1933:222-3), a psychologist doing what amounted to an ethnography of
children, wrote:
'Taking turns' is one of the hardest lessons for children under five years to learn ... the
young child cannot without much experience believe that 'his turn' really will come in due
time. All that he knows is that the others 'have got it' and he hasn't. A few minutes is an
eternity when one is eagerly waiting for a prized pleasure such as riding on a tricycle or a
see-saw. Nor does one believe in the goodwill of the others who are enjoying their turns
first-one knows only too well how readily one would exclude THEM if one were allowed!
Only the proved evenness of justice of the controlling adult will make a transition possible
from the impetuous assertion of 'I want it NOW' to that trust in the future which makes
'taking turns' possible.
6 Among anthropologists, Albert (1964: 40-41) has come the closest to addressing turn-taking
per se:
The order in which individuals speak in a group is strictly determined by seniority of
rank. If the eldest present is lower in social rank than some other individual, age gives way
before social status. Thus, a nephew may be older than his uncle, but the uncle is of higher
rank and will speak before him. A prince or chief may be younger than others present, but
speaks first by virtue of his higher rank. There are no recorded instances of confusion or
conflict in the matter of determining order of precedence, even in very large groups.
In public, the rule for servants, females, and other inferiors is to speak when spoken to
but otherwise to maintain silence. Nevertheless, the pattern is so arranged that younger or
socially inferior persons are in due course able to express their views. Thus, the senior
person will speak first; the next in order of rank opens his speech with a statement to the
effect, 'Yes, I agree with the previous speaker, he is correct, he is older, and knows best,
etc.' Then, depending on circumstances and issues, the second speaker will by degrees or at
once express his own views, and these may well be diametrically opposed to those previously
expressed. No umbrage is taken, the required formula of acknowledgement of the superior
having been used. If the umukuru, senior person, is truly very aged and weak, his son may
speak first, explaining his departure from the rules at the outset; 'My father is old, his
memory is not good, he wishes me to speak for him,' or some other appropriate excuse is
given. It is not unusual for the formal order of precedence to be abandoned in the latter
part of a protracted discussion, and for loud voices to be heard even among upper-class
individuals.
7 Except, perhaps, for Samuel Beckett's The lost ones (1972).
in the service of other interests-e.g., stratification, the legal system, etc.-and little
effort has been directed at either gathering or attending materials in sufficient
detail to permit appreciation or treatment of turn-taking as a central phenomenon
in its own right.6 In all these domains of inquiry, what has attracted investigators'
attention has been some particular outcome or product of the operation of turn-
taking, interpretably relevant to some other problem-but not the organization and
operation of the system that allowed or produced such an outcome. Those ap-
proaches which have addressed turn-taking head-on, with proper appreciation of
the depth of its implications and the detailed character of its organization, have
been largely programmatic or only beginningly empirical; in any case, no syste-
matic account is available.7
For the last half dozen years we have been engaged in research, using tape
recordings of natural conversation, that has been increasingly directed to extracting,
characterizing, and describing the interrelationships of the various types of sequen-
tial organization operative in conversation. The disciplinary motivation for such
work is sociological. Our concern with the organization of turn-taking has the
Earlier, Isaacs (1933:222-3), a psychologist doing what amounted to an ethnography of
children, wrote:
'Taking turns' is one of the hardest lessons for children under five years to learn ... the
young child cannot without much experience believe that 'his turn' really will come in due
time. All that he knows is that the others 'have got it' and he hasn't. A few minutes is an
eternity when one is eagerly waiting for a prized pleasure such as riding on a tricycle or a
see-saw. Nor does one believe in the goodwill of the others who are enjoying their turns
first-one knows only too well how readily one would exclude THEM if one were allowed!
Only the proved evenness of justice of the controlling adult will make a transition possible
from the impetuous assertion of 'I want it NOW' to that trust in the future which makes
'taking turns' possible.
6 Among anthropologists, Albert (1964: 40-41) has come the closest to addressing turn-taking
per se:
The order in which individuals speak in a group is strictly determined by seniority of
rank. If the eldest present is lower in social rank than some other individual, age gives way
before social status. Thus, a nephew may be older than his uncle, but the uncle is of higher
rank and will speak before him. A prince or chief may be younger than others present, but
speaks first by virtue of his higher rank. There are no recorded instances of confusion or
conflict in the matter of determining order of precedence, even in very large groups.
In public, the rule for servants, females, and other inferiors is to speak when spoken to
but otherwise to maintain silence. Nevertheless, the pattern is so arranged that younger or
socially inferior persons are in due course able to express their views. Thus, the senior
person will speak first; the next in order of rank opens his speech with a statement to the
effect, 'Yes, I agree with the previous speaker, he is correct, he is older, and knows best,
etc.' Then, depending on circumstances and issues, the second speaker will by degrees or at
once express his own views, and these may well be diametrically opposed to those previously
expressed. No umbrage is taken, the required formula of acknowledgement of the superior
having been used. If the umukuru, senior person, is truly very aged and weak, his son may
speak first, explaining his departure from the rules at the outset; 'My father is old, his
memory is not good, he wishes me to speak for him,' or some other appropriate excuse is
given. It is not unusual for the formal order of precedence to be abandoned in the latter
part of a protracted discussion, and for loud voices to be heard even among upper-class
individuals.
7 Except, perhaps, for Samuel Beckett's The lost ones (1972).
in the service of other interests-e.g., stratification, the legal system, etc.-and little
effort has been directed at either gathering or attending materials in sufficient
detail to permit appreciation or treatment of turn-taking as a central phenomenon
in its own right.6 In all these domains of inquiry, what has attracted investigators'
attention has been some particular outcome or product of the operation of turn-
taking, interpretably relevant to some other problem-but not the organization and
operation of the system that allowed or produced such an outcome. Those ap-
proaches which have addressed turn-taking head-on, with proper appreciation of
the depth of its implications and the detailed character of its organization, have
been largely programmatic or only beginningly empirical; in any case, no syste-
matic account is available.7
For the last half dozen years we have been engaged in research, using tape
recordings of natural conversation, that has been increasingly directed to extracting,
characterizing, and describing the interrelationships of the various types of sequen-
tial organization operative in conversation. The disciplinary motivation for such
work is sociological. Our concern with the organization of turn-taking has the
Earlier, Isaacs (1933:222-3), a psychologist doing what amounted to an ethnography of
children, wrote:
'Taking turns' is one of the hardest lessons for children under five years to learn ... the
young child cannot without much experience believe that 'his turn' really will come in due
time. All that he knows is that the others 'have got it' and he hasn't. A few minutes is an
eternity when one is eagerly waiting for a prized pleasure such as riding on a tricycle or a
see-saw. Nor does one believe in the goodwill of the others who are enjoying their turns
first-one knows only too well how readily one would exclude THEM if one were allowed!
Only the proved evenness of justice of the controlling adult will make a transition possible
from the impetuous assertion of 'I want it NOW' to that trust in the future which makes
'taking turns' possible.
