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Watts observed that German conversation was primarily geared
towards the setting up of positions and the consequent need to disagree
with and disavow co-participants' positions. Floor occupation (the
conversational slot one takes when one is speaking) to proffer such
positions was considered by German participants to be one of the major
raison detre for verbal interaction (ibid. 160-161). Conversely, English
conversation was more geared towards the negotiation of the topic and the
support of every participant's rights to the floor. The proffering and
countering of personal positions characteristic of German conversation
appeared much reduced in English familial conversational (ibid. 161).
Although concentrating on naturally occurring conversation rather
than speech acts and pragmatic talk, Watts attempted to consolidate these
observations by identifying five salient ways in which the two cultural styles
differed. First, in German conversation, the rate of intervention at non
transition relevant placeS5 was shown to be higher. That is, whereas English
speakers tended to hold off their turns until a speaker had finished or was
about to finish a turn at talk, whereby possible transition to another speaker
became a conversational option, German speakers more frequently
overlapped others' turns at talk. Importantly, this was not done simply to
provide support for the current speaker, but often to proffer forcefully
counter-propositional statements or challenge what was being said. In fact,
Watts noted that the prevalence of such a strategy led German speaker's to
expect to be interrupted and for that turn to contain a contradictory position.
Second, in making conversational contributions, German speakers
appeared primarily concerned with the setting up of individual personal
positions or assessments as part and parcel of conversational activity. Third,
as a consequence of this collective alignment to talk and each other as
participants, Watts argued that German participants actually expected to be
contradicted and have their standpoints countered in and through the
normative playing out of conversational topic development. Fourth, in
German conversation, personal standpoints were seen to be not things to be
jointly negotiated, through for example the merging of individual positions
(as in fact the English seemed to favour), but rather, regarded as personal
stances to be accepted or countered by fellow interlocutors. Finally, in terms
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