Michael Rosen - Taking Turns in Conversation

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06zryhp 
Michael Rosen and linguist Dr Laura Wright discuss how well we judge taking it in turns when we're in conversation. Professor Stephen Levinson has new research on the science behind this, and joins them in the studio for a carefully-calibrated discussion.. He believes that the back-and-forth pattern we instinctively fall into may have evolved before language itself. Levinson's research has found that it takes about 200 milliseconds for us to reply to each other, but it takes about 600 milliseconds to prepare what we're going to say - so we're preparing as we listen. Levinson notes that this is a pattern found across all human languages, and some animal species, and that infants begin taking turns in interactions at about six months of age, before they can even speak. But what's going on when someone seems to get it wrong, to interrupt or talk over the other person?

-'let me finish'; thought it wasn't his dads turn - shows that he didn't like being interrupted
-How adults show people not to interrupt - talking loudly, staring, repeating yourself
-Taking turns in conversation is essential
-Turn taking is actually been around longer than words themselves
-200ms gap between turns - shortest human response (as fast as the blink of an eye)
-Rising intonation is a sign of someone finishing speak - a sign for the next person to speak
-As the first person is speaking, the second person is already thinking about their response (able to do two things at once)
-People turn take around 1500 times a day
-If their is a long pause between turns - their is a problem, can lead to awkwardness etc.
-If their is a negative response, it is harder to reply (takes longer)
-'no' surprises the brain, however after a while, it gets used to it
-Some species turn take gesturally
-Mums and infants (from 3 months) already turn take - vocally or gesturally
-'If you're happy and you know it clap your hands' - response of child is almost instant (clap their hands and laugh for example)
-Collaborative conversation - people share stories and knowledge
-All topics link together
-7,000 different languages, however all turn take

London Transcript Analysis

Three Girls from HullThis conversation is an interview set out with a question and answer structure. The interviewer is asking the interviewees what they think of London. There are 4 participants in the conversation (including the interviewer) – three of which are female. Firstly, the interviewer says ‘Hello’ and all three girls reply by saying ‘Hi!’. This use of colloquial language relaxes all participants as this language is used in everyday language so they are used to hearing it – it sets an informal register for the rest of the conversation. The fact that the ‘Hi’ uses an exclamation also highlights the fact that the girls are perhaps excited to be in London and are enthusiastic about the city; suggesting that the interview will be a good one. The participants use adjacency pairs throughout the conversation – they take it on turns to speak. This suggests that the participants are all fully engaged in the conversation and there are no moments where no one was speaking. This may be due to the fact that the three girls were close friends and also again, because they are excited.

Firstly, the interviewer asks ‘So, where are you all from?’ – the fact that he uses an interrogative sets the conversation and gives the girls no reason not to reply; as he is asking them a question. The interrogative starts with a discourse marker, perhaps to highlight the fact that he was about to ask them a question and he wanted them to reply seriously. The conjunction choice of ‘so’ emphasises the fact that the interviewer does really want to know more about the girls. The interrogative is also an example of phatic talk; perhaps used by the interviewer firstly, to relax the girls and make them feel more comfortable to participate in the conversation. The girls reply to the question with ‘Erm, Hull’. The girls use a voiced pause here, which is a typically female feature of speech. It shows that maybe they feel slightly pressured and maybe they assumed that the question was going to be harder than it turned out to be; so it came across as if they had to think hard about where they lived.

Furthermore, the interviewer moves on and asks, ‘Hull? Ok, so how long have you been in London?’. The blonde girl then replies by saying, ‘We came yesterday’. The fact that she replied for the other girls, suggests that she is the most confident out of them. Also, when watching the transcript, when the interviewer asked the question the other two girls looked at the blonde girl as if to signal to her to answer it; perhaps suggesting that the other girls slightly rely on the blonde girl? This paralinguistic feature plays a big part in analysing how the girls represent themselves in conversation. The brunette girl seems to have the least turns speaking in the whole conversation (2 times in total) and the only times she does really speak are when overlapping the other girls. For example, the blonde girl says ‘It’s really busy’ and the brunette girl overlaps by saying ‘busy’. This suggests that the brunette girl may be insecure and hides behind others slightly in conversation – however, this may only be due to the fact that she is being interviewed and feels slightly pressured.

Carrying on from this, throughout the girls do tend to use overlaps – and very few interruptions. This highlights the fact that the girls know each other well and are sort of in a sense finishing each other’s sentences; strongly showing the relationship between them. Further on in the conversation, the interviewer says, ‘So, it’s better here than it is in Hull, is it?’. The use of a tag question suggests that he was just trying to keep the conversation going and it highlights the fact that he is interested in the girl’s opinions – reassuring them of this also.

