Analizing
Turn-taking Behavior and Gender Differences in A Conversation of Elementary Podcast:
A Discourse Analysis Perspective
Denny Nugraha
TBI – B – 6
CHAPTER
I
INTRODUCTION
A. Research Background
The
most common kind of spoken language as a matter of fact is conversation, in
which one person communicates through speaking to another person or to other
people. Just as there are patterns in sounds, words, and sentences, so there
are certain patterns in a conversation. Even in the most unpredictable
conversations, there are certain devices that people use time and time again.
If a person wants to tell a joke or some bad news or to ask for a special
favor, there are recognized ways of introducing these subjects. Without these
cues, listeners would be very disconcerted.
Conversations
are orderly proceed in an very organized way, but all the participants have to
work at the conversation, making sense of things in the world, supporting and
reinforcing each other, checking for meaning, and so on. A conversation, unlike
a piece of written work of language, is the work of at least two people
involved. Thus, this as Talbot (1998) argues, includes the language in use and
the language used between them. The language they use help them to do their
daily interactional domain and the language used about them describes them and
their gender and identity.
When
people want to use language to communicate orally with each other, they are
faced with a sort of coordination problem. “Avoidance of collision is one obvious
ground for this coordination of actions between the participants. In order to
communicate efficiently and successfully, they will therefore have to agree to
follow certain rules of interaction” (Oreström & Bengt, 1983, p. 18). One
such rule is that no one monopolizes the floor but the participants take turns
to speak. This important concept in linguistic interaction is called
“turn-taking”.
Turn-taking
is made possible by the cognitive limitations of human beings (Beattie, 1982,
p. 93). Usually people find it very difficult to talk and to listen
simultaneously and therefore there must be some means of allocating turns so
that for some limited period one person alone holds the floor and acts
primarily as the listener, contributing only briefly to provide support,
encouragement, and feedback. In this context the tasks of the present study are
firstly to discriminate and secondly to discuss how turn-taking is realized in
conversational situations.
Studies
of conversation confirm that it is a highly structured activity, and that
participants in a conversation follow some conventions in a co-operative way.
‘Taking turn’ at speaking is one of these conventions. But the distribution of
talking among speakers is not random; it is definitely governed by
‘turn-taking’ norms and conventions which determine who talks, when, and for
how long it takes. A speaker who has not a good knowledge of ‘turn-taking’
rules and techniques is one who does not let others get a word in any conversation.
Conversational
conventions such as turn-taking mechanisms, minimal responses, hedges, etc.
govern how people take their turns and how many people can talk at once and for
how long. They include signals that show ways of letting others speak and –
ways of getting the floor. Conversational conventions handle some of this work
by providing routines for such things as initiating and ending conversations
and for signaling that one is coming to the end of one’s turn – that one is at
a “transition-relevant” place, a point where there might be transition to
another different speaker.
Gender
differences in a conversation have been identified as one fact in connection
with turn-taking behavior. This may be a problem that people can experience in
their daily conversation. It matters that dominant speakers can often grab too
many turns in certain ways of talk. Dr. Brizendine (1994) states that women talk
three times as much as men. On the other hand, Drass (1986), in an experiment
on gender identity in conversation found that men speak more than women.
Therefore, it cannot be instantaneously conclude that dominant speaker comes
from one type of gender. There is still a debatable statement and theory about
this.
Furthermore,
turn-taking and gender differences vary from culture to culture and from
language to language. There is no specific rules for ‘taking turns’ for each
language but there are general rules for all languages all over the world. One
of these general rules is that one must or should listen when another one is
speaking, because if this does not happen there will be a kind of
miscommunication between the two different speakers.
The
emergence of Podcast has been recognized as a source for learning English all
over the world. People can simply listen to everyday conversations recorded by
native British English speakers in the LearnEnglish Podcasts series, and
improve their listening skills. The podcast is hosted by Tess (Female) and Ravi
(Male) chatting each other with different people and talking about different
everyday topics, such as their favourite celebrities, making plans for the
weekend, having a dinner, etc. In line with this, the researcher is interested
to explore deeply about gender bias between male and female in taking the turn
in a natural conversation. Thus, the researcher arrange this description into
the research form under the title “Analizing
Turn-taking Behavior and Gender Differences in A Conversation of Elementary Podcast:
A Discourse Analysis Perspective”.
