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Turns at talk are shared among speakers in a specific order. Commonly, once a turn is accomplished by one speaker, a new following turn is launched by
another different speaker as a response to that prior turn. This distribution of turns directly contributes to the organization of speaker shift because every turn
exchange is accompanied by a speaker change. In conversation, this phenomenon is described as turn-taking. Turn-taking can be defined as the recurring process of
transitions from one speaker to another Levinson, 1983: 296. According to Yule 1996: 135, turn-taking is a situation where the role of speakers is substituted for
one another during conversation. Additionally, in Cook’s notion 1989: 52, turn
- taking is regarded as a mechanism for keeping or handing over the floor between
speakers. Sacks et al. 1974: 700 claim that the most fundamental point of turn-
taking is one speaker at a time. In line with this, they propose a set of rules which comprises three main procedures for turn allocation to one party 1974: 704. In
the first rule, the current speaker assigns a particular speaker to take the next turn, such as by addressing hisher name or by posing a question to himher, thereby no
other speaker has the right to the turn. Following this, if the current speaker does not select anyone, the second rule appears, namely that any other speaker is
allowed to select themselves. In this way, the one who starts speaking earlier gets the turn so the latters must drop out of the turn. The third or last rule explains
that if none of the first and the second rule is applied, then the current speaker may, but need not, hold the turn again.
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In practices, there are numerous uncertainties about how turn-taking would go on since interlocutors do not expect what to do and say beforehand Wooffitt,
2005: 26. To cope with this problem, Liddicoat 2007: 57-8 suggests several possibilities for potential completion points of a turn which can notify when
possible turn-taking occurs. According to him, a turn could be considered finished when it contains a grammatically complete unit of talk, when the intonation
subsequent to a unit of talk of the turn indicates an ending signal, or when the action performed through a unit of talk of the turn questioning, answering,
informing, etc. has been accomplished. In other words, a suitable speaker change might take place after a piece of talk uttered by a single speaker in a turn is
completed in three possible ways: the grammatical structures, the intonation, or the interactional action.
Finally, it is noted that a turn is a private territory of a single speaker where no one else other than the speaker himselfherself has the right to speak. As
a consequence, trespassing on that personal territory would be seen as being disrespectful and obstructive since it violates the usual turn-taking norms. In many
cases, turn-taking violations are common to arise in conversation. In the linguistic perspective, these conversational acts are often referred to as interruptions.
4. Interruption
This section contains a collection of theories associated with the notion of interruption propounded by a number of scholars. It is subdivided into three main
parts under different focuses: definitions, types and functions of interruption.
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a. Definitions of Interruption
In general, interruption is assumed to be a conversational act which contravenes the conventional principles of turn-taking. This definition is attributed
to researchers such as Schegloff in Tannen, 1994: 57 and Talbot in Laing, 2004: 11 who point out that interruption relates to turn-taking violations where
one speaker intervenes with another’s turn of speaking.
As turns are exclusive in which only one person has the right to talk at a time, interruption is also seen as a
violation of someone’s right to speak James and Clarke, 1993: 237
; Okamoto et al., 2002: 41. Baso, cited by Murray, buttresses this definition by asserting that
interruption signifies a violation of one’s completion right
, that is, the right for a speaker to complete hisher idea in Okamoto et al., 2002: 41.
The idea that interruption indicates a violation of someone’s turn at talk is
also endorsed and confirmed by Zimmerman and West through their studies of interruption in conversations involving cross-sex participants Zimmerman and
West, 1975: 123. They argue that the violation appears when a new speaker arrogates the conversational floor to himselfherself when the current speaker is
still trying to continue speaking Zimmerman and West in Tannen, 1994: 57. With reference to the findings demonstrating that males predominate over the use
of interruptions than females do and to the widely-held belief that men hold social control through their power and status in society, Zimmerman and West in
Bartolomé, 1993: 36 also arrive at a conclusion that interruption can as well be interpreted as a strategy used to exert power and control in conversation. This
notion is supported by a number of scholars via their research on interruption,
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some of whom are Mishler and Waxler in James and Clarke, 1993: 232, Kollock et al., and Octigan and Niederman in Okamoto et al., 2002: 40 who unanimously
consider interruption as an act of exhibiting dominance and control in face-to-face interaction.
Meanwhile, according to Murray and Covelli, cited by Bartolomé 1993: 40-1, interruption in cross-sex conversation is not a matter of domination, but
rather of stylistically communicative differences. Men and women noticeably adopt distinctive conversational styles in which men are more likely to assert their
opinions by opposing or disregarding their partners’ utterances whereas women
are inclined to use their speech to a
cknowledge and support the others’
contributions. When associated with interruptions, men tend to pursue a competitive style of speech while women are apt to apply a cooperative style
Coates in Bartolomé, 1993: 41. In practical instances, nevertheless, there is no clear difference in the use of interruptions between sexes since men and women
are found to implement both competitive and cooperative interruptions Dindia, Willis and Williams, Smith-Lovin and Brody in James and Clarke, 1993: 248.
Based on the understanding that interruption can be competitive and cooperative, some linguists differentiate two distinct notions of interruption Li,
2001: 260-1; Li et al., 2004: 145-6; 2005: 234-6; Yang, 2001: 2; Zhao and Gantz, 2003: 350. One notion characterizes interruption as being negative and
disturbing, while the other describes interruption as being positive and collaborative. In this case, linguists usually call the former type as competitive or
intrusive or disruptive interruption and the latter type as cooperative or supportive