6 Among anthropologists, Albert (1964: 40-41) has come the closest to addressing turn-taking
per se:
The order in which individuals speak in a group is strictly determined by seniority of
rank. If the eldest present is lower in social rank than some other individual, age gives way
before social status. Thus, a nephew may be older than his uncle, but the uncle is of higher
rank and will speak before him. A prince or chief may be younger than others present, but
speaks first by virtue of his higher rank. There are no recorded instances of confusion or
conflict in the matter of determining order of precedence, even in very large groups.
In public, the rule for servants, females, and other inferiors is to speak when spoken to
but otherwise to maintain silence. Nevertheless, the pattern is so arranged that younger or
socially inferior persons are in due course able to express their views. Thus, the senior
person will speak first; the next in order of rank opens his speech with a statement to the
effect, 'Yes, I agree with the previous speaker, he is correct, he is older, and knows best,
etc.' Then, depending on circumstances and issues, the second speaker will by degrees or at
once express his own views, and these may well be diametrically opposed to those previously
expressed. No umbrage is taken, the required formula of acknowledgement of the superior
having been used. If the umukuru, senior person, is truly very aged and weak, his son may
speak first, explaining his departure from the rules at the outset; 'My father is old, his
memory is not good, he wishes me to speak for him,' or some other appropriate excuse is
given. It is not unusual for the formal order of precedence to be abandoned in the latter
part of a protracted discussion, and for loud voices to be heard even among upper-class
individuals.
7 Except, perhaps, for Samuel Beckett's The lost ones (1972).
698 698 698 698 698 698 698 698
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SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING SYSTEMATICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF TURN-TAKING
following base. First, the existence of organized turn-taking is something that the
data of conversation have made increasingly plain. It has become obvious that,
overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time, though speakers change, and though the
size of turns and ordering of turns vary; that transitions are finely co6rdinated; that
techniques are used for allocating turns, whose characterization would be part
of any model for describing some turn-taking materials; and that there are
techniques for the construction of utterances relevant to their turn status, which
bear on the co6rdination of transfer and on the allocation of speakership. In short,
a body of factual material, accessible to rather unmotivated inquiry, exposes the
presence of turn-taking and the major facets of its organization. Focusing on facts
such as these, rather than on particular outcomes in particular settings, leads to an
investigation of the organization of turn-taking per se, rather than to its application
and consequences in particular contexts, although the more formal understanding
of turn-taking illuminates more particular findings.
Second, we have found reasons to take seriously the possibility that a character-
ization of turn-taking organization for conversation could be developed which
would have the important twin features of being context-free and capable of
extraordinary context-sensitivity.8 We look for such a type of organization for the
following reasons. To begin with, a problem for research on actual conversation
is that it is always 'situated '-always comes out of, and is part of, some real sets of
circumstances of its participants. But there are various reasons why it is undesirable
to have to know or characterize such situations for particular conversations in order
to investigate them. And the question then becomes: What might be extracted as
ordered phenomena from our conversational materials which would not turn out
to require reference to one or another aspect of situatedness, identities, particulari-
ties of content or context?
One reason for expecting the existence of some such type of organization is as
follows. Conversation can accommodate a wide range of situations, interactions in
which persons in varieties (or varieties of groups) of identities are operating; it can
be sensitive to the various combinations; and it can be capable of dealing with a
change of situation within a situation. Hence there must be some formal apparatus
which is itself context-free, in such ways that it can, in local instances of its opera-
tion, be sensitive to and exhibit its sensitivity to various parameters of social
8 When we speak of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive,' we cannot state the scope of
reference of 'context' that is relevant. For now, let it suffice to employ a long-term understand-
ing of 'context' in the social sciences-one which attends the various places, times, and
identities of parties to interaction. What we mean to note is that major aspects of the organiza-
tion of turn-taking are insensitive to such parameters of context, and are, in that sense, 'context-
free'; but it remains the case that examination of any particular materials will display the
context-free resources of the turn-taking system to be employed, disposed in ways fitted to
particulars of context. It is the context-free structure which defines how and where context-
sensitivity can be displayed; the particularities of context are exhibited in systematically
organized ways and places, and those are shaped by the context-free organization.
We understand that linguists use a different sense of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive',
in which 'context' refers to syntactic or phonological environment, so that 'context-free' and
'context-sensitive' are mutually exclusive possibilities. Our usage goes, in the first instance, to
social contexts; whether it has a bearing on phonological or syntactic ones we cannot say.
following base. First, the existence of organized turn-taking is something that the
data of conversation have made increasingly plain. It has become obvious that,
overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time, though speakers change, and though the
size of turns and ordering of turns vary; that transitions are finely co6rdinated; that
techniques are used for allocating turns, whose characterization would be part
of any model for describing some turn-taking materials; and that there are
techniques for the construction of utterances relevant to their turn status, which
bear on the co6rdination of transfer and on the allocation of speakership. In short,
a body of factual material, accessible to rather unmotivated inquiry, exposes the
presence of turn-taking and the major facets of its organization. Focusing on facts
such as these, rather than on particular outcomes in particular settings, leads to an
investigation of the organization of turn-taking per se, rather than to its application
and consequences in particular contexts, although the more formal understanding
of turn-taking illuminates more particular findings.
Second, we have found reasons to take seriously the possibility that a character-
ization of turn-taking organization for conversation could be developed which
would have the important twin features of being context-free and capable of
extraordinary context-sensitivity.8 We look for such a type of organization for the
following reasons. To begin with, a problem for research on actual conversation
is that it is always 'situated '-always comes out of, and is part of, some real sets of
circumstances of its participants. But there are various reasons why it is undesirable
to have to know or characterize such situations for particular conversations in order
to investigate them. And the question then becomes: What might be extracted as
ordered phenomena from our conversational materials which would not turn out
to require reference to one or another aspect of situatedness, identities, particulari-
ties of content or context?
One reason for expecting the existence of some such type of organization is as
follows. Conversation can accommodate a wide range of situations, interactions in
which persons in varieties (or varieties of groups) of identities are operating; it can
be sensitive to the various combinations; and it can be capable of dealing with a
change of situation within a situation. Hence there must be some formal apparatus
which is itself context-free, in such ways that it can, in local instances of its opera-
tion, be sensitive to and exhibit its sensitivity to various parameters of social
8 When we speak of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive,' we cannot state the scope of
reference of 'context' that is relevant. For now, let it suffice to employ a long-term understand-
ing of 'context' in the social sciences-one which attends the various places, times, and
identities of parties to interaction. What we mean to note is that major aspects of the organiza-
tion of turn-taking are insensitive to such parameters of context, and are, in that sense, 'context-
free'; but it remains the case that examination of any particular materials will display the
context-free resources of the turn-taking system to be employed, disposed in ways fitted to
particulars of context. It is the context-free structure which defines how and where context-
sensitivity can be displayed; the particularities of context are exhibited in systematically
organized ways and places, and those are shaped by the context-free organization.
