2.4 Turn
A proposed unit of conversation seen as something said by the speaker preceded, followed or both by a turn of some other speaker is called a turn Mathews, 1997:417.
Whereas Goodwin 1981 stated that turn is the talk of one party bounded by the talk of other. From these two defenition it can be implied that in turn, there is unit of
conversation and boundaries of talk or speaker change. Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974 stated that the unit of conversation refers to turn construction units TCUs.
TCU is an utterance that is interpretable as recognizably complete. Grammar is one key organizational resource in building and recognizing TCUs Schegloff, 2007:3.
The second resource is phonetic realization, most familiarity in intonational packaging. A speaker beginning to talk in a turn has the right and obligation to produce one TCU
which may realize one or more actions. The conversation below is an example of which h TCUs are constructed as
giving actions, as quoted in Schiffrin 1994:6. A : Can you pass the salt
B : Here you are A : Thank you
B : You’re welcome In this conversation, A makes 2 TCUs in two sentences : Can you past the salt ?, and
Thank you, A also performs two action : requesting and thanking. In similar case, B makes 2 TCUs and two action: giving and granting, The types of units or TCUs may
vary, such as sentence, clause, phrase, or word.
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A speaker approaches the possible of a first TCU in turn, transition to a next speaker can become relevant. If this is done, the transition to a next speaker is a
accomplished just after the possible completion of the TCU in progress.
2.5 Turn – Taking
In everyday talk, there are no formal rules, about who can talk, when and about what, rather who gets a turn in a conversation. Turn-taking is the process through
which the party doing the talk of the moment is changed. The definition implies that there is a process in turn – taking, that is a process of speaker changes. If it is a process
of speaker changes, then there would be patterns from the rescursive process. Sacks, Schegloff, and Jafferson 1974:706 presente fourteen recuring patterns
of turn taking in English : 1.
Speaker change recurs, or at least occurs. 2.
Overwhelmigly, one party talks at a time. 3.
Occurences of more than one speaker at a time a re common, but brief. 4.
Transition from turn to a next, with no gap an no overlap are common. Together with a transitions characterized by slight gap or slight overlap, they
make up the vast majority of transition. 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.
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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 projected
one word long or they can be sentential in length. 14.
Repair mechanisms exist for dealing with turn – taking erros and violations, e.g. if two parties find themselve talking at the same time, one of them will stop
prematurely, thus repairing the trouble. Those recuring patterns; turn construction units TCUs, Turn distribution
components, overlapping talks, turn order – adjacency pairs will be observed in Toba Batak conversation.
About overlapping talks, Jefferson in Furo, 2001: 31 states that a recipient has the capacity to place his or her with precise timing as well as to respond
collaboratively and appropriately according to the current speaker’orientation. Here, the next speaker’s utterance is precisely place at the point where he or she understands
the previous speaker’s utterances. West and Zimmerman in Furo, 2001: 31 considered overlap talk as the brief
simultaneous talk near posible completation points within sylables. The example below is an overlapping talk as defined:
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A : I am sorry, I,can’t come B :
[ I know For the turn-taking distribution, Sacks, et.al. 1974: 704 found rules as: 1 the
current speaker the next makes self-select and 3 if there is no self-select, the current speaker conbtinues. This I done at initial talks, the current speaker continues. This is
done at initial talks. The features turn distribution are also investigated in Toba Batak conversation.
2.6 TB Language and Culture
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