B. Scope of Study
This study will
primarily focuses on how gender makes differences in turn-taking behavior
especially in a daily conversation. In this study, the researcher set out to
explore, in terms of strategy use of turn-taking from the selected conversation
produced by two native speaker of british English (male and female). The study
will involve both of the audio recording and the dialogue or audioscript of the
elementary podcast series 1 episode 1. Differences between male and female in
conversation is an important approach in the study of spoken discourse.
C. Research Questions
1. How
does the turn-taking behavior occur in an English native speakers’ conversation?
2. How
does the gender differences influence the turn-taking behavior?
3. What
are turn-taking strategies or aspects used by different gender of native
speakers of English?
4. What
are the impacts of gender differences for the turn-taking activities in the
selected conversation?
D.
Aims
of The Research
The
aims of this research are as follows:
a. To
find out the turn-taking strategies or aspects used by different gender of native
speakers of English in the selected conversation.
b. To
explore the impacts of gender differences which may be existed in turn-taking
behavior especially in the selected conversation.
CHAPTER
II
LITERATURE
REVIEW
A. Turn-taking Behavior
Conversation
is distributed on a turn-by-turn basis. A turn constructed by the speaker
consists of single words, phrases, clauses or sentences. Stenstrom (1984:11)
explains that the chaining principle (cf eg Good 1979), which distinguishes
dialogue from monologue, implies conversational partners take turns and the
organization of talk refers to turn-taking. A normal string in two-party
conversation is A-B-A-B, that is from one speaker turns to the other one (or
two-way turn) which can be called the basic structure of talk. According to
Stenstrom (1984), the fundamental principles of interaction in terms of
turn-taking are accentuated by Schegloff (1972a). Later, according to Zimmerman
and West (1975:106-107), Sacks et al (1974) outline a model of turn-taking in
naturally occurring conversation which is widely used in the discourse and
conversation analysis. The model provides a turn-taking mechanism for conversation
and tells us 1) the current speaker may select the next speaker (by asking
questions or addressing his or her name directly), then the person selected has
the right to speak and meanwhile has to take the turn. 2) If the current
speaker does not select the next speaker, any other participants can speak
next. 3) If none of above cases happens, the current speaker can hold the floor
and continue to speak. According to the model, there are no gap and no overlap
between the turns. Sacks et al (1974) say that one party speaks at a time and
speaker change recurs (Coates, 2004:112). According to Orestrom (1983:31),
Duncan (1972 and 1973) has mentioned four basic types of signals for the
operation of the turn-taking mechanism. In general, a proper operation is 1)
the current speaker gives a turn-yielding signal, 2) the listener claims the
speaker-turn and 3) the current speaker gives up his turn. In a smooth
turn-taking process, taking process, the current speaker finishes the speech
and the next speaker begins to talk around Transition-Relevant Places (TRP).
However, sometimes the listener is uncertain where TRP exactly is; sometimes a
lot of people, especially women, speak at the same time when they are excited
or enjoying something together; and in some cases, competitive speakers break
the rules of turn-taking model on purpose to grab the floor, so simultaneous
speech is very common in conversation. These are unsmooth turn-taking
processes.
B.