We understand that linguists use a different sense of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive',
in which 'context' refers to syntactic or phonological environment, so that 'context-free' and
'context-sensitive' are mutually exclusive possibilities. Our usage goes, in the first instance, to
social contexts; whether it has a bearing on phonological or syntactic ones we cannot say.
following base. First, the existence of organized turn-taking is something that the
data of conversation have made increasingly plain. It has become obvious that,
overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time, though speakers change, and though the
size of turns and ordering of turns vary; that transitions are finely co6rdinated; that
techniques are used for allocating turns, whose characterization would be part
of any model for describing some turn-taking materials; and that there are
techniques for the construction of utterances relevant to their turn status, which
bear on the co6rdination of transfer and on the allocation of speakership. In short,
a body of factual material, accessible to rather unmotivated inquiry, exposes the
presence of turn-taking and the major facets of its organization. Focusing on facts
such as these, rather than on particular outcomes in particular settings, leads to an
investigation of the organization of turn-taking per se, rather than to its application
and consequences in particular contexts, although the more formal understanding
of turn-taking illuminates more particular findings.
Second, we have found reasons to take seriously the possibility that a character-
ization of turn-taking organization for conversation could be developed which
would have the important twin features of being context-free and capable of
extraordinary context-sensitivity.8 We look for such a type of organization for the
following reasons. To begin with, a problem for research on actual conversation
is that it is always 'situated '-always comes out of, and is part of, some real sets of
circumstances of its participants. But there are various reasons why it is undesirable
to have to know or characterize such situations for particular conversations in order
to investigate them. And the question then becomes: What might be extracted as
ordered phenomena from our conversational materials which would not turn out
to require reference to one or another aspect of situatedness, identities, particulari-
ties of content or context?
One reason for expecting the existence of some such type of organization is as
follows. Conversation can accommodate a wide range of situations, interactions in
which persons in varieties (or varieties of groups) of identities are operating; it can
be sensitive to the various combinations; and it can be capable of dealing with a
change of situation within a situation. Hence there must be some formal apparatus
which is itself context-free, in such ways that it can, in local instances of its opera-
tion, be sensitive to and exhibit its sensitivity to various parameters of social
8 When we speak of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive,' we cannot state the scope of
reference of 'context' that is relevant. For now, let it suffice to employ a long-term understand-
ing of 'context' in the social sciences-one which attends the various places, times, and
identities of parties to interaction. What we mean to note is that major aspects of the organiza-
tion of turn-taking are insensitive to such parameters of context, and are, in that sense, 'context-
free'; but it remains the case that examination of any particular materials will display the
context-free resources of the turn-taking system to be employed, disposed in ways fitted to
particulars of context. It is the context-free structure which defines how and where context-
sensitivity can be displayed; the particularities of context are exhibited in systematically
organized ways and places, and those are shaped by the context-free organization.
We understand that linguists use a different sense of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive',
in which 'context' refers to syntactic or phonological environment, so that 'context-free' and
'context-sensitive' are mutually exclusive possibilities. Our usage goes, in the first instance, to
social contexts; whether it has a bearing on phonological or syntactic ones we cannot say.
following base. First, the existence of organized turn-taking is something that the
data of conversation have made increasingly plain. It has become obvious that,
overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time, though speakers change, and though the
size of turns and ordering of turns vary; that transitions are finely co6rdinated; that
techniques are used for allocating turns, whose characterization would be part
of any model for describing some turn-taking materials; and that there are
techniques for the construction of utterances relevant to their turn status, which
bear on the co6rdination of transfer and on the allocation of speakership. In short,
a body of factual material, accessible to rather unmotivated inquiry, exposes the
presence of turn-taking and the major facets of its organization. Focusing on facts
such as these, rather than on particular outcomes in particular settings, leads to an
investigation of the organization of turn-taking per se, rather than to its application
and consequences in particular contexts, although the more formal understanding
of turn-taking illuminates more particular findings.
Second, we have found reasons to take seriously the possibility that a character-
ization of turn-taking organization for conversation could be developed which
would have the important twin features of being context-free and capable of
extraordinary context-sensitivity.8 We look for such a type of organization for the
following reasons. To begin with, a problem for research on actual conversation
is that it is always 'situated '-always comes out of, and is part of, some real sets of
circumstances of its participants. But there are various reasons why it is undesirable
to have to know or characterize such situations for particular conversations in order
to investigate them. And the question then becomes: What might be extracted as
ordered phenomena from our conversational materials which would not turn out
to require reference to one or another aspect of situatedness, identities, particulari-
ties of content or context?
One reason for expecting the existence of some such type of organization is as
follows. Conversation can accommodate a wide range of situations, interactions in
which persons in varieties (or varieties of groups) of identities are operating; it can
be sensitive to the various combinations; and it can be capable of dealing with a
change of situation within a situation. Hence there must be some formal apparatus
which is itself context-free, in such ways that it can, in local instances of its opera-
tion, be sensitive to and exhibit its sensitivity to various parameters of social
8 When we speak of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive,' we cannot state the scope of
reference of 'context' that is relevant. For now, let it suffice to employ a long-term understand-
ing of 'context' in the social sciences-one which attends the various places, times, and
identities of parties to interaction. What we mean to note is that major aspects of the organiza-
tion of turn-taking are insensitive to such parameters of context, and are, in that sense, 'context-
free'; but it remains the case that examination of any particular materials will display the
context-free resources of the turn-taking system to be employed, disposed in ways fitted to
particulars of context. It is the context-free structure which defines how and where context-
sensitivity can be displayed; the particularities of context are exhibited in systematically
organized ways and places, and those are shaped by the context-free organization.
We understand that linguists use a different sense of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive',
in which 'context' refers to syntactic or phonological environment, so that 'context-free' and
'context-sensitive' are mutually exclusive possibilities. Our usage goes, in the first instance, to
social contexts; whether it has a bearing on phonological or syntactic ones we cannot say.
following base. First, the existence of organized turn-taking is something that the
data of conversation have made increasingly plain. It has become obvious that,
overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time, though speakers change, and though the
size of turns and ordering of turns vary; that transitions are finely co6rdinated; that
techniques are used for allocating turns, whose characterization would be part
of any model for describing some turn-taking materials; and that there are
techniques for the construction of utterances relevant to their turn status, which
bear on the co6rdination of transfer and on the allocation of speakership. In short,
a body of factual material, accessible to rather unmotivated inquiry, exposes the
presence of turn-taking and the major facets of its organization. Focusing on facts
such as these, rather than on particular outcomes in particular settings, leads to an
investigation of the organization of turn-taking per se, rather than to its application
and consequences in particular contexts, although the more formal understanding
of turn-taking illuminates more particular findings.
