Turn-taking strategies in English and Vietnamese casual conversations

ABSTRACT Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974 stated that “the organization of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well as to other speech-exchange systems.” Since t

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULITY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

-   -

NGUYỄN THỊ MAI HỮU

TURN-TAKING STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

CONVERSATIONS

(Chiến lược lượt lời trong hội thoại thông thường Tiếng Anh

và Tiếng Việt)

M.A Combined Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 602215

Hanoi – 2010

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULITY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

-   -

NGUYỄN THỊ MAI HỮU

TURN-TAKING STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

CONVERSATIONS

(Chiến lược lượt lời trong hội thoại thông thường Tiếng Anh

và Tiếng Việt)

M.A Combined Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 602215 Supervisor: PROF DR NGUYỄN HÒA

Hanoi – 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents ……… ……… i

Abstract ……… ……… iv

Acknowledgements ……… ……… v

List of Tables ……… ……… vi

List of Figures ……… ……… vii

Transcription Conventions ……….……….viii

Chapter 1: Introduction ……… 1

1.1 Rationale ……… 1

1.2 Objectives and significance of the study ……… 2

1.3 Scope of the study ……… 3

1.4 Organization of the study ……… 4

Chapter 2: Literature Review ……… 5

2.1 Conversation Analysis ……… 5

2.2 The Organization of Turn-taking ………7

2.2.1 Definitions of Turn ……… 7

2.2.2 Turn-taking Organization ……….8

2.3 Turn-taking strategies in English conversations ……… 10

2.3.1 Verbal turn-taking strategies ……… 11

2.3.1.1 Adjacency pairs ……… 11

2.3.1.2 Name nomination ……… 12

2.3.1.3 Recompleters ……… 12

2.3.1.4 Appositionals ……… 13

2.3.1.5 Syntactic cues ……… 13

2.3.1.6 Overlaps and interruptions ……… 13

2.3.2 Non-verbal turn-taking strategies ……… 14

2.3.2.1 Paralanguage ……… 15

2.3.2.2 Extralanguage ……… 17

2.4 Turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese conversations ……….20

2.4.1 Verbal turn-taking strategies ……… 20

2.4.2 Non-verbal turn-taking strategies ………21

Chapter 3: Methodology ……… 22

3.1 Research questions ……… 22

3.2 Research methods ……… 22

3.3 Data collection procedure ……… 26

3.4 Data transcription ……… 27

3.5 Data analysis ……… 28

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion ……… 30

4.1 Analysis of the participants and the settings of the recorded conversations 30

4.1.1 Participants ……… 30

4.1.2 Settings ……… 33

4.2 Turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese casual conversations ……… 34

4.2.1 Verbal turn-taking strategies ……… 34

4.2.1.1 Adjacency pairs ……… 35

4.2.1.2 Name nomination ……… 36

4.2.1.3 Recompleters ……… 37

4.2.1.4 Appositionals ……… 38

4.2.1.5 Syntactic cues ……… 38

4.2.1.6 Overlaps ……… 39

4.2.2 Non-verbal turn-taking strategies ………42

4.2.2.1 Paralanguage ……… 42

4.2.2.2 Extralanguage ……… 56

4.3 Similarities and differences between turn-taking strategies used in English casual conversations and those used in Vietnamese casual conversations … 60

4.3.1 Similarities ……… 60

4.3.2 Differences ……… 62

Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications ……….……… 65

5.1 Summary ……… 65

5.1.1 Turn-taking strategies in English conversations ……….…………65

5.1.2 Turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese conversations ……… …….66

5.1.3 Similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese turn-taking strategies ……… 68

5.2 Implications ……… 69

5.3 Limitationa and suggestions for further studies ………71

References ……… 73

ABSTRACT

Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) stated that “the organization of taking turns

to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well as to other speech-exchange systems.” Since these scholars developed a systematic mechanism of turn-taking in English conversations in 1974, much research has been conducted on the field and turn- taking has become a central issue in pragmatics and conversation analysis Under the scope of conversation analysis, this M.A thesis is conducted to discuss the turn- taking mechanism in general and the turn-taking strategies in particular in casual Vietnamese conversations Video ethnography and stimulated recall were applied to collect data for analysis, with which a system of turn-taking signals in Vietnamese conversations was developed The system included both verbal and non-verbal signals, namely adjacency pairs, name nomination, appositionals, recompleters, overlaps, syntactic cues, prosodies, pause, gaze directions, head movement, kinesics, and postures These strategies were, then, compared and contrasted to those applied

by the English speakers to detect any patterns that stand out On the whole, many strategies applied in the two languages are identical; whilst differences were spotted

in the use of prosodies, pause between turns, lexicons, and overlap in the two languages Specifically, the Vietnamese speakers rely on lexicons more often than the English speakers do to identify transition relevant places and to request a turn Besides, the Vietnamese speakers, who tend to favor sound volume or loudness rather than pitch variation to keep, to acquire, or to surrender a turn, seem to overlap in a higher frequency than the English speakers do Also, as compared to the English, the Vietnamese speakers have the propensity to tolerate silence of longer duration between turns With such findings, implications for teaching English in Vietnam are discussed to wind up the thesis

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Distribution of genders in ten conversations

Table 2: Results of t-test run on the independent samples of turn-taking

strategies applied by gender and intimacy Table 3: Distribution of adjacency pairs in the conversations

Table 4: Overlaps by gender and intimacy

Table 5: Distribution of turns with turn-taking signals in terms of intensity, pitch,

tempo, and duration among participants

Table 6: Intra-turn spaces and inter-turn spaces

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Sample picture of one recorded conversation

Figure 2: Measurements of intensity, duration, tempo, and pitch with Nuendo 3.0

Figure 3: Measurement of intensity with Nuendo 3.0

Figure 4: Sound of low intensity as turn-end signal

Figure 5: High intensity as turn-acquiring signal

Figure 6: High intensity as turn holding signal

Figure 7: Measurement of pitch with Nuendo 3.0

Figure 8: Rising contour as turn-beginning signal and Falling contour as

turn-end signal Figure 9: High tempo as turn-end signal

Figure 10: Adobe Audition 1.5 – Time Length Measurement

Figure 11: Hand raise to self-select a turn

Figure 12: Gesturing to select a next speaker

TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS

[ Indicates the points of overlap onset

] Indicates the point of overlap termination

= a) turn continues bellow, at the next identical symbol

b) if inserted at the end of one speaker’s turn and at the beginning of the next speaker’s turn, it indicates that there is no gap at all between the two turns

(2) An interval between utterances (two seconds in this case)

