Page 78 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol. 4(1) (2016)
P. 78
Explanation a very handsome waiter, they talk about men and
about age differences in relationships and mar-
(explanation) Description of the conversational situa- riage. Sacs, Schegloff & Jefferson24 in their study
tion. proposed that there must be some formal appa-
Explanation of not understandable parts of ratus which is itself context-free, in such ways
the conversation. that it can be sensitive to and exhibit its sensitiv-
ity to various parameters of social reality in local
UPPER CASE Increased volume context. According to them some aspects of the
organization of conversation must be expected
° Talk it precedes is low in volume. to have this context-free, context-sensitive status;
for of course, conversation is a vehicle for inter-
A pause can be classified as an inter-turn pausestudia universitatis her editati, letnik 4 (2016), številk a 1 78action between parties with any potential iden-
(represented by a number in parentheses ex- tities and with any potential familiarity. Unlike
pressed in tenths of seconds or in seconds), ahereditati the authors who consider it undesirable to have
normal pause (longer than a latch but short- to characterize situations of particular conversa-
er than half a second, represented by a punctu- tions in order to investigate them, we decided to
ation mark) and a pause between two turn-tak- determine the conversational context in order to
ings (longer than half a second and represented facilitate the interpretation of the results. The
by a number in parentheses). Equals at the end of conversational “manners” of Zadar’s and Pula’s
a prior and at the start of a next instance of talk speakers fit into, but to a different extent, the
are used to present that the two turn-takings are proposed general aspects observable in any con-
latched together. Interruptions, in the transcript versation. Zadar’s conversational style is mostly
presented by a square bracket opening, usually characterized by the following statement: “Oc-
have a negative connotation22 and refer to all the currences of more than one speaker at a time are
vocalizations where while one subject is speak- common but brief,”25 although the briefness they
ing, the other subject utters at least one word talk about is interpretable in more ways than
or a few syllables of a single word. The square one. Some of the instances of overlaps (from one
bracket opening represents also the beginning of to three or four words) that these authors iden-
an overlap, which is, unlike interruption, closed tify as brief, for speakers from Zadar and espe-
with another square bracket at the end of the in- cially from Pula would be considered long and
stance of talk that overlapped the previous one. identified as simultaneous talk. Zadar’s record-
Overlaps are in principle neutral and can end in ings prove that a very large amount of turn-tak-
simultaneous talk (when at least two voices vo- ings ends in overlaps, many of which continue in
calize more than one word at once).23 simultaneous talk. This is illustrated in the fol-
lowing examples.
Croatian speakers of Zadar
Our recordings show a naturally occurring con- Example 1
versation among four female friends and work C: Još da kape nabavimo. =
colleagues in their thirties. During their lunch G: = (Singing) Sve b[i seeeke ljuuubile mornare.
break they go for a cup of coffee to a nearby cof- M: [Što da nabavimo?]
fee shop. Their conversation is very casual con-
stantly switching from one subject to another. Example 2
They start with slandering one and planning a T: [Onda da i ja ovako [okrenem da bude jasno?
surprise for another colleague, continue about
going abroad and scholarships, having a baby and 24 Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson, “A simplest systematics for the orga-
getting married and finally, after having noticed nization of turn-taking for conversation,” 699-700.

22 Tannen, “Interpreting Interruption in Conversation,” 276-277. 25 Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson, “A simplest systematics for the orga-
23 Tannen, “Interpreting Interruption in Conversation,” 276-277. nization of turn-taking for conversation,” 706-708.
   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83