Second, we have found reasons to take seriously the possibility that a character-
ization of turn-taking organization for conversation could be developed which
would have the important twin features of being context-free and capable of
extraordinary context-sensitivity.8 We look for such a type of organization for the
following reasons. To begin with, a problem for research on actual conversation
is that it is always 'situated '-always comes out of, and is part of, some real sets of
circumstances of its participants. But there are various reasons why it is undesirable
to have to know or characterize such situations for particular conversations in order
to investigate them. And the question then becomes: What might be extracted as
ordered phenomena from our conversational materials which would not turn out
to require reference to one or another aspect of situatedness, identities, particulari-
ties of content or context?
One reason for expecting the existence of some such type of organization is as
follows. Conversation can accommodate a wide range of situations, interactions in
which persons in varieties (or varieties of groups) of identities are operating; it can
be sensitive to the various combinations; and it can be capable of dealing with a
change of situation within a situation. Hence there must be some formal apparatus
which is itself context-free, in such ways that it can, in local instances of its opera-
tion, be sensitive to and exhibit its sensitivity to various parameters of social
8 When we speak of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive,' we cannot state the scope of
reference of 'context' that is relevant. For now, let it suffice to employ a long-term understand-
ing of 'context' in the social sciences-one which attends the various places, times, and
identities of parties to interaction. What we mean to note is that major aspects of the organiza-
tion of turn-taking are insensitive to such parameters of context, and are, in that sense, 'context-
free'; but it remains the case that examination of any particular materials will display the
context-free resources of the turn-taking system to be employed, disposed in ways fitted to
particulars of context. It is the context-free structure which defines how and where context-
sensitivity can be displayed; the particularities of context are exhibited in systematically
organized ways and places, and those are shaped by the context-free organization.
We understand that linguists use a different sense of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive',
in which 'context' refers to syntactic or phonological environment, so that 'context-free' and
'context-sensitive' are mutually exclusive possibilities. Our usage goes, in the first instance, to
social contexts; whether it has a bearing on phonological or syntactic ones we cannot say.
following base. First, the existence of organized turn-taking is something that the
data of conversation have made increasingly plain. It has become obvious that,
overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time, though speakers change, and though the
size of turns and ordering of turns vary; that transitions are finely co6rdinated; that
techniques are used for allocating turns, whose characterization would be part
of any model for describing some turn-taking materials; and that there are
techniques for the construction of utterances relevant to their turn status, which
bear on the co6rdination of transfer and on the allocation of speakership. In short,
a body of factual material, accessible to rather unmotivated inquiry, exposes the
presence of turn-taking and the major facets of its organization. Focusing on facts
such as these, rather than on particular outcomes in particular settings, leads to an
investigation of the organization of turn-taking per se, rather than to its application
and consequences in particular contexts, although the more formal understanding
of turn-taking illuminates more particular findings.
Second, we have found reasons to take seriously the possibility that a character-
ization of turn-taking organization for conversation could be developed which
would have the important twin features of being context-free and capable of
extraordinary context-sensitivity.8 We look for such a type of organization for the
following reasons. To begin with, a problem for research on actual conversation
is that it is always 'situated '-always comes out of, and is part of, some real sets of
circumstances of its participants. But there are various reasons why it is undesirable
to have to know or characterize such situations for particular conversations in order
to investigate them. And the question then becomes: What might be extracted as
ordered phenomena from our conversational materials which would not turn out
to require reference to one or another aspect of situatedness, identities, particulari-
ties of content or context?
One reason for expecting the existence of some such type of organization is as
follows. Conversation can accommodate a wide range of situations, interactions in
which persons in varieties (or varieties of groups) of identities are operating; it can
be sensitive to the various combinations; and it can be capable of dealing with a
change of situation within a situation. Hence there must be some formal apparatus
which is itself context-free, in such ways that it can, in local instances of its opera-
tion, be sensitive to and exhibit its sensitivity to various parameters of social
8 When we speak of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive,' we cannot state the scope of
reference of 'context' that is relevant. For now, let it suffice to employ a long-term understand-
ing of 'context' in the social sciences-one which attends the various places, times, and
identities of parties to interaction. What we mean to note is that major aspects of the organiza-
tion of turn-taking are insensitive to such parameters of context, and are, in that sense, 'context-
free'; but it remains the case that examination of any particular materials will display the
context-free resources of the turn-taking system to be employed, disposed in ways fitted to
particulars of context. It is the context-free structure which defines how and where context-
sensitivity can be displayed; the particularities of context are exhibited in systematically
organized ways and places, and those are shaped by the context-free organization.
We understand that linguists use a different sense of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive',
in which 'context' refers to syntactic or phonological environment, so that 'context-free' and
'context-sensitive' are mutually exclusive possibilities. Our usage goes, in the first instance, to
social contexts; whether it has a bearing on phonological or syntactic ones we cannot say.
following base. First, the existence of organized turn-taking is something that the
data of conversation have made increasingly plain. It has become obvious that,
overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time, though speakers change, and though the
size of turns and ordering of turns vary; that transitions are finely co6rdinated; that
techniques are used for allocating turns, whose characterization would be part
of any model for describing some turn-taking materials; and that there are
techniques for the construction of utterances relevant to their turn status, which
bear on the co6rdination of transfer and on the allocation of speakership. In short,
a body of factual material, accessible to rather unmotivated inquiry, exposes the
presence of turn-taking and the major facets of its organization. Focusing on facts
such as these, rather than on particular outcomes in particular settings, leads to an
investigation of the organization of turn-taking per se, rather than to its application
and consequences in particular contexts, although the more formal understanding
of turn-taking illuminates more particular findings.
Second, we have found reasons to take seriously the possibility that a character-
ization of turn-taking organization for conversation could be developed which
would have the important twin features of being context-free and capable of
extraordinary context-sensitivity.8 We look for such a type of organization for the
following reasons. To begin with, a problem for research on actual conversation
is that it is always 'situated '-always comes out of, and is part of, some real sets of
circumstances of its participants. But there are various reasons why it is undesirable
to have to know or characterize such situations for particular conversations in order
to investigate them. And the question then becomes: What might be extracted as
ordered phenomena from our conversational materials which would not turn out
to require reference to one or another aspect of situatedness, identities, particulari-
ties of content or context?
One reason for expecting the existence of some such type of organization is as
follows. Conversation can accommodate a wide range of situations, interactions in
which persons in varieties (or varieties of groups) of identities are operating; it can
be sensitive to the various combinations; and it can be capable of dealing with a
change of situation within a situation. Hence there must be some formal apparatus
which is itself context-free, in such ways that it can, in local instances of its opera-
tion, be sensitive to and exhibit its sensitivity to various parameters of social
8 When we speak of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive,' we cannot state the scope of
reference of 'context' that is relevant. For now, let it suffice to employ a long-term understand-
ing of 'context' in the social sciences-one which attends the various places, times, and
identities of parties to interaction. What we mean to note is that major aspects of the organiza-
tion of turn-taking are insensitive to such parameters of context, and are, in that sense, 'context-
free'; but it remains the case that examination of any particular materials will display the
context-free resources of the turn-taking system to be employed, disposed in ways fitted to
particulars of context. It is the context-free structure which defines how and where context-
sensitivity can be displayed; the particularities of context are exhibited in systematically
organized ways and places, and those are shaped by the context-free organization.