- A single dash indicates an abrupt cut-off

CAPITALS Especially loud sounds relative to surrounding talk

Ah::: Indicates lengthening the preceding sound

○ ○ Utterances between degree signs are noticeably quieter than

surrounding talk

I … “ .” indicates uncompleted utterance

↑ ↓ Indicate marked shifts into higher or lower pitch in the utterance

following the arrow Turn taking Indicates utterances of higher tempo than surrounding talk Turn taking Indicates utterances of lower tempo than surrounding talk

X _G1 The gaze of the speaker is marked above an utterance and that of

the addressee below it An unbroken line ( _) indicates that the party marked is gazing towards the other (girl 1 in this case); absence indicates lack of gaze Dots ( .) mark the transition from nongaze to gaze and the point where the gaze reaches the other is marked by X Commas (, , ,) indicates the moment when gaze is shifted

((raise hand)) Non-verbal actions or editor’s comments

(hhh) Laughter tokens

(unintelligible) Indicates a stretch of talk that is unintelligible to the analyst (comment) Single parentheses indicate unclear or probable item

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the following parts are presented:

- Rationale – reasons for choosing the research topic

- Objectives and significance of the study

- Scope of the study, and

- Organization of the study

1.1 RATIONALE

In a recent study about turn-taking (2009:10587), Tanya Stivers, Steven Levinson, Makoto Hayashi and other linguists stated that ―informal conversation is where language

is learned and where most of the business of social life is conducted A fundamental part

of the infrastructure for conversation is turn-taking, or the apportioning of who is to speak next and when.‖ Actually, much research has been conducted to study the organization of turn-taking in English; however, little has been done about that in the Vietnamese language Also, I have queried a lot whether there is a universal set of rules governing the turn-taking system across cultures or that set varies culture to culture With that thinking

in mind, I came up to carry out this research, which is about the turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese casual conversations and comparing those to turn-taking strategies applied in English conversations More significantly, in the main course of doing the research, it became more practical when I looked at it from different perspectives

From a language teacher‘s point of view, one of the most important purposes of learning English is the communicative purpose English learners have so far been familiar to meaning, language in use, and so on, but not many of them realize that there are still other matters that may help them master conversations when they are actually involved in One

of those matters is turn-taking Actually, certain strategies are commonly used in English for taking, holding onto, and relinquishing the floor in conversations The problem is whether these strategies are used in the mother tongue of the English learners and whether they are aware of such strategies if there are certain differences between those used in the mother tongue and those used in English Thus, this paper seeks to examine different strategies employed during casual conversations by native Vietnamese speakers, to take, hold onto and relinquish the floor The strategies will then be compared with those used

by English speakers in their native language, and some pedagogical implications for teaching conversation in English classes will be discussed

From a sociologist‘s stance, the following is worth mentioning The 21st Century is marked as the information era or the computer age, in which Internet is conceived as a distributed network that could connect computers together and with the invention of World Wide Web, Internet truly became a global network Internet today has become the ultimate platform for accelerating the flow of information and is the fastest-growing form

of media With the ease and convenience of exchanging information via Internet, people are more and more reliable on Internet and less on direct communication ―Staff sitting next to each other send email rather than speak‖ (Gascoigne, 2004) People find it easier

to chat via Internet than meet in person These cause serious problems to direct communication in general, and to communication skills in particular Therefore, one purpose of this study is to improve learners‘ communication ability with the awareness of some turn-taking signals used in Vietnamese and English casual conversations

From the viewpoint of a technocrat, the study of a systematic turn-taking may make a little contribution to the robotic industry, which is to develop the turn-taking system in Vietnamese so as that the robot designers may find it useful in their creating robots closer

to human beings, the new version of robots with ability to interpret both verbal and nonverbal languages

1.2 OBJECTIVES AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Turn-taking actually plays important role in everyday communication For the Vietnamese studying English and the people of other languages studying Vietnamese to

achieve smooth conversations in practice, it is a prerequisite to know how the turn-taking mechanism varies across cultures The research aims of this study, therefore, are to investigate:

- Turn-taking strategies used in Vietnamese casual conversations by native Vietnamese speakers

- The similarities and differences of turn-taking strategies used in English and Vietnamese

To achieve the above-stated objectives, the research questions should be designed so as that they cater for sufficient and relevant findings With such, the below questions will be dealt with:

(1) What turn-taking strategies are used in Vietnamese casual conversations?

(2) What are the differences and similarities between turn-taking strategies used in English casual conversations and those used in Vietnamese ones?

This study shall be of interest to those who are concerned with or have worked on Conversation Analysis, to the teachers and learners of English and of Vietnamese, who desire to develop a systematic conversation rules supporting in improving learners‘ interactional skills in the target languages, and to those who are struggling to improve their communication skills so as that they get involved in smooth and successful face-to-face conversations Specifically concerning Conversation Analysis, different researchers are recently paying much attention to turn-taking, under which two contradicted hypotheses are developed: (1) universal system hypothesis, which supports a universal set

of rules governing the turn-taking mechanism across cultures, and (2) culture variability hypothesis, by which turn-taking is language and culture dependent This study will be of moderately-significant contribution in settling such controversy over turn-taking

1.3 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH

The research focuses on the turn-taking strategies used in casual conversations in Vietnamese and compare and contrast them with those used in English

1.4 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The paper is divided into 5 chapters as below:

Chapter 1: Introduction, introducing the research topic, its rationale, aims,

significance, scope, and the organization of the research

Chapter 2: Literature Review, discussing the theoretical background in the light

of which the research matters will be discussed

Chapter 3: Methodology, describing the methods applied to investigate the

research matters

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion, presenting the outcome of the study and

providing answers to the research questions

Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications, summarizing the overall study,

proposing some recommendations with regards to turn-taking in practice, and suggesting some forms of further studies on the field

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses the theoretical framework of the study which explores the below:

o Conversation analysis

o Definitions of turn and of turn-taking organization

o Turn-taking strategies in English conversations

o Turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese conversations

2.1 Conversation Analysis

Conversation analysis (CA) is a growing field of inquiry which has been enriched by contributions from a number of disciplinary perspectives including ―pragmatics, speech act theory, interactional sociolinguistics, ethno-methodology, the ethnography of communication, variation analysis, communication theory, and social psychology‖ (Markee, 2000:23) Generally speaking, ―conversational analysts are concerned with naturally occurring instances of everyday talk follow still another, separate academic tradition of inquiry, which concentrates on the actual discourse mechanisms that serve to allocate turns of speaking, to negotiate changes in focus and to manage and direct the flow of interaction.‖ (Gumperz, 1982:158)