Later on in the transcript, the interviewer asks, ‘Why? What’s wrong with the tube?’ and the girls reply with, ‘It’s too stressful’, ‘It’s too hot and busy’ and ‘and grimy’. This sense of taboo language and slang may be an indicator of the age of the participants. The adjective ‘grimy’ suggests the girl’s sociolect and perhaps highlights where they are from – it suggests they have the sociolect of the younger generation.

Finally, the transcript ends with the interviewer asking ‘Anything else to say to the people of the world?’ and the girls reply with ‘Come to London!’ and ‘Hiii! Come to Hull to go out with us’. This suggests the personality of the girls slightly – they come across as excitable and friendly. Overall, the conversation flows fairly well as there are no pauses throughout the whole transcript – the participants continued to turn take throughout. The features the girls use are fairly expected also as voiced pauses and overlaps are seen as typically female.

A Couple from the USAThis conversation is between an interviewer interviewing a couple from New York City in the USA. It is set out with a question and answer structure – with adjacency pairs throughout. The USA man seems quite patriotic and seems to have power over the conversation. Unlike the women who only says two things throughout the whole conversation.

Firstly, the interviewer asks ‘Hello. So, where are you from?’ and the USA man replies with ‘We’re from the good old USA, the biggest city in the world. New York…’. This suggests that the man, much like many other Americans is extremely patriotic. The superlative adjective ‘biggest’ is used by the man to emphasise how big his city which he lives in is, but to also almost show off about it; it highlights how proud he is of his home city. However, after this the interviewer replies and says, ‘oh, amazing’ but the USA man replies with, ‘but it cannot compare to London’ and he continues by saying, ‘I wanna just express our love for England’. The use of elision here with the lexis, ‘wanna’, shows where the couple are from and highlights their American accents. The noun, ‘love’ emphasises not only how enthusiastic the American man is for his own country, but for England too.

Furthermore, throughout the transcript, it is clear to see that the USA man, overpowers his wife in conversation; she sits back and lets him speak. This may be perhaps to do with gender? However, it could also just be about his personality; he comes across as enthusiastic and very friendly. He also uses a first person plural – ‘we’ve’ almost speaking for her in a sense. This contraction is significant as it shows the power the man has over the women. As well as this, later on in the transcript, the woman has a chance to speak so she says, ‘A wonderful experience’. However, a second later the man starts to speak and repeats exactly what she had just said – ‘A wonderful experience’. This suggests that maybe he felt a lack of power at that point and therefore repeated what she said to re-gain that power he originally had. By saying it after her, he had the final say.

Comparing this transcript to the one with the three girls, it is clear to see that interviewer has changed his language and the way in which he speaks. In the first transcript, he seemed more confident as he asks many questions such as ‘So, what do you think? What’s London like?’ and ‘Why? What’s wrong with the tube?’. Where as in this transcript he seems to be just replying to the man – as previously stated the USA man seems as though he likes to be in power. The interviewer in this transcript perhaps has a lack of quantity as he replies mostly with one word answers such as ‘Excellent’ and ‘That’s great’. This may be due to the fact that he feels quite intimidated by the man.

Overall, it is clear to see that the USA man is very confident and therefore he was able to have a sense of power over the conversation throughout – even over the interviewer. Towards the end of the transcript, the man even changes the subject himself with the use of discourse markers such as ‘now’ and ‘well’. The interviewer seems to have a lack of power towards the end shown though the use of his un-fluency features such as, ‘Err… it... it… I’m not sure’ – this use of hesitation highlights the fact that the interviewer perhaps feels slightly intimidated.

Michael Rosen - The Top 20 Words in English

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06z2pmp 

Michael Rosen and Dr Laura Wright guide us through the top 20 words in English. Not the best or most popular (that would include tentacular, ping-pong and sesquipedalian (look it up - it's a cracker). Plus a lot of swearing. No this is the 20 most commonly used. It's actually quite a boring list - full of 'And', 'I', 'of' etc - but look a little closer and it tells you all about the structure of language. The little words you really can't do without that glue all the other ones together.

-No nouns, very few verbs.
-Top 5; the, be, to, of, and

-And is said and comes out as 'n'

-These are the very frequent items that we use, that are entrenched in our brains -you process them faster; don't realise they are happening - they hold our language together.