Gender
Differences in Conversation
Differences
exist in the turn-taking behavior between male and female speakers, which has
been claimed by Key (1975) according to Orestrom (1983:146). Female speakers,
especially in all female conversations, often break the rule of one person at a
time. Many of them speak at the same time. Coates (2004:131) explains that this
collaborative mode of organizing talk is first identified as collaborative
floor by Carole Edelsky (1993) and calls it a conversational jam session. In
this mode, all participants take the conversational floor simultaneously, but
the different voices work with each other, not against each other, to construct
meaning. Although this way of talking is available to all speakers, Edelsky
finds that women are more inclined to use it than men in mixed-sex
conversations (Coates, 2004:131). Coates (2004:136) claims that women often
adopt the jam session model while men prefer a one-at-atime model of
turn-taking, so overlapping talking is rare in all-male talk. Even if men are
in a more gladiatorial style of talk, they will also pursue a well-timed
exchange of speaker turns. Based on Mary Talbot’s (1992), Coates (2004:137)
indicates that men do not like others to join in when they have not finished
their speaking. They will think of others’ words as intruding on their right on
a solo floor even if the others’ words are collaborative comments and support
for their speeches.
With
the variation of situation and topic, some things will be changed. Women may
obey the rule of one-at-a-time model when they have high social status and are
in a very formal conversation. Men may enjoy overlapping each other when they
are jointly discussing a topic and become noticeably excited. Differences in
turn-taking between males and females do exist.
Men
and women pursue different speech behavior in conversation. Coates (2004:126)
argues that “it seems that men pursue a style of interaction based on power,
while women pursue a style based on solidarity and support.” She also discusses
that men pursue competitive behavior while women pursue cooperative behavior.
In fact, the gender-differentiated speech behavior in conversation has come
into being in childhood. Coates argues that Daniel Maltz and Ruth Borker (1982)
claim that girls learn to 1) create and maintain relationships of closeness and
equality; 2) criticize others in acceptable ways; and 3) interpret accurately
the speech of other girls, while boys learn to 1) assert a position of
dominance; 2) attract and maintain an audience; and 3) assert themselves when
another speaker has the floor. The girls’ talk is characterized as cooperative
and the boys’ as competitive by Maltz and Borker (Coates, 2004:160-161). Among
adults, the gender-differentiated speech behaviors continue. Women use more
minimal responses, tag-questions, compliments, questions with uncertain rising
intonations and mitigating directives with let’s, gonna, can, could, maybe,
etc. Women’s speech is softer and more polite. They try to create an
environment with closeness and consensus. Men often use explicit and aggressive
commands and directives to get the upper hand in conversation to protect
themselves psychologically from being pushed around (Tannen, 1992; Coates,
2004).
The
workplace is considered as a competitive arena, where men’s competitive
behavior and women’s cooperative behavior will be more obvious, since most high
positions are occupied by men in the present society. Unfortunately, high
status women will be in a dilemma in the workplace. If they use an adversarial,
aggressive and competitive speech style, they will be perceived as un-feminine.
If they pursue a soft, supportive and cooperative style, they will be
considered that they are powerless and do not deserve that high position.
Although, men and women pursue very different speech behavior, their common
goal of most conversations are to achieve solidarity.
Backchannels
are emitted by the listener as feedback signals or minimal responses (Orestrom,
1983:23). They vary considerably in length, from short vocalizations like mm,
yeah (which are also called minimal responses) to very long expressions, such
as I think you are right. According to Orestrom (1983:107), Duncan &
Niederehe (1974) list four types of backchannel and Hene (1978) takes the
listener’s role into consideration and gives such items from visual,
non-linguistic signs, lexical signs, idioms to sentence completions. Based on
the classification of Duncan and Niederehe (1974), Orestrom (1983:107) gives
five types of backchannel items: 1) Supports: (mhm, yes, sure, right, OK, fine,
I see, that’s nice, that’s right, etc.) the listener has understood the message
and expresses acceptance, agreement. 2) Exclamations: (oh, oh dear, oh God,
bloody hell, etc.) the listener shows emotional expressions, like surprise. 3)
Exclamatory questions: (what, really, did he, was it, etc.) the listener asks
short questions with an exclamatory tone. 4) Sentence completions: (a: …
eventually, it will come down to more concrete issues…/ b: As she gets more
comfortable) the listener completes a sentence that the speaker has begun. 5)
Restatements: (a: … having to pick up the pieces/ b: the broken dishes, yeah)
the listener briefly restates the speaker’s preceding thought immediately in
his or her own words. As these examples show, Stenstrom (1994:81) argues that
backchannels can reflect empathy, enthusiasm and indignation. Moreover she
makes a further argument that they can also reflect a lack of interest, indifference
and impatience sometimes.