Initially, CA researchers focused on describing the organizational structure of mundane, ordinary conversation, which may be defined as the kind of casual, social talk that routinely occurs between friends and acquaintances More specifically, researchers described this organizational structure in terms of sequences, turn-taking and repair practices The first researchers who set a foundation to CA are Sacks, Schegloff, Jefferson, Pomerantz and some others Among them, Harvey Sacks and his co-researchers

are instrumental in studying the structural organization of everyday language use In their research program, they ―focus on conversations as the simplest instance of a naturally organized activity and attempt to study the process of conversational management without making any priori assumptions about social and cultural background of

participants‖ (Gumpertz, 1982:158) Then, Hutchby and Wooffitt (2001:13) defines CA

as ―the study of talk‖ and more specifically ―the study of talk-in-interaction‖ Overally,

CA is then the study of ―naturally occurring talk-in-interaction‖ (Hutchby and Wooffitt, 2001:14)

Researchers also study the aim of CA Principally, it is to ―discover how participants understand and respond to one another in their turns at talk, with a central focus being on how sequences of actions are generated.‖ (Hutchby and Wooffitt, 2001:14) To put it another way, the objective of CA is to uncover the tacit reasoning procedures and sociolinguistic competencies underlying the production and interpretation of talk in organized sequences of interaction The upshot of this all is that CA seeks to ―uncover the organization of talk not from any exterior, God‘s eye view, but from the perspective of how the participants display for one another their understanding of what is going on.‖ (Hutchby and Wooffitt, 2001:15)

With such aim in mind, CA researchers have developed its characteristics, among which the ones set by Markee (2000:28) are mostly cited:

 CA is profoundly agnostic about the value of explanations that are derived from ethnic theories of social action because these explanations are not grounded in members‘ constructions of their own naturally occurring behaviors

 CA does not develop arguments about the structure of conversation on the basis of quantitative analysis of frequency data

 Conversation analysts use prototypical examples which give discursive form to phenomenon being analyzed

 Analyses must be subject to critical falsification That is, analysts must demonstrate that potential counterexamples and different accounts for the same data set have been anticipated and that other researchers can replicate findings with different transcripts

2.2 The Organization of Turn-taking

2.2.1 Definitions of Turn

The organization of turns has attracted many linguistic researchers as well as researchers

in other fields such as psychology Accordingly, definitions of turns vary significantly from study to study and are implicitly and explicitly presented in previous literatures Turns can be defined into two types: mechanical definitions and interactional definitions

Mechanically, turns are viewed as units of talks in interaction and exclude any interpretations that regard social context Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) deliberately avoid defining turns by calling them basic units of utterance, ―unit types‖ or

―turn-constructional units‖ (TCU) and state that the types of units in English vary from sentence to clause, phrase and word Duncan and Fiske (1977) also view turns as interactional units ―with an end boundary marked by turn-claiming responses from the auditor.‖

Interactionally, Goffman (1981:23) defines turns as ―an opportunity to hold the floor, not what is said while holding it.‖ Furthermore, turns in these interactional definitions concern the speaker‘s right/ obligation to talk, as well as the concept of floor, i.e who has the privilege to hold the floor Edelsky (1993:207) defines turns as ―on-record speaking behind which lies an intention to convey a message that is both referential and functional‖ and she defines floor as ―what is going on within a psychological time/space‖ (1993:209) She then audio-records interaction of five committee meetings with five female and four male participants When analyzing the data, she classifies the floors into two types, (1) singly developed floor, which is characterized by monologues and single party control, and (2) collaborative floor, which is a more informal and cooperative venture

All in all, the definition of turn, which is most and preferably cited by researchers, is the one stated by Levinson (1983:295) ―A turn is a time during which a single participant speaks, within a typical, orderly arrangement in which participants speak with minimal overlap and gap between them.‖

2.2.2 Turn-taking Organization

The first model for the organization of turn-taking in conversation was proposed by

Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) They (1974: 703-705) suggested that turn changes

be fundamentally decided by one of two processes:

(a) the current speaker selects the next speaker; or

(b) the next speaker selects themselves

The turn-taking organization first of all involves the definition of minimal units out of which a turn can be formed, referred to as turn-constructional units (TCUs) An important characteristic of the units is their projectability as a unit, i.e there are features of the unit which allow participants to anticipate or predict where an instance of the unit will come

to an end The first possible point at which a turn-constructional unit is hearably complete

is called a transitional-relevance place (TRP) This is a juncture where turn-transfer or speaker-change may potentially occur, though it does not need to take place at the first transition-relevance place

The following is a set of rules which operate over the transition-relevance places (TPRs)

of turn-constructional units on a turn-by-turn basis to co-ordinate the allocation of turns

1 Supposing that the current speaker has initiated a current turn, the following rules apply at the initial turn-constructional unit‘s first TRP, consecutively in the order listed:

(a) If the current speaker selects the next speaker in the current turn, then the next speaker has sole rights and obligations to speak next, transfer occurring at the first TRP after the next speaker has been selected

(b) If (a) has not been applied, i.e the current speaker has not selected the next speaker in the current turn, then any other party may or may not self-select, with the first starter gaining sights to a turn, transfer occurring at that place

(c) If neither (a) the current speaker selects the next speaker nor (b) another party has self-selected, then the current speaker may, but need not, continue, thereby claiming rights to another turn-constructional unit

2 At the initial turn-constructional unit‘s first TRP, if rules (1a) and (1b) have not operated, and (1c) has been applied, then at the next TRP, rules (1a-c) reapply, and recursively at each subsequent TRP, unit speaker-change occurs

(Sacks et al: 702; Levinson 1983:297-8)

In any conversation, Sacks et al (1974: 700) observe that there is a general model, which should be accommodating the following grossly apparent facts:

1) Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs

2) Overwhelmingly, one party talk at a time

3) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief

4) Transitions with no gap and no overlap are common Together with transition characterized by slight gap or slight overlap, they make up the vast majority of transitions

5) Turn order is not fixed, but varies

6) Turn size is not fixed, but varies

7) Length of conversation is not specified in advance

8) What parties say is not specified in advance

9) Relative distribution of turns is not specified in advance

10) Number of parties can vary

11) Talk can be continuous or discontinuous

12) Turn-allocation techniques are obviously used A current speaker may select a next speaker (as when he addresses a question to another party); or parties may self-select in starting to talk

13) Various turn constructional units are employed; e.g., turns can be projectedly ―one word long‖, or they can be sentential in length

14) Repair mechanisms exist for dealing with turn-taking errors and violations; e.g., if two parties find themselves talking at the same time, one of them will stop prematurely, thus repairing the trouble