We understand that linguists use a different sense of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive',
in which 'context' refers to syntactic or phonological environment, so that 'context-free' and
'context-sensitive' are mutually exclusive possibilities. Our usage goes, in the first instance, to
social contexts; whether it has a bearing on phonological or syntactic ones we cannot say.
following base. First, the existence of organized turn-taking is something that the
data of conversation have made increasingly plain. It has become obvious that,
overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time, though speakers change, and though the
size of turns and ordering of turns vary; that transitions are finely co6rdinated; that
techniques are used for allocating turns, whose characterization would be part
of any model for describing some turn-taking materials; and that there are
techniques for the construction of utterances relevant to their turn status, which
bear on the co6rdination of transfer and on the allocation of speakership. In short,
a body of factual material, accessible to rather unmotivated inquiry, exposes the
presence of turn-taking and the major facets of its organization. Focusing on facts
such as these, rather than on particular outcomes in particular settings, leads to an
investigation of the organization of turn-taking per se, rather than to its application
and consequences in particular contexts, although the more formal understanding
of turn-taking illuminates more particular findings.
Second, we have found reasons to take seriously the possibility that a character-
ization of turn-taking organization for conversation could be developed which
would have the important twin features of being context-free and capable of
extraordinary context-sensitivity.8 We look for such a type of organization for the
following reasons. To begin with, a problem for research on actual conversation
is that it is always 'situated '-always comes out of, and is part of, some real sets of
circumstances of its participants. But there are various reasons why it is undesirable
to have to know or characterize such situations for particular conversations in order
to investigate them. And the question then becomes: What might be extracted as
ordered phenomena from our conversational materials which would not turn out
to require reference to one or another aspect of situatedness, identities, particulari-
ties of content or context?
One reason for expecting the existence of some such type of organization is as
follows. Conversation can accommodate a wide range of situations, interactions in
which persons in varieties (or varieties of groups) of identities are operating; it can
be sensitive to the various combinations; and it can be capable of dealing with a
change of situation within a situation. Hence there must be some formal apparatus
which is itself context-free, in such ways that it can, in local instances of its opera-
tion, be sensitive to and exhibit its sensitivity to various parameters of social
8 When we speak of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive,' we cannot state the scope of
reference of 'context' that is relevant. For now, let it suffice to employ a long-term understand-
ing of 'context' in the social sciences-one which attends the various places, times, and
identities of parties to interaction. What we mean to note is that major aspects of the organiza-
tion of turn-taking are insensitive to such parameters of context, and are, in that sense, 'context-
free'; but it remains the case that examination of any particular materials will display the
context-free resources of the turn-taking system to be employed, disposed in ways fitted to
particulars of context. It is the context-free structure which defines how and where context-
sensitivity can be displayed; the particularities of context are exhibited in systematically
organized ways and places, and those are shaped by the context-free organization.
We understand that linguists use a different sense of 'context-free' and 'context-sensitive',
in which 'context' refers to syntactic or phonological environment, so that 'context-free' and
'context-sensitive' are mutually exclusive possibilities. Our usage goes, in the first instance, to
social contexts; whether it has a bearing on phonological or syntactic ones we cannot say.
699 699 699 699 699 699 699 699
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All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974)
reality in a local context. Some aspects of the organization of conversation must
be expected to have this context-free, context-sensitive status; for, of course,
conversation is a vehicle for interaction between parties with any potential identities,
and with any potential familiarity. We have concluded that the organization of
TURN-TAKING for conversation might be such a thing. That is, it appears to have
an appropriate sort of general abstractness and local particularization potential.
In sum, turn-taking seems a basic form of organization for conversation-
'basic', in that it would be invariant to parties, such that whatever variations the
parties brought to bear in the conversation would be accommodated without change
in the system, and such that it could be selectively and locally affected by social
aspects of context. Depiction of an organization for turn-taking should fit the
facts of variability by virtue of a design allowing it to be context-sensitive; but it
should be cast in a manner that, requiring no reference to any particular context,
still captures the most important general properties of conversation.
To merit serious consideration, it seems to us, a model should be capable of
accommodating (i.e. either be compatible with, or allow the derivation of) the
following grossly apparent facts.9 In any conversation, we observe the following: 10
(1) Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs (cf. ?4.1, below).
(2) Overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time (cf. ?4.2).
(3) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief
(cf. ?4.3).
(4) Transitions (from one turn to a next) with no gap and no overlap are
9 There are obvious structures involved in this list: historical structures, by reference to which
some facts would be noted only after others; and substantive structures, in which different points
are variously related to each other. The list is presented so as to over-ride any such structures.
Much might be learned from considering them, but we are not interested here in such uses of
these points. The list of points is intended as a set of empirical constraints on the model we
propose, and, for now, nothing more-just as most of the attention we will give our model of
turn-taking will be addressed to showing that the model meets the constraints set by these
empirical observations. The list should be read with these intended uses in mind. For example,
each item might be read as following not the item that preceded it in the list, but following the
sentence preceding the list as a whole.
10 The heading 'in any conversation' has raised, for several readers of this paper in manu-
script, the question of cross-cultural validity. Such a question can, of course, be settled only
empirically, by examining varieties of conversational materials. We can report the validity
of our assertions for the materials we have examined, and apparently for Thai materials
examined by Moerman 1972, New Guinea creole materials examined by G. Sankoff (personal
communication), and for an undetermined number of languages in the competence of a sub-
stantial number of linguists (at the Linguistic Institute in Ann Arbor, Summer 1973, and else-
where) who have found what follows to be consistent with what they know of their languages,
or illuminating of otherwise recalcitrant problems in their understanding. Furthermore,
examination of cross-cultural conversation, where parties do not share a language of competence
but a lingua franca in which all are only barely competent, is consistent with what follows
(cf. Jordan & Fuller, MS). Finally, the cross-cultural question, as we understand it, asks how
the structures on which we report vary across languages (lexically or syntactically conceived),
or language communities, or across social organizations etc.-structures which are thereby
cast as more basic ones. That ordering is not at all clear to us. We do find that aspects of turn-
taking organization may vary in terms of other aspects of the sequential organization of
conversation. And, as we suggest in the final section of this paper, there are various turn-taking
systems for various speech-exchange systems, e.g. conversation, debate etc.
reality in a local context. Some aspects of the organization of conversation must
be expected to have this context-free, context-sensitive status; for, of course,
conversation is a vehicle for interaction between parties with any potential identities,
and with any potential familiarity. We have concluded that the organization of
TURN-TAKING for conversation might be such a thing. That is, it appears to have
an appropriate sort of general abstractness and local particularization potential.
In sum, turn-taking seems a basic form of organization for conversation-
'basic', in that it would be invariant to parties, such that whatever variations the
parties brought to bear in the conversation would be accommodated without change
in the system, and such that it could be selectively and locally affected by social
aspects of context. Depiction of an organization for turn-taking should fit the
facts of variability by virtue of a design allowing it to be context-sensitive; but it
should be cast in a manner that, requiring no reference to any particular context,
still captures the most important general properties of conversation.