-Nouns and verbs - content words (words with meanings)
-Grammatical words - 't' 've' 'n' 'that' 'which 'when' (words that hold our language together)- without these grammatical words, there would be no sentences; nothing would make sense

-Google; won't search grammatical words .e.g. 'language and literature' - wouldn't search 'and'

-Context changes meanings

-Pharrel Williams - Happy; sounds weird without grammatical words and only content words (they make sentences make sense)

-50% of our words are nouns, 21% verbs, 15% adjectives 

-Top 20 - exclusively old English (anglo saxons) 

-Blogs - informal - speech-like; 'internet-talk'

-Pop song lyrics - items that come up frequency; top ten - 'i' 'me' 'my' - unlike spoken and written language - very ego-centric - 'love' 'make' 'baby' 'sad' 'alone' 'rain' 

Spoken Language Analysis

In this transcript, the two girls are talking about various different topics, including what subjects they are studying, their pets, what they want to do at university, where they are from and how many siblings they have. As there are only two participants in the conversation, we can see that throughout, the participants are using adjacency pairs – a form of turn taking. This means that the conversation flows nicely and there is no awkward silences or times when a participant doesn’t realise that it was there turn to speak. For example, participant number 2 says ‘I have three step brothers as well’ – followed by a laugh, signalling to participant number 1 to speak, so she reply’s with ‘oh my god, no way!’. Another feature that the girls tend to use throughout is the clever use of intonation – the rise and fall of their voices at the end of an utterance. They tend to rise their tone of voice at the end of what they are saying to signal to the other participant that it is their turn to speak.

Firstly, the conversation starts off with one of the girls asking ‘So, what subjects do you take at college?’. This utterance starts with a discourse marker – to set a new subject of conversation or to kick start the conversation off. It may also be a sign of gender as females tend to use conjunctions such as ‘so’ in conversation to come across as more friendly and also perhaps more relaxed. This utterance is also a form of phatic talk, also known as ‘social gel’, meaning that the participant is only really asking the question as something to talk about. The fact that she uses an interrogative also means that it is easier for the second participant to reply; avoiding any awkwardness – something that females tend to try and avoid in conversation.

Furthermore, throughout the whole conversation, the girls tend to use overlaps; not interruptions. This suggests that the participants are quite relaxed with each other and are genuinely enjoying and are interested in the conversation. For example, participant number 2 says ‘yeah, I have a dog’ and participant number 1 overlaps by saying ‘aww, I love dogs’. Although mostly throughout the conversation it seems to be flowing, at some points there are signs of a lack of quantity from participant number 1. This is shown as she says ‘yeah, yeah’, although this could be seen as a sign of back channelling, after she follows it with a pause, causing participant number 2 to ask an interrogative; ‘so, do you have a job?’. This suggests that perhaps participant number 2 is more confident in taking part in the conversation. As she feels as if she should use a discourse marker followed by an interrogative to help move the conversation along. Although the participants use discourse markers and change the topic of conversation, there is still a sense of chaining throughout– all the topics link and the conversation flows and makes sense; it is all relevant.

Although at this point, participant number 2 seems to come across as more confident in the conversation, she tends to use non-fluency features such as false starts and hesitations. For example, ‘-it- - it was alright I guess’. This may show a sense of insecurity in the participant and perhaps she loses her confidence as the conversation moves along. Perhaps due to participant number 1 using a lot of back channelling and maybe she thinks that she is speaking too much?

Throughout the transcript, it is clear to see that the participants use elision and non-standard grammar. For example, they use lexis such as ‘lotta’, ‘wanna’ and ‘kinda’. This may be a sign of accent and where they are from, however perhaps it may be a sign of sociolect – it is simply the language of teenagers. The fact that the girls use elision in the conversation suggest that they are of the same class and have the same power in the conversation – they don’t feel pressured to speak differently to how they normally do. As well as the use of elision, the participants also use slang and colloquial language; they tend to use an informal use of their lexis. For example, ‘yeah, it was pretty sick’ and ‘yeah duhh’. The lexis ‘sick’ is used for a different meaning than usual – she means that it was good rather than what connotations the word usually has. This also may be a sign of sociolect and also is just a sign that the participants are quite laid back and aren’t really worrying if what they are saying is grammatically correct or not. 

As previously stated, the girls tend to use back channelling throughout, such as ‘yeah, yeah’. As well as this feature, the participants also tend to use tag questions at the end of their utterances. For example, ’36 or something, isn’t there?’. This shows that the participants are female as females typically tend to look for reassurance and agreement in conversation. The use of lexis such as ‘same!’ also shows that the girls are agreeing with each other and this helps the conversation flow nicely throughout. The fact that this participant also uses an exclamation shows that she is enjoying the conversation and is excitable because both participants have the same opinion.

Overall, the conversation flows throughout, despite the lack of quantity in some areas. The participants use features which are typically female, such as back channelling and the use of tag questions which would be expected and also their sociolect shows throughout with their use of informal lexis and colloquial language. The conversation flows with the use of turn-taking and it is clear to see that the participants enjoyed the conversation as they used overlaps throughout. The fact that they used overlaps and not interruptions is also another sign that the participants were females and shows that they are polite; not one of them was over confident.