Announcing 'Stammering Research' - Stammering Research - UCL

Stammering Research. Vol. 1.
eradicate the source of all misunderstandings. In many respects the key assumption underlying this
anecdote (that the communication problems experienced by people who stammer in interaction are
correlated to the degree of patience and understanding displayed by the interlocutor) is based upon an
erroneous view of social interaction. Such an interpretation fails to take account of the complex structures
that underpin ordinary conversation. It is clear from the preceding discussion that the organisation of turn
taking and adjacency pair sequences create a number of specific problems for people who stammer. Given
the nature of stammering, it is likely that the constraints that these structures impose upon
conversationalists operate in an even more oppressive manner on people who stammer and may serve to
exacerbate the stress and anxiety that often accompanies the disorder. However, in order to clarify the
precise nature of the relationship between the turn taking system and stammering we need to engage in
detailed fine-grained analyses of naturally occurring conversations involving people who stammer.
Although the discussion so far has illustrated the collaborative nature of conversational interaction, I want
to focus more sharply on this issue now and consider some of the ways in which 'listeners' can facilitate the
production of a multi-unit turn by the speaker.
4.3 Response tokens
Many who are unfamiliar with conversation analytic work are puzzled by the close attention given to the
mundane and everyday aspects of social life and the tendency to focus on increasingly smaller and
apparently more trivial pieces of talk. However, as an examination of the research literature on response
tokens will show, the detailed analysis of the minutiae of conversation is capable of yielding some quite
far-reaching and significant results. These studies represent the ultimate confirmation, if indeed further
confirmation were needed, of Sacks' (1984:22) claim that 'there is order at all points'. Moreover, because
small bits of talk such as 'mm hms', 'yeahs', and 'uh huhs' can have vital importance for the construction of
the interaction order (Czyzewski 1995:74), their significance in relation to stammering needs to be
carefully examined.
John Heritage (1989:29), in his review of recent conversation analytic research, argued that the growing
interest in response tokens is understandable, given the exceptional prevalence of these objects in ordinary
conversation and their 'almost purely sequential' role in interaction. In contrast to linguists who characterise
these items as 'backchannel communication' (Yngve, 1970; Duncan & Fiske, 1977) and examine them in
isolation from the surrounding talk, conversation analysts stress the importance of a sequential analysis of
response tokens. Not only does their sequential placement influence the way in which they are heard, but
response tokens can also have 'systematically different sequential implications' (Czyzewski 1995:74). For
conversation analysts, then, the focus is on the job that response tokens do in the interaction. They are
interested in their interactional functions rather than their performative functions (see Czyzweski 1995:75).
A brief synopsis of some previous research on response tokens should help to clarify the specific
interactional role that they perform.
The achievement of multi-unit turns
Emanuel Schegloff's (1982) analysis of vocalisations such as 'uh huh', 'mm hmm', and 'yeah' clearly
shows that the conventional treatment of these objects within linguistics significantly underestimates their
role. Schegloff's analysis is built upon the assumption that conversation is fundamentally an interactional
activity, even if only one participant is doing the talking, and his main point of departure is the treatment of
discourse (the multi-unit sentence) as an interactional achievement. Bearing in mind that the turn-taking
system is geared towards a minimization of turn size, Schegloff sets out to examine the various ways in
which multi-unit turns are achieved. We can distinguish between speaker-initiated devices and recipientinitiated
devices and while this section will focus primarily on the latter, a brief mention of the methods
used by the speaker to create a multi-unit turn is appropriate. One way in which a speaker can potentially
secure a multi-unit turn is to indicate such an intention at the beginning of the turn. This may be achieved
through the use of various devices such as the 'list-initiating marker' or the 'story preface', whereby the
speaker provides an indication that what follows is going to require more than a single turn construction
unit (Schegloff 1982:75-76). The placement of devices for the achievement of multi-unit turns is not,
however, confined to the beginning of the turn. The 'rush through' technique, for example, is initiated near a
potential end of turn and is designed to effectively bypass a transition relevance place. It involves the
speaker speeding up the talk and running the intonation contour and phrasing across the possible
completion point (see Schegloff 1982:76; 1987:78). All of the above, while classed as 'speaker-initiated'
methods, remain only potential turn-extension devices and their successful implementation depends upon
the collaboration of speaker and recipient. Although people who stammer clearly face additional obstacles
in producing an extended turn at talk, there is evidence that they employ a similar range of speaker-initiated
devices to fluent speakers in order to achieve these multi-unit turns.
Listener-initiated discourse
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