To merit serious consideration, it seems to us, a model should be capable of
accommodating (i.e. either be compatible with, or allow the derivation of) the
following grossly apparent facts.9 In any conversation, we observe the following: 10
(1) Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs (cf. ?4.1, below).
(2) Overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time (cf. ?4.2).
(3) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief
(cf. ?4.3).
(4) Transitions (from one turn to a next) with no gap and no overlap are
9 There are obvious structures involved in this list: historical structures, by reference to which
some facts would be noted only after others; and substantive structures, in which different points
are variously related to each other. The list is presented so as to over-ride any such structures.
Much might be learned from considering them, but we are not interested here in such uses of
these points. The list of points is intended as a set of empirical constraints on the model we
propose, and, for now, nothing more-just as most of the attention we will give our model of
turn-taking will be addressed to showing that the model meets the constraints set by these
empirical observations. The list should be read with these intended uses in mind. For example,
each item might be read as following not the item that preceded it in the list, but following the
sentence preceding the list as a whole.
10 The heading 'in any conversation' has raised, for several readers of this paper in manu-
script, the question of cross-cultural validity. Such a question can, of course, be settled only
empirically, by examining varieties of conversational materials. We can report the validity
of our assertions for the materials we have examined, and apparently for Thai materials
examined by Moerman 1972, New Guinea creole materials examined by G. Sankoff (personal
communication), and for an undetermined number of languages in the competence of a sub-
stantial number of linguists (at the Linguistic Institute in Ann Arbor, Summer 1973, and else-
where) who have found what follows to be consistent with what they know of their languages,
or illuminating of otherwise recalcitrant problems in their understanding. Furthermore,
examination of cross-cultural conversation, where parties do not share a language of competence
but a lingua franca in which all are only barely competent, is consistent with what follows
(cf. Jordan & Fuller, MS). Finally, the cross-cultural question, as we understand it, asks how
the structures on which we report vary across languages (lexically or syntactically conceived),
or language communities, or across social organizations etc.-structures which are thereby
cast as more basic ones. That ordering is not at all clear to us. We do find that aspects of turn-
taking organization may vary in terms of other aspects of the sequential organization of
conversation. And, as we suggest in the final section of this paper, there are various turn-taking
systems for various speech-exchange systems, e.g. conversation, debate etc.
reality in a local context. Some aspects of the organization of conversation must
be expected to have this context-free, context-sensitive status; for, of course,
conversation is a vehicle for interaction between parties with any potential identities,
and with any potential familiarity. We have concluded that the organization of
TURN-TAKING for conversation might be such a thing. That is, it appears to have
an appropriate sort of general abstractness and local particularization potential.
In sum, turn-taking seems a basic form of organization for conversation-
'basic', in that it would be invariant to parties, such that whatever variations the
parties brought to bear in the conversation would be accommodated without change
in the system, and such that it could be selectively and locally affected by social
aspects of context. Depiction of an organization for turn-taking should fit the
facts of variability by virtue of a design allowing it to be context-sensitive; but it
should be cast in a manner that, requiring no reference to any particular context,
still captures the most important general properties of conversation.
To merit serious consideration, it seems to us, a model should be capable of
accommodating (i.e. either be compatible with, or allow the derivation of) the
following grossly apparent facts.9 In any conversation, we observe the following: 10
(1) Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs (cf. ?4.1, below).
(2) Overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time (cf. ?4.2).
(3) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief
(cf. ?4.3).
(4) Transitions (from one turn to a next) with no gap and no overlap are
9 There are obvious structures involved in this list: historical structures, by reference to which
some facts would be noted only after others; and substantive structures, in which different points
are variously related to each other. The list is presented so as to over-ride any such structures.
Much might be learned from considering them, but we are not interested here in such uses of
these points. The list of points is intended as a set of empirical constraints on the model we
propose, and, for now, nothing more-just as most of the attention we will give our model of
turn-taking will be addressed to showing that the model meets the constraints set by these
empirical observations. The list should be read with these intended uses in mind. For example,
each item might be read as following not the item that preceded it in the list, but following the
sentence preceding the list as a whole.
10 The heading 'in any conversation' has raised, for several readers of this paper in manu-
script, the question of cross-cultural validity. Such a question can, of course, be settled only
empirically, by examining varieties of conversational materials. We can report the validity
of our assertions for the materials we have examined, and apparently for Thai materials
examined by Moerman 1972, New Guinea creole materials examined by G. Sankoff (personal
communication), and for an undetermined number of languages in the competence of a sub-
stantial number of linguists (at the Linguistic Institute in Ann Arbor, Summer 1973, and else-
where) who have found what follows to be consistent with what they know of their languages,
or illuminating of otherwise recalcitrant problems in their understanding. Furthermore,
examination of cross-cultural conversation, where parties do not share a language of competence
but a lingua franca in which all are only barely competent, is consistent with what follows
(cf. Jordan & Fuller, MS). Finally, the cross-cultural question, as we understand it, asks how
the structures on which we report vary across languages (lexically or syntactically conceived),
or language communities, or across social organizations etc.-structures which are thereby
cast as more basic ones. That ordering is not at all clear to us. We do find that aspects of turn-
taking organization may vary in terms of other aspects of the sequential organization of
conversation. And, as we suggest in the final section of this paper, there are various turn-taking
systems for various speech-exchange systems, e.g. conversation, debate etc.
reality in a local context. Some aspects of the organization of conversation must
be expected to have this context-free, context-sensitive status; for, of course,
conversation is a vehicle for interaction between parties with any potential identities,
and with any potential familiarity. We have concluded that the organization of
TURN-TAKING for conversation might be such a thing. That is, it appears to have
an appropriate sort of general abstractness and local particularization potential.
In sum, turn-taking seems a basic form of organization for conversation-
'basic', in that it would be invariant to parties, such that whatever variations the
parties brought to bear in the conversation would be accommodated without change
in the system, and such that it could be selectively and locally affected by social
aspects of context. Depiction of an organization for turn-taking should fit the
facts of variability by virtue of a design allowing it to be context-sensitive; but it
should be cast in a manner that, requiring no reference to any particular context,
still captures the most important general properties of conversation.
To merit serious consideration, it seems to us, a model should be capable of
accommodating (i.e. either be compatible with, or allow the derivation of) the
following grossly apparent facts.9 In any conversation, we observe the following: 10
(1) Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs (cf. ?4.1, below).
(2) Overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time (cf. ?4.2).
(3) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief
(cf. ?4.3).
(4) Transitions (from one turn to a next) with no gap and no overlap are
9 There are obvious structures involved in this list: historical structures, by reference to which
some facts would be noted only after others; and substantive structures, in which different points
are variously related to each other. The list is presented so as to over-ride any such structures.