Backchannels,
as a signal of feedback, are preferred by women, but some types of
backchannels, such as mhm and yeah, are used by men much more than women.
People give backchannels with three tones—falling tone, level tone and rising
tone. The finding in Stenstrom’s (1994:121) study is that the falling tone is
the most common one, followed by the level tone. She also finds that men use
level tone three times more than women.
Therefore,
conversation is based on give and take. Turns can flow naturally and smoothly. There
are rules that organize our talk and without them misunderstanding may occur.
Take, for example, if two persons speak at the same time, they will not
understand each other until one of them listens to hear the other. As it has
been mentioned in chapter two that turn-taking is a fundamental organizational
feature of conversation. It is a complex technique and hard to distinguish in an
informal discourse. It depends on power and status, who takes the first turn,
who interrupts more and who falls silent. An interruption occurs when the
interrupter does not know when to enter a conversation: i.e. at ‘Transition
Relevance Places’ (TRPs). In brief, to analyze the gender differences with the
turn-taking behavior in a conversation, it is useful to review the aspects of
turn-taking itself.
CHAPTER III
DATA AND ANALYSIS
A.
Data
The
data of this research involves the audio files and also with the transcript of
the conversation of podcast episode 1 series 1, episode 1 series 2, episode 1
series 3, and episode 1 series 4 respectively in order to see the differences
of two speakers. In addition, the researcher only take one section in each
episode of the series provided. The data was downloaded primarily from the
website https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/elementary-podcasts.
The conversation is definitely an
interactional type in which speakers involved are engaged to take turns without
any intense to get things done like in transactional one. Here are the sample
of transcript of the conversation in each series:
Episode
1 series 1
Section
1 - Susan, this is Paul – introducing your friends
Ravi : Hello,
and welcome to LearnEnglish elementary podcast number one. My name’s Ravi…
Tess : … and
I’m Tess. We’re your presenters and we’ve got lots of things for you to listen
to today, but before we start, I think we should introduce ourselves. Ravi?
Ravi :
OK … erm … I’m Ravi.
Tess
: Or, I tell you what, I’ll
introduce you and you can introduce me. How about that?
Ravi :
Well, OK then. Erm, this is Tess. She’s from London. She’s … how old are you?
Tess :
None of your business, Ravi!
Ravi :
And she loves dancing and riding her mountain bike. OK?
Tess :
OK. And this is Ravi. He comes from Manchester. He’s 23. Oh … aren’t you?
Ravi :
Oh yes.
Tess :
He likes football, and … he’s a great cook.
Ravi :
Thanks!
Episode
1 series 2
Section
1 - It's Tess's birthday today…!
Ravi : Hello and welcome to the Second series of
the LearnEnglish Elementary podcast. This is podcast number one. If you
listened to the first series you’ll remember – I hope – that my name’s Ravi…
Tess : … and I’m Tess. Yes, we’re back again. I
hope you didn’t miss us too much. We’ve had a little break – did you go
anywhere nice Ravi?
Ravi : No.
Tess : – and now we’re back with more good stuff
for you to listen to. We’ve got…
Ravi : Aren’t you going to tell them, Tess? I’ll
tell them if you don’t. We’ve chosen a special day to come back – it’s Tess’s
birthday today, isn’t it?
Tess : Yeah, it is.
Ravi : Happy birthday!
Tess : Thank you.
Ravi : Are you doing anything special?
Tess : Well, I’m going out for dinner with some
friends tonight and then we might go to a club. I’m not really sure.
Ravi : Sounds good. Where are you going to eat?
Is it somewhere a bit special or …
Tess : Yeah, it’s a French place. I’ve heard
it’s really good but I haven’t been there.
Ravi : I’m sure it’ll be great. Any good
presents?
Tess : Well, I got some money from my mum and
dad to buy myself something nice so I’m going to get some new boots with that.