Sacks et al (1974:716) further classify turn-allocation techniques into six groups namely adjacency pairs, repair techniques, recompleters, social identities, appositionals, and supersession However, Sacks et al (1974:729) also state that ―different speech exchange systems lie on a continuum with respect to how turns are allocated to different speakers.‖ Accordingly, the rules for turn-taking may differ from one community to another as they

do from one type of speech event (e.g a conversation) to another (e.g an oral test) Within the scope of this study, the turn-taking techniques studied are those used in casual (ordinary and informal) English and Vietnamese conversations

2.3 Turn-taking strategies in English conversations

A large body of research has been conducted to examine the turn-taking strategies applied

in English conversations including Duncan (1973), Sacks et al (1974), Levinson (1983), Hayashi (1996), Markee (2000), and others

According to Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson's seminal framework for English conversation (1978), turns may consist of various turn-constructional components such as sentential, clausal, phrasal and lexical units The end of each turn construction unit, which can be projected by the participants in the conversation, constitutes a point where speakers may change This possible completion point is called a 'transition relevance place', or TRP (Sacks et al., 1978:12) In order to detect a TRP, participants look out for changes in the pitch or volume of the voice, the end of a syntactic unit, a momentary silence, or some sort of body motion Also in their study (Sacks et al., 1978:13), the following rules for turn allocation account for a transfer of speakership, which is most applied by researchers:

 The use of the "current speaker selects next technique" results in a speaker change Having reached a TRP, the current speaker chooses the next party him/herself

 If the turn-so-far does not involve the use of a "current speaker selects next technique", any speaker may claim the next turn This second rule usually compels

the other participants to start quickly, and may thus lead to difficulties for slower participants, particularly in intercultural communication

 The third rule applies if the next turn is neither allocated by the current speaker nor by self-selection The current speaker may, but need not, continue until transfer is affected at one of the next TRPs

Conversational turn-taking is both locally managed and interactionally managed by the participants Whether which rule is applied, the turn allocating techniques are divided into two groups of verbal and nonverbal strategies The verbal turn-taking strategies comprise adjacency pairs, name nomination, recompleters, appositionals, interruptions, and syntactic cues The nonverbal turn-taking strategies include paralinguistic factors (prosodies, and pause), and extralinguistic factors (kinesics, gaze and facial expressions, and posture.)

2.3.1 Verbal turn-taking strategies

In order to detect TRP, participants may look out for verbal patterns to project the end of

a turn, to relinquish a turn, to keep a turn or to take a turn in English The following verbal cues are studied in much research: adjacency pairs, name nomination, recompleters, appositionals, interruption, and syntactic cues

2.3.1.1 Adjacency pairs

When the current speaker wants to select the next speaker adjacency pairs are used That the current speaker uses the first part of an adjacency pair means s/he wants to relinquish the floor to the next speaker (Sacks et al., 174:717) Richards et al (1992:7) define an adjacency pair as ―a sequence of two related utterances by two different speakers The second utterance is always a response to the first.‖ Conversation requires a certain degree

of predictability (Nunan, 1999: 133-135 and 201-204) This is partly facilitated by adjacency pairs where, according to Shortall (1996:131), the initial utterances restrict the

possible number of responses, and Burns (2001:134) concludes they enable speakers to

―anticipate certain types of forms and meanings from one utterance to the next.‖ Burns (2001:133) also observes that question-and-answer is one of the most common forms of adjacency pairs, but recognizes there are many others, such as requesting and granting (or denying) the request, expressing gratitude and acknowledging it (Sacks et al., 1974) The most widely used adjacency pairs indicate thanking-response, request acceptance,

apology-minimization, and question-answer sequences Whilst Richards et al provide a

narrow definition of an adjacency pair, Craig (1996) observes it can be expanded by an

insertion sequence, which may be of varying complexity and include a number of turns

The types of adjacency pairs which are most commonly used are greeting-greeting, invitation-acceptance/ decline, complaint/ denial, compliment/ rejection, challenge/ rejection, request/ grant, offer-accept/ reject, question-answer, and instruct-receipt (Sacks

et al 1974:716)

2.3.1.2 Name nomination

Besides adjacency pairs, the next speaker may be nominated by name (or title), especially

in conversations involving more than two interlocutors who do not have good contact, name nomination may help to avoid confusion This social conditioning may find application in casual conversations as well as formal situations, such as meetings, lectures, and presentations

eye-2.3.1.3 Recompleters

Recompleters (also named post-completers in different books) refer to a class that supplies one major source of the talk done when rule 1c (―if the turn so far is so constructed as not to involve the use of a current speaker selects next technique, then the current speaker may, but need not continue, unless another self-selects‖) is applied (Sacks

et al., 1974:704,718) Tag questions like ―You know?” “Don’t you agree?” etc are examples ―The availability of ―tag questions‖ as affiliable to a turn‘s talk is of special

importance, for it is the generally available ―exit technique‖ of a turn‖ (Sacks et al.,

1974:718) That is, when a current speaker has constructed a turn‘s talk to a possible transition relevance place without having selected the next, and he finds no other self-selecting to be next, he may, employing his option to continue, add a tag question for example, selecting another as the next speaker upon the tag question‘s completion, and thereby exiting from the turn

2.3.1.4 Appositionals

Appositionals are ―turn entry devices or pre-starts‖ (Sacks et al., 1974:719)

Appositionals like “well”, “but”, “and”, “so” are common in English Appositionals are

used by a participant when he wants to apply the self-selection technique to take a turn, which may satisfy the constraints of beginning Together with tag questions, appositionals are heavily used in English and ―are to be understood as devices with important turn-organizational uses.‖ (Sacks et al., 1974:720)

2.3.1.5 Syntactic cues

Both Sacks et al (1974) and Duncan (1973) mentioned syntax as a cue to indentify transition relevance place in turn-taking organization in English conversations Sacks et al (1974:720) identify ―the types of turn constructional units as sentential, clausal, phrasal, and lexical, i.e syntactically‖ The next turns can occur when current turns show them to occur at possible completion points, which ―turn out to be the possible completion points

of sentences, clauses, phrases‖ (Sacks et al., 1974:720) According to Duncan (1973:287) syntax signal refers to ―the completion of grammatical clause, involving subject-predicate combination‖ This means the ends of sentence, clause, or phrase can indicate the ends of turns, when the next turns can start

2.3.1.6 Overlaps and interruptions

One way to take a turn is to interrupt the current speaker, which leads to the coining of the terms ―overlap‖ and ―interruption‖