Much might be learned from considering them, but we are not interested here in such uses of
these points. The list of points is intended as a set of empirical constraints on the model we
propose, and, for now, nothing more-just as most of the attention we will give our model of
turn-taking will be addressed to showing that the model meets the constraints set by these
empirical observations. The list should be read with these intended uses in mind. For example,
each item might be read as following not the item that preceded it in the list, but following the
sentence preceding the list as a whole.
10 The heading 'in any conversation' has raised, for several readers of this paper in manu-
script, the question of cross-cultural validity. Such a question can, of course, be settled only
empirically, by examining varieties of conversational materials. We can report the validity
of our assertions for the materials we have examined, and apparently for Thai materials
examined by Moerman 1972, New Guinea creole materials examined by G. Sankoff (personal
communication), and for an undetermined number of languages in the competence of a sub-
stantial number of linguists (at the Linguistic Institute in Ann Arbor, Summer 1973, and else-
where) who have found what follows to be consistent with what they know of their languages,
or illuminating of otherwise recalcitrant problems in their understanding. Furthermore,
examination of cross-cultural conversation, where parties do not share a language of competence
but a lingua franca in which all are only barely competent, is consistent with what follows
(cf. Jordan & Fuller, MS). Finally, the cross-cultural question, as we understand it, asks how
the structures on which we report vary across languages (lexically or syntactically conceived),
or language communities, or across social organizations etc.-structures which are thereby
cast as more basic ones. That ordering is not at all clear to us. We do find that aspects of turn-
taking organization may vary in terms of other aspects of the sequential organization of
conversation. And, as we suggest in the final section of this paper, there are various turn-taking
systems for various speech-exchange systems, e.g. conversation, debate etc.
reality in a local context. Some aspects of the organization of conversation must
be expected to have this context-free, context-sensitive status; for, of course,
conversation is a vehicle for interaction between parties with any potential identities,
and with any potential familiarity. We have concluded that the organization of
TURN-TAKING for conversation might be such a thing. That is, it appears to have
an appropriate sort of general abstractness and local particularization potential.
In sum, turn-taking seems a basic form of organization for conversation-
'basic', in that it would be invariant to parties, such that whatever variations the
parties brought to bear in the conversation would be accommodated without change
in the system, and such that it could be selectively and locally affected by social
aspects of context. Depiction of an organization for turn-taking should fit the
facts of variability by virtue of a design allowing it to be context-sensitive; but it
should be cast in a manner that, requiring no reference to any particular context,
still captures the most important general properties of conversation.
To merit serious consideration, it seems to us, a model should be capable of
accommodating (i.e. either be compatible with, or allow the derivation of) the
following grossly apparent facts.9 In any conversation, we observe the following: 10
(1) Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs (cf. ?4.1, below).
(2) Overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time (cf. ?4.2).
(3) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief
(cf. ?4.3).
(4) Transitions (from one turn to a next) with no gap and no overlap are
9 There are obvious structures involved in this list: historical structures, by reference to which
some facts would be noted only after others; and substantive structures, in which different points
are variously related to each other. The list is presented so as to over-ride any such structures.
Much might be learned from considering them, but we are not interested here in such uses of
these points. The list of points is intended as a set of empirical constraints on the model we
propose, and, for now, nothing more-just as most of the attention we will give our model of
turn-taking will be addressed to showing that the model meets the constraints set by these
empirical observations. The list should be read with these intended uses in mind. For example,
each item might be read as following not the item that preceded it in the list, but following the
sentence preceding the list as a whole.
10 The heading 'in any conversation' has raised, for several readers of this paper in manu-
script, the question of cross-cultural validity. Such a question can, of course, be settled only
empirically, by examining varieties of conversational materials. We can report the validity
of our assertions for the materials we have examined, and apparently for Thai materials
examined by Moerman 1972, New Guinea creole materials examined by G. Sankoff (personal
communication), and for an undetermined number of languages in the competence of a sub-
stantial number of linguists (at the Linguistic Institute in Ann Arbor, Summer 1973, and else-
where) who have found what follows to be consistent with what they know of their languages,
or illuminating of otherwise recalcitrant problems in their understanding. Furthermore,
examination of cross-cultural conversation, where parties do not share a language of competence
but a lingua franca in which all are only barely competent, is consistent with what follows
(cf. Jordan & Fuller, MS). Finally, the cross-cultural question, as we understand it, asks how
the structures on which we report vary across languages (lexically or syntactically conceived),
or language communities, or across social organizations etc.-structures which are thereby
cast as more basic ones. That ordering is not at all clear to us. We do find that aspects of turn-
taking organization may vary in terms of other aspects of the sequential organization of
conversation. And, as we suggest in the final section of this paper, there are various turn-taking
systems for various speech-exchange systems, e.g. conversation, debate etc.
reality in a local context. Some aspects of the organization of conversation must
be expected to have this context-free, context-sensitive status; for, of course,
conversation is a vehicle for interaction between parties with any potential identities,
and with any potential familiarity. We have concluded that the organization of
TURN-TAKING for conversation might be such a thing. That is, it appears to have
an appropriate sort of general abstractness and local particularization potential.
In sum, turn-taking seems a basic form of organization for conversation-
'basic', in that it would be invariant to parties, such that whatever variations the
parties brought to bear in the conversation would be accommodated without change
in the system, and such that it could be selectively and locally affected by social
aspects of context. Depiction of an organization for turn-taking should fit the
facts of variability by virtue of a design allowing it to be context-sensitive; but it
should be cast in a manner that, requiring no reference to any particular context,
still captures the most important general properties of conversation.
To merit serious consideration, it seems to us, a model should be capable of
accommodating (i.e. either be compatible with, or allow the derivation of) the
following grossly apparent facts.9 In any conversation, we observe the following: 10
(1) Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs (cf. ?4.1, below).
(2) Overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time (cf. ?4.2).
(3) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief
(cf. ?4.3).
(4) Transitions (from one turn to a next) with no gap and no overlap are
9 There are obvious structures involved in this list: historical structures, by reference to which
some facts would be noted only after others; and substantive structures, in which different points
are variously related to each other. The list is presented so as to over-ride any such structures.
Much might be learned from considering them, but we are not interested here in such uses of
these points. The list of points is intended as a set of empirical constraints on the model we
propose, and, for now, nothing more-just as most of the attention we will give our model of
turn-taking will be addressed to showing that the model meets the constraints set by these
empirical observations. The list should be read with these intended uses in mind. For example,
each item might be read as following not the item that preceded it in the list, but following the
sentence preceding the list as a whole.
