Announcing 'Stammering Research' - Stammering Research - UCL

Stammering Research. Vol. 1.
severe speech dysfluencies which results in interpersonal communication that is disjointed and strained. In
this respect, it would be appropriate to examine the relationship between stammering and the turn taking
model developed by Sacks and his colleagues, by engaging in a thorough analysis of conversational
interaction involving people who stammer in terms of this model. This is likely to be quite a substantial
and long-term project, the outcome of which would be a description of the general organisational
mechanisms that shape these conversations and an examination of the degree to which the constraints
imposed by the turn taking system contribute to speech patterns characteristic of people who stammer. A
further issue to be considered is whether stammering violates the turn taking model, or sufficiently distorts
it, to the extent that it could be regarded as an example of disadvantaged interaction. To put all of this in
context, it is necessary to outline the key features of the turn-taking model for conversation as formulated
by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1978).
The mechanics of turn-taking
In order to explain the high degree of orderliness in conversation, Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson
formulated a set of rules which serve to allocate turns within what they regard as a conversational
economy. With access to the floor thus perceived as a scarce resource, it is the function of the turn
management system to distribute turns among participants, the basic currency being turn constructional
units. While these unit-types may take the form of words, phrases, clauses, or sentences, the important
thing about each is that they are projectible, that is participants can predict where they will end. A
speaker 14 beginning a turn is initially entitled to one such turn constructional unit, the completion of which
constitutes a possible 'transition relevance place' (Sacks et al., 1978:12). The concept of a transition
relevance place (hereafter TRP) is fundamental to the turn taking model and may be broadly defined as the
point in a conversation where a natural transition of speakers may occur:
This spot that participants recognize as the potential end of a turn, this place where a
transition from one speaker to another becomes relevant, is called a 'transition relevance
place' (Nofsinger 1991:81).
It is here that the turn-taking rules governing the rights and responsibilities of speakers come into play. At
each TRP three different techniques may be used by participants to determine the next speaker: 'current
speaker selects next', 'any listener self-selects', and 'current speaker continues' (Nofsinger 1991:107). The
first technique allows the current speaker to choose the next speaker during the course of the current
utterance and if employed 'the party so selected has rights and is obliged to take next turn to speak' (Sacks
et al., 1978:13). If the current speaker does not select the next speaker then any listener can select himself
or herself as the next speaker, with the one who starts first acquiring rights to the turn. The main
implication of this second option is that it puts a premium on starting quickly, a point I will return to later.
Finally, if neither of the previous two techniques are employed then the third option, 'current speaker
continues', may come into effect, in which case the system begins again at the next TRP. It is also worth
noting that these options are hierarchically ordered, leaving current speaker the most powerful in the
economics of next-speaker selection (Hopper, 1992:104).
This model is characterised by Sacks et al. (1978:40) as a 'local management system', that is it operates
on a turn by turn basis. In this respect it can be clearly distinguished from other speech exchange systems
where turn allocation is determined in advance. It can also be described as 'interactionally managed' (Sacks
et al., 1978:42) in the sense that what one person does or can do affects how the other participants behave.
In short, Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson have 'demonstrated in great detail that turn transfer is
interactionally managed through recursive procedures which enable very precise real-time co-ordination
between speakers' (Heritage 1989:25).
In compiling a list of 'grossly apparent facts' based upon their observations of ordinary conversations
Sacks et al. (1978:10-11) identified the empirical constraints which any model of turn taking, including
their own, must be capable of accommodating. Successive studies of talk-in-interaction have drawn heavily
upon this material and a closer examination of some of these constraints, coupled with a consideration of
some recent research in this area, will help to illustrate how the system described above is responsible for
the regularities evident in everyday conversation. As many of these constraints have an added significance
for people who stammer this discussion will act as a bridge into an examination of some of these issues.
The practical implications of the model
The significance of the rules developed by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson lie in their ability to account
for the basic regularities found in ordinary conversation. In general, conversation is remarkably orderly
14 The ‘speaker’ here refers to the party that is currently talking and his/her conversational partner is
referred to as the ‘listener’ or ‘recipient’. In ordinary conversation these roles alternate and speaker
selection is governed by the operation of the turn-taking system.
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