Overlap occurs when a listener begins speaking before the first speaker completely finishes his/her turn The model for turn-taking suggested by Sacks et al (1074) is based on an underlying rules in American English conversation, namely that ―(1) Overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time; (2) Occurrences of more than one speaker

at a time are common, but brief; (3) Transitions with no gap and no overlap are common Together with transition characterized by slight gap or slight overlap, they make up the vast majority of transitions.‖ Thus, in Anglo-American culture, smooth transitions from one speaker to the next tend to be valued Although participants generally conform to the rules of the turn-taking system, brief overlap may occur when two or more participants compete for the floor When a self-selecting listener overlaps with the current speaker at a TRP, for instance, one of them may drop out, thereby acknowledging the other's right to the turn (Nofsinger 1991:97-98)

While overlap is considered to be supportive and does not violate the turn-taking norms, interruptions which "refer to simultaneous talk that does not occur at or near a TRP" (Nofsinger 1991:102) constitute a threat to the speaker's face, the term interruption often has negative connotations

2.3.2 Non-verbal turn-taking strategies

All communicative codes have elements that act as turn signals Listeners who want to self-select may identify TRPs by analyzing the speaker's utterances for prosodic, syntactic and semantic cues Conversely, a current speaker may implement floor allocation him/herself Conversationalists employ a wide range of devices in order to negotiate floor shift, including extralinguistic and paralinguistic activities One pioneer in studying turn-taking signals is Duncan S (1972) In his study, he mentions ―a turn-yielding signal for a speaker is described as the display of at least one of a set of six discrete behavioral cues These cues may be displayed either singly or together.‖ The turn-yielding cues studied in Duncan‘s research are: intonation, paralanguage, body motion, sociocentric sequences, and syntax

In order to ensure a smooth exchange of speaking turns, speakers may display turn signals, thus yielding the floor to an auditor A substantial part of the social meaning of a message is conveyed via nonverbal channels (Singelis 1994:274-75) Although the use of nonverbal cues is universal and innate, their meaning is culture-bound Thus, a close look

at the ways non-verbal turn-taking cues are used in different languages is fundamental in

CA In this study, Non-verbal turn-taking strategies are discussed in two main groupings: paralanguage (prosodies, and pause) and extralanguage (kinesics, gaze and facial expressions, and head movement, and posture.)

2.3.2.1 Paralanguage

The concept of paralanguage has been defined as follows: "The term paralanguage

includes various types of acoustical elements that accompany language, as well as the vocalizations that replace or supplement speech Both are carried on the vocal channels but are nonverbal." (Damen 1987:166) Paralinguistic patterns do not only inform us about the emotional state of the speaker, but they also constitute turn signals Paralinguistic factors in turn-taking are subdivided into prosodies and pause

Prosodies

Broadly defined, the term 'prosody' covers non-grammatical features such as loudness, tempo, intonation, rhythm, and accent placement Jo Ann Goldberg (1978) has identified

amplitude shift as a resource for speakers to regulate conversational interaction In case of

simultaneous speech speakers may raise the amplitude level of their utterances in order to gain or hold the floor Smooth speaker exchange can also be facilitated by a down-step in

pitch on the part of the speaker Sacks et al (1974:721-722) stressed the importance of

‗sound production‘ in turn-taking organization For instance, recognizing whether a phrase forms the first part of a longer construction, or a complete utterance, is determined

by intonation Rising intonation may indicate a question, as opposed to confirmation or

emphasis accompanied by falling intonation A rising intonation during a turn will

indicate that a turn is unfinished, as opposed to a falling intonation to signal its end Goshgaria with ―Exploring Language‖ (2003) also pointed out, ―it is also possible to have

a fall-rising pitch and a rise-falling pitch‖, and further explains the importance of

intonation in turn-taking and indicating the speaker‘s attitude Crucially, intonation

patterns vary from one language to another Pitch, stress, volume rhythm and tempo most

noticeably changes with strong emotions In turn-taking, an increase in loudness may be

used to hold onto a turn or interrupt, whereas fading out relinquishes the floor Rushing

over what would otherwise be a transition-relevant place (e.g a natural break or end of a tone group), is recognized as another means to hold onto the floor (Sack et al., 1974; and Shortall, 1996: 130)

Silence

Hayashi (1996:41) coined the term 'turn utterance space' in order to describe short pauses during utterances As for the function of this space, she distinguishes between the concepts of 'intra-turn space' and 'inter-turn space' While the latter pauses relate to TRPs and thus occur at turn exchanges, intra-turn spaces reflect pauses a speaker creates for some private reason during his or her turn

Regarding intra-turn space, according to Scollon and Scollon (1981:25-26), English speakers tolerate inter-turn pauses of one second at most The English speaking participant will already have continued to talk The English speaker is therefore likely to interrupt his conversational partner, assuming that the non-phonation indicates a TRP

About inter-turn space, when studying turn-taking in English, Sacks et al (1974/1978) distinguish between three types of discontinuous talk in conversation: gaps, lapses and pauses Nofsinger (1991:94-95) described a gap as "the silence between the end of one turn and some listener self-selecting for the next turn." If, however, a current speaker stops at some TRP, and no speaker is willing to start or continue, the ensuing space of non-talk will be called a lapse If the current speaker has already selected a next speaker, the delay before the selected speaker's turn beginning will be perceived as a pause As mentioned above, the 'no gap, no overlap' structure of discourse is ingrained in Anglo-

American culture, persons with a slower pace at turn-taking will regularly fail to get the floor to speak Correspondingly, the faster speaker "is doing all of the talking, constantly

repeating himself or herself" (Scollon and Scollon 1995:65)

2.3.2.2 Extralanguage

Kinesics

Kinesics are defined as hand and arm movements generally away from the body, which commonly accompany, and bear a direct relationship to speech (e.g an upraised and pointed index finger) Specifically excluded from the definition of hand and arm gestures are movements in which the hand comes in contact with one‘s own body Examples would be rubbing the chin, scratching the cheek, smoothing the hair, picking lint from the socks, etc Such self-adaptors are very frequent for many individuals both while they are speakers and while they are auditors John Gosling (1981:163) described kinesics as "all those meaningful gestures or sequences of gestures which realize interactive functions in face-to-face communicative situations." Within any culture there are a large number of

established means of non-verbal communication which can be used to take turns in

conversation Examples would be waving to attract attention, pointing to indicate direction, gesturing to indicate someone else should proceed or go first, facial expressions, and so on Brown (2000: 262) adds that ―every culture and language uses body language, or kinesics, in unique but clearly interpretable ways.‖