10 The heading 'in any conversation' has raised, for several readers of this paper in manu-
script, the question of cross-cultural validity. Such a question can, of course, be settled only
empirically, by examining varieties of conversational materials. We can report the validity
of our assertions for the materials we have examined, and apparently for Thai materials
examined by Moerman 1972, New Guinea creole materials examined by G. Sankoff (personal
communication), and for an undetermined number of languages in the competence of a sub-
stantial number of linguists (at the Linguistic Institute in Ann Arbor, Summer 1973, and else-
where) who have found what follows to be consistent with what they know of their languages,
or illuminating of otherwise recalcitrant problems in their understanding. Furthermore,
examination of cross-cultural conversation, where parties do not share a language of competence
but a lingua franca in which all are only barely competent, is consistent with what follows
(cf. Jordan & Fuller, MS). Finally, the cross-cultural question, as we understand it, asks how
the structures on which we report vary across languages (lexically or syntactically conceived),
or language communities, or across social organizations etc.-structures which are thereby
cast as more basic ones. That ordering is not at all clear to us. We do find that aspects of turn-
taking organization may vary in terms of other aspects of the sequential organization of
conversation. And, as we suggest in the final section of this paper, there are various turn-taking
systems for various speech-exchange systems, e.g. conversation, debate etc.
reality in a local context. Some aspects of the organization of conversation must
be expected to have this context-free, context-sensitive status; for, of course,
conversation is a vehicle for interaction between parties with any potential identities,
and with any potential familiarity. We have concluded that the organization of
TURN-TAKING for conversation might be such a thing. That is, it appears to have
an appropriate sort of general abstractness and local particularization potential.
In sum, turn-taking seems a basic form of organization for conversation-
'basic', in that it would be invariant to parties, such that whatever variations the
parties brought to bear in the conversation would be accommodated without change
in the system, and such that it could be selectively and locally affected by social
aspects of context. Depiction of an organization for turn-taking should fit the
facts of variability by virtue of a design allowing it to be context-sensitive; but it
should be cast in a manner that, requiring no reference to any particular context,
still captures the most important general properties of conversation.
To merit serious consideration, it seems to us, a model should be capable of
accommodating (i.e. either be compatible with, or allow the derivation of) the
following grossly apparent facts.9 In any conversation, we observe the following: 10
(1) Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs (cf. ?4.1, below).
(2) Overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time (cf. ?4.2).
(3) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief
(cf. ?4.3).
(4) Transitions (from one turn to a next) with no gap and no overlap are
9 There are obvious structures involved in this list: historical structures, by reference to which
some facts would be noted only after others; and substantive structures, in which different points
are variously related to each other. The list is presented so as to over-ride any such structures.
Much might be learned from considering them, but we are not interested here in such uses of
these points. The list of points is intended as a set of empirical constraints on the model we
propose, and, for now, nothing more-just as most of the attention we will give our model of
turn-taking will be addressed to showing that the model meets the constraints set by these
empirical observations. The list should be read with these intended uses in mind. For example,
each item might be read as following not the item that preceded it in the list, but following the
sentence preceding the list as a whole.
10 The heading 'in any conversation' has raised, for several readers of this paper in manu-
script, the question of cross-cultural validity. Such a question can, of course, be settled only
empirically, by examining varieties of conversational materials. We can report the validity
of our assertions for the materials we have examined, and apparently for Thai materials
examined by Moerman 1972, New Guinea creole materials examined by G. Sankoff (personal
communication), and for an undetermined number of languages in the competence of a sub-
stantial number of linguists (at the Linguistic Institute in Ann Arbor, Summer 1973, and else-
where) who have found what follows to be consistent with what they know of their languages,
or illuminating of otherwise recalcitrant problems in their understanding. Furthermore,
examination of cross-cultural conversation, where parties do not share a language of competence
but a lingua franca in which all are only barely competent, is consistent with what follows
(cf. Jordan & Fuller, MS). Finally, the cross-cultural question, as we understand it, asks how
the structures on which we report vary across languages (lexically or syntactically conceived),
or language communities, or across social organizations etc.-structures which are thereby
cast as more basic ones. That ordering is not at all clear to us. We do find that aspects of turn-
taking organization may vary in terms of other aspects of the sequential organization of
conversation. And, as we suggest in the final section of this paper, there are various turn-taking
systems for various speech-exchange systems, e.g. conversation, debate etc.
reality in a local context. Some aspects of the organization of conversation must
be expected to have this context-free, context-sensitive status; for, of course,
conversation is a vehicle for interaction between parties with any potential identities,
and with any potential familiarity. We have concluded that the organization of
TURN-TAKING for conversation might be such a thing. That is, it appears to have
an appropriate sort of general abstractness and local particularization potential.
In sum, turn-taking seems a basic form of organization for conversation-
'basic', in that it would be invariant to parties, such that whatever variations the
parties brought to bear in the conversation would be accommodated without change
in the system, and such that it could be selectively and locally affected by social
aspects of context. Depiction of an organization for turn-taking should fit the
facts of variability by virtue of a design allowing it to be context-sensitive; but it
should be cast in a manner that, requiring no reference to any particular context,
still captures the most important general properties of conversation.
To merit serious consideration, it seems to us, a model should be capable of
accommodating (i.e. either be compatible with, or allow the derivation of) the
following grossly apparent facts.9 In any conversation, we observe the following: 10
(1) Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs (cf. ?4.1, below).
(2) Overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time (cf. ?4.2).
(3) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief
(cf. ?4.3).
(4) Transitions (from one turn to a next) with no gap and no overlap are
9 There are obvious structures involved in this list: historical structures, by reference to which
some facts would be noted only after others; and substantive structures, in which different points
are variously related to each other. The list is presented so as to over-ride any such structures.
Much might be learned from considering them, but we are not interested here in such uses of
these points. The list of points is intended as a set of empirical constraints on the model we
propose, and, for now, nothing more-just as most of the attention we will give our model of
turn-taking will be addressed to showing that the model meets the constraints set by these
empirical observations. The list should be read with these intended uses in mind. For example,
each item might be read as following not the item that preceded it in the list, but following the
sentence preceding the list as a whole.
10 The heading 'in any conversation' has raised, for several readers of this paper in manu-
script, the question of cross-cultural validity. Such a question can, of course, be settled only
empirically, by examining varieties of conversational materials. We can report the validity
of our assertions for the materials we have examined, and apparently for Thai materials
examined by Moerman 1972, New Guinea creole materials examined by G. Sankoff (personal
communication), and for an undetermined number of languages in the competence of a sub-
stantial number of linguists (at the Linguistic Institute in Ann Arbor, Summer 1973, and else-
where) who have found what follows to be consistent with what they know of their languages,
or illuminating of otherwise recalcitrant problems in their understanding. Furthermore,
examination of cross-cultural conversation, where parties do not share a language of competence
but a lingua franca in which all are only barely competent, is consistent with what follows
(cf. Jordan & Fuller, MS). Finally, the cross-cultural question, as we understand it, asks how
the structures on which we report vary across languages (lexically or syntactically conceived),
or language communities, or across social organizations etc.-structures which are thereby
cast as more basic ones. That ordering is not at all clear to us. We do find that aspects of turn-
taking organization may vary in terms of other aspects of the sequential organization of
conversation. And, as we suggest in the final section of this paper, there are various turn-taking
systems for various speech-exchange systems, e.g. conversation, debate etc.
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