And that’s it, so far ….
Ravi : Well, I’ll get you a coffee when we
finish here, OK?
Tess : OK. And a cake?
Ravi : Oh go on then. A small one. But let’s get
on with it. What have we got today?
Tess : We’ve got our quiz, then we’ve got people telling us about their
favourite food. And Carolina’s back again.
Ravi : Right. If you’re listening and you don’t remember Carolina,
she’s a student from Venezuela who’s come to Britain to study and we follow her
in every podcast to hear how she’s getting on.
Episode
1 series 3
Section
1 – Welcome Everyone
Ravi : Hi
everyone, I’m Ravi.
Tess : And
I’m Tess.
Ravi : And our
job is to tell you about some of the things you think are typically British. In
this series we’ll tell you about British weather, the royal family, British
pets… lots of ‘typical’ British things. But today we’re going to tell you about
a very famous British food – a dish that lots of people think is the typical
British thing to eat. Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s fish and chips.
Tess : Mmm,
nice. It’s true that lots of people think that fish and chips is what British
people eat all the time. My Spanish friends really wanted to try fish and chips
when they came to visit. So, OK then Ravi – tell us what you’ve learnt.
Ravi : Well,
first of all, I’ll say a little bit about what fish and chips are – people
don’t always know. It’s a piece of fish, covered in batter and deep fried..
Tess : Can
you tell us what batter is?
Ravi : It’s a
mixture of flour and water, usually. You cover the fish...
Tess : What
kind of fish is it?
Ravi : Good
question. It can be different kinds of fish but the most popular are cod and
haddock – two fish that were very common in the sea around Britain.
Tess : Are
they not so common now?
Ravi : No,
they aren’t – but I’ll talk about that in a minute. So, you cover the fish in
batter and then you deep fry it – that means you cook it in a deep pan of very
hot oil, vegetable oil usually. You cook the chips the same way, you deep fry
the potatoes in very hot oil. Tess: And chips are chips, aren’t they? Americans
call them ‘fries’ or ‘French fries’ but we call them chips.
Episode
1 series 4
Section
1 – Welcome Back
Tess : Hello
again, everyone. My name's Tess.
Ravi : And I'm
Ravi.
Tess : And,
as usual, we're here to talk about Britain. The things that you know about it …
Ravi : … and
the things you think you know. We've already talked about a lot of different
topics – things that you think are typically British. And today we've got
something nice. Tess, how's Oscar?
Tess : He's
fine, thanks. Why?
Ravi : I'm
introducing the topic, Tess. Pets.
Tess : Ahh.
Very clever. Ravi: Oscar is Tess's cat.
Tess : And a
member of the family.
Ravi : Hmm ...
A lot of people believe that the British are crazy about animals. We're often
called 'a nation of pet lovers'. But is it true? To begin with – do we have
more pets than anyone else? So I did a bit of research. And yes, a lot of
people in Britain have pets – 49 per cent of British homes – that's nearly half
– have an animal.
Tess : Is
that a lot?
Ravi : That's
nearly 30 million pets – cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters, parrots – but not
including fish! That's a lot of pets. But there are a lot of other places with
as many pets as Britain, or even more ... the USA, New Zealand, some countries
in Europe – 62 million homes in Europe have pets. Britain isn't that unusual.
Tess : And it
depends what you count as a pet.
Ravi : Well,
yes, that's true.
Tess : Cats
and dogs are the most common pets in Britain, right?
Ravi : Well,
actually, they now think that the most popular pets in Britain are ...?
Tess : Well,
if it isn't dogs or cats … um … I don't know. Rabbits?
Ravi : Nope
... Give up? ... Reptiles. Snakes and lizards and iguanas and things. And
insects – spiders are really popular now.
Tess : Yeuk.
I'm not sure I could love a spider.
Ravi : Nor
me. Tess: Do you want to know something
interesting?
Ravi : Erm,
yes.
Tess : Well,
Britain was the first country to have an organisation to look after animals.