Gazes and facial expressions

Establishing eye-contact is one means by which interlocutors confirm that they have each others‘ attention Gazing here refers to looking toward the partner‘s face Different studies have been conducted on gaze behavior in communication in general and in turn-

taking in particular in English conversations (Sacks et al, 1974; Duncan and Fiske, 1977,

1985; Goodwin, 1981; Kendon, 1967, 1990; Scheflen, 1964; Schegloff, 1984; Gosling, 1981) Kendon (1967) proposed that the speaker begins to gaze towards the addressee while yielding the turn to the addressee His study shows that gaze direct functions yield

a turn, whereas gaze avert holds the turn after it has been established ―Exploring

Language‖ further considers gaze direction to be the most important device for indicating

turn-taking and observes the following key points: While you are talking, your eyes are down for much of the time While you are listening, your eyes are up for much of the time For much of the time during a conversation, the eyes of the speaker and the listener

do not meet When speakers are coming to the end of a turn, they might look up more frequently, finishing with a steady gaze This is a sign to the listener that the turn is finishing and that he or she can then come in Novik et al (1996), following earlier work

on gaze, outline further observations: Gaze plays a powerful and complex role in face conversation People engaged in conversation may look at one another to monitor listener acceptance and understanding, to signal attention and interest, and to coordinate turn-taking Conversely, they may look away to plan utterances or to concentrate on complex cognitive tasks Beattie (1980:11) found that gaze's role in turn-taking is context-specific: when the overall level of gaze is low, as in conversations between strangers or when the discussion topic imposes a high cognitive load on the conversant,

face-to-gaze plays a more significant role Lastly, Sacks et al (1974:717) importantly pointed out

that, whilst gaze direction may address a party, ―addressing a party will not necessarily, in itself, select him as next speaker.‖

In Western culture, gaze is used as a means of selecting the next speaker who is then under considerable pressure to take the turn If the listener avoids eye contact, however, s/he shows that s/he is not willing to speak next (Gosling 1981:166) This relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic skills becomes evident in conversations between blind interactants who cannot use eye contact to anticipate turn exchange In normal English conversations, a speaker does not look steadily at the listener but rather may give occasional quick glances Some people find it impossible to carry on a conversation with someone who is reading the newspaper We need to be able to see where someone‘s eyes are directed to know whether we are being listened to Wiemann & Knapp (1975) found out that the percentage of time spent by the speaker looking at the face of the auditor increases steadily as the speaking turn approaches finality, while the percentage of time

the auditor spends looking at the speaker increases from the first third to the second third

of the interaction episode, and then drops off in the final third

As the speaker comes to the end of an utterance, he or she looks at the auditor in search of feedback If this feedback is in the form of a verbal response, then the speaking role is likely to be exchanged The looking away by the auditor seems to be a response to the speaker—acknowledging the turn-yielding cue and the acceptance of the speaking turn

It could be assumed that other-directed gazes function more as a turn-yielding device than

as a turn-requesting device, but they can function as both On occasion a person just stops speaking without looking directly at one of those being addressed or without indicating in some way who is to speak next A period of silence may follow in the absence of a clear signal as to how the conversation is to continue (Wardhaugh, 1985:85)

Head movements

As far as head movements are concerned, the Westerners will nod their heads to show agreement, but they will shake their heads from side to side if they disagree Since these acts do not have the same meaning in all cultures, they can cause confusion in intercultural contexts Head nodding may of course be used during listening as a kind of back-channel signal as well While these head movements tend to be fairly slow, head-nods functioning as turn-claiming signals are very fast

Head nodding appears to play a major role in turn-requesting, while having little or no significance in turn-yielding Speakers do not systematically increase the amount of nodding as the episode progresses On the other hand, there is a dramatic increase in nodding by the auditor

The rapidity of the head nods and whether or not they are accompanied by any verbal behavior seems to determine how speakers interpret them

Postures

During a conversation, a person may shift the position of his legs or may shift his seat in the chair Body posture is another factor influencing turn shift If an auditor suddenly changes his/her posture during a turn, s/he might want to achieve a mutuality of gaze and subsequently gain the floor This turn signal is a striking feature of classroom discourse where pupils are expected to raise an arm whenever they wish to get a turn Small children frequently pull the garments of adults for the same reason (Gosling 1981:173) Taking a breath and leaning forward may also indicate a desire for a turn When a speaker leans back, however, s/he may indicate that s/he has finished the turn and is now willing for others to speak

2.4 Turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese conversations

Different Vietnamese linguists have mentioned turn-taking in their studies about conversation analysis and pragmatics Turn-taking, in these studies, is examined systematically; however, the details are still inadequately described The hereinafter is compiled from studies about turn-taking in Vietnamese

2.5.1 Verbal turn-taking strategies

In Nguyen Thien Giap‘s ―Dung hoc Viet ngu‖ (Vietnamese pragmatics), certain verbal cues are described when he mentions the turn-taking system in Vietnamese They are adjacency pairs Adjacency pairs are studied in full and details in Vietnamese by Nguyen Thien Giap, Do Huu Chau, and Do Viet Hung In their studies, adjacency pairs are sequences/ parts of a dialogue (Nguyen Thien Giap, 2009:73), and in one pair, ―the first turn acts the function of direction or guiding for the second turn‖ (Nguyen Thien Giap, 2009:70) This means the first part of an adjacency pair is the signal to show the end of a turn and the next turn is expected to be the second part of the pair Question – answer is a typical function of adjacency pairs in Vietnamese For example, ―A: Cháu mấy tuổi rồi? B: Cháu ba tuổi ạ.‖ or ―A: Ông yêu em thật chứ? B: Thật, tôi yêu em.‖ (Nguyen Thien Giap, 2009:70)

2.5.2 Non-verbal turn-taking strategies

The importance of non-verbal strategies is a focus in the studies about conversations carried out by different Vietnamese linguists (Nguyen Quang, Nguyen Thien Giap, and others) The non-verbal activities include two groups: paralanguage and extralanguage The linguists have stressed that vocal fillers, vocal qualities, and pause, as well as body motions function well in conversations; nevertheless, except for intonation, their function

as turn-taking cues have not been studied in details The role of intonation in

communication was studied systematically in Do Tien Thang‘s work of ―Ngữ điệu tiếng Việt – Sơ khảo‖ (Vietnamese Intonation – A Fundamental Study) published in 2009

In his research, Do Tien Thang presented systematically the ―tone‖ aspect of Vietnamese With regards to turn-taking, he stressed ―intonation of the current turn supports in the interaction of the current turn and the next turn‖ (2009:292) and ―the defaulted intonation

of a turn functions as a turn-end signal‖ (2009:309) The defaulted intonation is different from the undefaulted intonation The latter is normal, standardized, and preset; while the former is flexible, reformed, and context-based He mentioned five types of defaulted

intonation of the current turn that may relate to turn-taking They are rising tone (―cao giọng‖; identified by high key), falling (―thấp giọng‖; identified by low key), lengthening (―dài giọng‖; identified by long key), shortening (―giọng nhanh‖; identified by short key), and rise-fall/fall-rise (―đay giọng‖; identified by mid key) These five different intonation

patterns function differently in various contexts (Do Tien Thang, 2009:277-278)

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

This chapter is to illustrate the methodology of the study and the sections which support such purpose include:

1) What turn-taking strategies are used in Vietnamese casual conversations?

