The Significance Of Turn-taking System In Explaining And Avoiding Conversational Errors

George Yule used to apply a vivid metaphor to define 'turn':if conversation is viewed as a market economy, turn is a scarce commodity. Any consumer (conversation participant) who patronizes the market intends to possess it. Those who have grasped it never demise it readily, while those who have failed to gain it are poised to take it over. To carry their points, they sometimes trigger conflicts (overlaps) deliberately.Turn is the basic structural unit of daily conversation. A turn can be made up of different language items, such as words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and sentence groups. The end of a turn is usually marked by silence of one party or start of talk of another. Having control of the right to speak at any time is called a turn. Theoretically speaking, only one party, overwhelmingly, talks at a time, while the other/others can not talk until the current speaker selects him/her/one of them as the next speaker when he/she can (and must promptly) take over the floor (see Chapter 1) and start to talk, and then the process moves in cycles. It is evident, however, that this type of 'ideal' conversation is rare in daily communication. On the contrary, overlaps and pauses (periods of silence) frequently occur around us. Though some of the errors prevent conversations from continuing, we can easily find some so-called 'errors' which facilitate conversations and, meanwhile, reflect the speaker's implicit intention, motivation, personality, and even social status. Of course, we should attach equal importance to avoiding unnecessary conversational errors.When it comes to the arrangement of this dissertation, the discussion is based upon turn-taking system put forward by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson. Through example analysis, the author firstly introduces the structure of English conversation, then lists some usual conversational errors (including 'benign' ones and 'malignant' ones) and explains the motivations. Last, the author advances a comprehensive procedure and some rule-breaking suggestions which are pragmatically meaningful for people to avoid conversational errors and make conversation smooth.