The RSPCA. That's the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
It was started in the nineteenth century when things were bad for animals in
Britain – for horses, dogs, all of them. So some people started the RSPCA. But
– and this is the important thing – there were no organisations or charities at
that time to protect children or babies or people at all. And life was really
hard in the nineteenth century.
Ravi : Wow.
Tess : So
people started to say that the British care about animals more than people.
Ravi : But
don't you sometimes think it's true? That the British like animals more than
people? We give more money to animal charities, like the RSPCA, than to
charities for people. That's a fact. And there are lots of programmes about
animals on television and stories in the newspapers.
Tess : I
know. It's true. And do you know, people who ask for money on the street, well,
if they have a dog with them, then they get more money.
Ravi : Ha! Is
that true? Money for the dog, but not for the person?
Tess : Yep.
Ravi : So we
are crazy about animals. It's true. You'll have to go home and tell Oscar.
Tess : I
think he already knows.
The data above will be analyzed in the
following subchapter.
3.1 Data Analysis
There
are different methods to be used for analyzing data. In fact, the choice
between different research methods should depend on what the researcher
attempts to find out. As Silverman (2001:25) quoted by Abdelrahim (2006)
argues, if one wants to discover how people tend to vote, then a qualitative
method seem to be the most appropriate choice. On the other hand, if one is
concerned with exploring people’s life histories, or everyday behaviour, then
qualitative methods may be favoured. He also points out, that the audio-taped
data is qualitative. There are four major methods used by qualitative
researchers: observation, analyzing texts and documents, interviews and recording
and transcribing. These methods, as Silverman (2001) says, can be used both in
quantitative and qualitative research. Transcripts of audio or video recordings
are rarely used in quantitative research, because of the assumption that they
are difficult to quantify.
As
mentioned before, the researcher used transcripts of audio recordings to
collect the data. These audio recordings were transcribed and then analyzed to
look at some conversational tactics between two English native speakers, male
and female. Each of these tactics was analyzed separately. These tactics are
‘topic and topic development’, ‘minimal responses’ and ‘turn-taking mechanisms’
which include ‘interruptions’ and ‘overlaps’.
Below is a description of the steps the
researcher followed in the
process of analyzing the differences between males and females
of the native speakers in the
conversations.
a. The researcher transcribed the recordings, so that he
could focus directly on these gender differences.
b. The researcher started with how topics were handled
between ‘male’/’female’? How did they start, choose, develop and discuss their
topics? What kinds of conversational devices such as ‘question-asking’ did they
use?
c. The number of ‘minimal/back-channel responses’,
interruptions and overlaps used by the subjects, were counted and tabulated.
The researcher used Zimmerman and West’s (1975) table which counted the
frequencies of the irregularities of ‘turn-taking’ in conversation.
d. The analysis of the data led to the results of the
study, which were the frequencies of conversational ‘turn-taking’ differences
between male and female speakers. Thus, the researcher used techniques of
counting and tabulation to analyze the data.
3.1.1
Topic
development and back-channel responses
The
two native speakers, male and female, are in the same age and work in the
British Council foundation. They were young and were colleagues. Contrastively,
they come from different city in Britain, that is Ravi comes from Manchester
and Tess comes from London. Both of them seem to be confident and friendly in
every episodes of series of Podcast as they are the reporters of the program.
3.2.1.1 Episode 1 series 1 analysis
The
table 1 in the following describes the analysis of the turn-taking in the
episode 1 series 1:
Table 1
|
Turn
|
Person/sayer
|
Dialogue
|
Aspects
|
|||
|
Topic Development
|
Back-channel
Response
|
|||||
|
Topic starter
|
Topic changer
|
Question-asking
|
||||
|
1
|
Ravi
|
Hello, and welcome to LearnEnglish
elementary podcast number one. My name’s Ravi…
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
… and I’m Tess. We’re your presenters and
we’ve got lots of things for you to listen to today, but before we start, I
think we should introduce ourselves. Ravi?
|
Yes
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
2
|
Ravi
|
OK … erm … I’m Ravi.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes (not followed by full response)
|
|
|
Tess
|
Or, I tell you what, I’ll introduce you
and you can introduce me. How about that?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
3
|
Ravi
|
Well, OK then. Erm, this is Tess. She’s
from London. She’s … how old are you?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes (followed by full response)
|
|
|
Tess
|
None of your business, Ravi!