2) What are the differences and similarities between turn-taking strategies used in English casual conversations and those used in Vietnamese ones?

―video ethnography.‖ Video ethnography combines classic ethnographic methods with digital video technology

There are a number of advantages when using video recording for data collection One advantage is the density of data that a visual recording provides (Grimshaw, 1982) In an ethnographic approach to research, we seek to study real people in real situations, doing real activities Video recorded data can provide us with more contextual data than can audio recorded data (Gass & Houck, 1999; Iino, 1999) They can give us a more complete sense of who the people are, and acquaint us with the setting in which the people function and the types of activities they engage in from day-to-day as well as the nature of these activities themselves In language studies, not only does video recording enable us to accurately identify who is speaking, but it also provides information about posture, gestures, clothing, and proxemics Gestures, facial expressions, and other visual interactional cues also provide important information both on the negotiation of meaning and the negotiation of affect Furthermore this kind of visual information can help us to disambiguate verbal messages by narrowing down the possible number of accurate interpretations (Iino, 1999) Finally, the visual information in videos also provides information on directionality and intensity of attention, which can be particularly useful

in determining the levels of comfort and involvement of the interlocutors (Gass & Houck, 1999) These kinds of visual contextual information, then, can enrich our data base in many ways

Video recording also provides us with denser linguistic information than does field note taking, for ideally it allows us to record every word When taking field notes, the researcher is limited to writing down the gist of what the interlocutors said, or recording only brief interactions consisting of a few short turns because of constraints on memory and the inherently slower speed of writing as compared with speaking (Beebe and Takahashi, 1989)

Another advantage of video recording is permanence (Grimshaw, 1982), which allows us

to experience an event repeatedly by playing it back With each repeated viewing, we can change our focus somewhat and see things we had not seen at the time of taping or on previous viewings (Erickson, 1982, 1992; Fetterman, 1998) Replaying the event also

allows us more time to contemplate, deliberate, and ponder the data before drawing conclusions, and hence serves to ward off premature interpretation of the data Even a rare event, when captured on tape, can be replayed repeatedly for a thorough analysis so that it can still be studied intensively Real time observation does not have this advantage (Erickson, 1992)

Nevertheless, the amount of information contained in ethnographic footage, the unedited videotaped material of a particular event (Crawford, 1992), is necessarily limited, and we need to bear these limitations in mind First, the information is limited in that the videotape itself tells us nothing about statistics, that is, how typical this event is Is it a frequent event or an unusual event or a unique event? That kind of information must be supplemented by the ethnographer, who has spent sufficient time in the field as a participant-observer, triangulating with other methods of data collection in order to know something about the frequency (as well as other characteristics) of the event being recorded (Corsaro, 1982; Erickson, 1992; Hastrup, 1992; Heider, 1976)

Second, a video is limited because it can capture only what is observable The unspoken thoughts and feelings of a participant cannot be seen or heard on the tape They might be guessed at or inferred, but if a participant is successful at dissembling, the inference will not be accurate One advantage of video, however, is that it can be played back to the participants (Corsaro, 1982; Erickson, 1975, 1982; Erickson & Schulz, 1982; Iino, 1993; 1996) in order to attempt to get them to recall and describe their thoughts, feelings and reactions at different points in time during a given event, thus giving us information about the unobservable

Third, videotaping only allows the event to be experienced vicariously It does not allow for hypothesis testing in the way participant observation does With participant observation, one can test out emerging theories in the field by trying them out, thus giving

an idea of what is acceptable (Erickson, 1992) Still, video data can also provide a means

of hypothesis testing By showing clips to others, both cultural insiders and outsiders, and asking them pertinent questions about what was said or done, what ought to have been said or done, and how they assess or interpret the behavior, hypotheses can be developed and tested to some extent (Tobin, Wu & Davidson, 1989) Furthermore, modern video,

computer, and Web technologies have made it possible for many people to engage in collaborative theory construction in order to strengthen the findings of one researcher or a small group of researchers; this is what Goldman Segall (1995, 1998) refers to as configurational validity It is based on the belief that the collaborative construction of theory which results from the participation of many diverse persons in viewing and commenting on the video adds strength to a study by adding layers of interpretation and weaving a thicker description than could be accomplished by one analyst or a few analysts alone This is because each person's understanding is necessarily limited by his

or her own experience; therefore multiple points of viewing help to offset those limitations and increase the validity or credibility of the study (Goldman-Segall, 1995, 1998; Iino, 1996)

Being aware of these limitations, the researcher hereof shall take careful steps in selecting the conversations to be recorded, the people involved in the conversations, and the researcher will self-record some of the conversations The other method which would be used in the research is stimulated recall This method is applied to Vietnamese data collection process with an aim to minimize the limits of video ethnography method as mentioned above

3.2.2 Stimulated recall

In 1953, Benjamin Bloom at the University of Chicago described a method that he named

―stimulated recall‖ (1953:161) Bloom and his colleagues audio-taped lectures at the university and then used them to stimulate students in the class to recall activities, gestures, and points made as part of the lectures He found ―as high as 95 per cent accurate recall of such overt, checkable events within two days‖ and describe this procedure as ―a method of reviving memories‖ (1953:162) and students‘ thoughts during lectures Since these initial studies by Bloom, stimulated recall has been used as a method for accessing cognition in a number of different activities including counseling, problem-solving, medical consultations, teaching, and researching Many researchers used stimulated recall as their primary data source for information (Marland: 1984)

Grass and Mackey (2000) studied the use of stimulated recall methodology in second language acquisition Stimulated recall is an introspective method in which participants are prompted (via some visual or oral stimulus such as a video/audio- taped event, or any other tangible reminder such as different drafts of a composition, etc) to recall thoughts they entertained while carrying out certain tasks or participating in certain events The method is superior to a simple post hoc interview in that the participant does not need to heavily rely on memory without any prompts Moreover, it has an advantage over thinking-aloud protocols because the participant does not need to go through a process of training in order to be able to perform a task and talk about it simultaneously

The stimulated recall procedure, in general, includes the following steps: videotaping, observations, stimulated recall, and field notes During stimulated recall stage, the participants together with the researcher view the videotape The videotape is stopped at points when s/he recalls thoughts or feelings that occurred during the conversations Immediately following each contact with the participant, the researcher would complete field notes which are then used for analyzing data

3.3 Data collection procedure

To get information for researching turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese, casual conversations among Vietnamese speakers shall be recorded by the researcher The researcher shall go to the places where interactions among people are happening to carry out recording The researcher shall try to take camera of as many casual conversations as possible, then select 10 proper clips for analysis Thus the researcher shall have to confirm the spontaneity and validity of the conversations There are arguments for such confirmation Firstly, the recorded conversations shall be spontaneous in so much as they are unscripted and conducted immediately after seeking the participants‘ permission Furthermore, the conversations shall be created whilst they are in progress and are, therefore, spontaneous (Brazil, 1992: 4) In order to add validity to the transcripts, the participants shall be sent a final copy and requested to confirm that: a) the transcript is an accurate representation of the conversation; b) the conversation is not pre-planned or scripted, and therefore spontaneous In addition, they are asked for their feedback on

whether or not they feel their behavior changed and, if so, to what extent (as suggested by Swann, 2001) Stimulated recalls shall also be used at this stage to collect the participants‘ ideas on what is going on and to clarify the points that the researcher shall raise

There are also some criteria the researcher shall follow when recording the conversations:

1 The people participating in the conversations must all be native Vietnamese speakers;

2 The conversations should be casual, not too formal;

3 The setting of the conversations should be real, spontaneous (unstructured), the interactions should be natural;

4 The conversations should not be too long, less than half an hour per each conversation;

5 The quality of the video clips should meet analysis requirements, the pictures should be light, the voice should be clear

3.4 Data transcription

The video recordings provide primary data for the analysis hereof One core step is, therefore, data transcription, which, according to Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998:73) is important in two respects: ―First, transcription is a necessary initial step in making possible the analysis of recorded interaction in the way that CA requires Second, the practice of transcription and production of a transcript represents a distinctive stage in the process of data analysis itself.‖ Realizing the importance of this step, the author surely and consistently follows the typical rules of transcribing data which include:

(1) CA transcripts do not predetermine what phenomenon is going to study CA transcripts routinely provide extremely detailed information about what people say and how they say it (Markee, 2005:55)

(2) Transcripts of talk-in interaction reflect four assumptions which govern CA work, which are: Conversation has structure; Conversation is its own autonomous context, that

is, the meaning of a particular utterance is shaped by what immediately precedes it and also by what immediately follows it; There is no a prior justification for believing that any detail of conversation, however minute, is disorderly, accidental or irrelevant; The study of conversation requires naturally occurring data (Markee, 2000:40)

In CA, different systems of transcription conventions have been applied such as those introduced by Markee (2000), Hinkel (1999), Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998), Atkinson and Heritage (1984) The researcher hereof shall abridge and adapt the transcription conventions which are fully discussed in Atkinson and Heritage (1984) to support analysis

3.5 Data analysis

Although there are a number of ways to analyze video recordings of social activities, ethno-methodology and CA offer a unique form of qualitative analysis The method is not just to code events and then search for statistical patterns, but rather to search for patterns

in the temporal unfolding of events in order to discover their internal, and often sequential structures Generally speaking, CA unpacks the structure of conversation by analyzing either single cases or collections of talk-in-interaction as Markee (2000:60) proposes that

―With single cases, the objective is to provide an in-depth analysis of a particular phenomenon that facilitates a deep understanding of how the phenomenon under study works Analyses based on collection of similar data enable the analyst to use whether the practices to which participants are thought to orient are robust to account for a broad range of data gathered in different conversational contexts.‖

By the nature of CA, this research is conducted as a qualitative study using video equipment to collect data In order to facilitate analysis of audio-visual data, detailed transcriptions are made of any talk involved in the event Transcripts are crafted so as to represent the temporal structure of events and many details of speech production They also sometimes contain descriptions of body movement and the manipulation of tools

Then, the transcripts and the video clips shall be shown to the participants for stimulated recalls The researcher shall use the transcripts and the ideas gathered from stimulated recalls in analyzing the turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese A comparison shall be made later on between turn-taking strategies in English and Vietnamese to come up with pedagogical implications for teaching English in Vietnam

This study, in any respects, follows strictly the CA purposes, therefore, the defining characteristics of CA specified by Markee (2000:60) are resorted to:

(1) It adopts a radically emic approach to research which avoids the use of secondary data

(2) It generally avoids all but the most basic forms of quantification

(3) It relies on analyzing prototypical examples of a particular phenomenon, using different kinds of text-internal, convergent evidence to establish the credibility

of an analysis

(4) It seeks to demonstrate that potential counterexamples have been anticipated and encourage other researchers to replicate initial findings with different sources of data

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter, the central part of the study, includes

- Analysis of the participants and the settings of the recorded conversations

- Turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese casual conversations

- Similarities and differences between turn-taking strategies used in English casual conversations and those used in Vietnamese casual conversations

4.1 Analysis of the participants and the settings of the recorded conversations

Ten Vietnamese conversations were selected out of twenty ones recorded The total recorded time is about 250 minutes, out of which the total recorded time of the conversations selected for analysis hereof is 95 minutes After transcription, the total number of turns transcribed is 742, which are distributed differently in those ten conversations Whether or not the differences in ages, genders, intimacy, among the participants, and the settings of the conversations influence the findings of the study is examined as below

4.1.1 Participants

The people participating in the conversations are undergraduate and postgraduate students from Faculty of English Language Teacher Education - University of Languages and International Studies; College of Economics – Vietnam National University, Hanoi; International School - Vietnam National University, Hanoi; and Hanoi National University

of Education Their ages are of from twenty to mid-thirty Therefore, the findings of the study can just represent the turn-taking strategies applied by the young Vietnamese The strategies applied by the Vietnamese of different age groups may differ slightly from the ones applied by the young

As for sex, the genders of the participants are distributed differently in seven conversations In four conversations, all participants are female In total, twelve male participants (account for twenty five percent) and thirty six female participants (account for seventy five percent) were involved in all ten conversations The difference in gender, thus, may affect the use of strategies in turn-taking

Table 1: Distribution of genders in ten conversations

Conversations Male participants Female participants

No significant differences are confirmed in the use of the other strategies between male and female Detailed analysis of such differences is presented in parts 4.2.1.5 and 4.2.1.6 hereinafter