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
4
|
Ravi
|
And she loves dancing and riding her
mountain bike. OK?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
OK. And this is Ravi. He comes from
Manchester. He’s 23. Oh … aren’t you?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes (not followed by full response)
|
|
5
|
Ravi
|
Oh yes.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes (not followed by full response)
|
|
|
Tess
|
He likes football, and … he’s a great
cook.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
6
|
Ravi
|
Thanks!
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
Total
|
1
|
0
|
5
|
4
|
||
As
described in the table 1, in the first episode of the first series, the topic
is about the introduction of both of them as the presenters of the program.
From this conversation, Tess has initiated that they should introduce
theirselves. Ravi respond to Tess’s signal (question to Ravi), but he starts
with a confirmation, following by a backchannel response ‘erm’ and then says his name. Tess correspondingly respond Ravi’s
introduction with telling him the other way of introducing theirselves that is
by introducing each other.
There
is an interesting thing in this episode that Tess uses more questions that need
confirmation from Ravi or they can be called as question tags. The first
question from Tess is as just explained above that she signals Ravi to
introduce himself. Then, the second one is about the confirmation to persuade
Ravi about her idea of the introduction. And the last one is her uncertainty of
Ravi’s age. Furthermore, Ravi only uses two question tags based on the topic of
introduction. The first is to confirm about Tess’s age but then she does not
answer the correct response to it. Then, the last is when he finished
mentioning Tess’s hobbies which are dancing and riding her mountain bike.
3.2.1.2 Episode 1 series 2 analysis
Then,
the table 2 in the following describes the analysis of the turn-taking in the
episode 1 series 2 as discussed:
Table 2
|
Turn
|
Person/sayer
|
Dialogue
|
Aspects
|
|||
|
Topic Development
|
Back-channel Response
|
|||||
|
Topic starter
|
Topic changer
|
Question-asking
|
||||
|
1
|
Ravi
|
Hello and welcome to the
Second series of the LearnEnglish Elementary podcast. This is podcast number
one. If you listened to the first series you’ll remember – I hope – that my
name’s Ravi…
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
… and I’m Tess. Yes, we’re
back again. I hope you didn’t miss us too much. We’ve had a little
break – did you go anywhere nice Ravi?
|
Yes
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
2
|
Ravi
|
No.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
– and now we’re back with
more good stuff for you to listen to. We’ve got…
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
3
|
Ravi
|
Aren’t you going to tell
them, Tess? I’ll tell them if you don’t. We’ve chosen a special day to come
back – it’s Tess’s birthday today, isn’t it?
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
Yeah, it is.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes (not followed by full response)
|
|
4
|
Ravi
|
Happy birthday!
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
Thank you.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
5
|
Ravi
|
Are you doing anything
special?
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
Well, I’m going out for
dinner with some friends tonight and then we might go to a club. I’m not
really sure.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
6
|
Ravi
|
Sounds good. Where are you
going to eat? Is it somewhere a bit special or …
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
Yeah, it’s a French place.
I’ve heard it’s really good but I haven’t been there.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes (followed by full response)
|
|
7
|
Ravi
|
I’m sure it’ll be great. Any
good presents?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
Well, I got some money from
my mum and dad to buy myself something nice so I’m going to get some new
boots with that. And that’s it, so far ….
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
8
|
Ravi
|
Well, I’ll get you a coffee
when we finish here, OK?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
OK. And a cake?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
9
|
Ravi
|
Oh go on then. A small one.
But let’s get on with it. What have we got today?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
We’ve got our quiz, then
we’ve got people telling us about their favourite food. And Carolina’s back
again.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
Total
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
2
|
||
As
depicted in the table 2, in the episode one of the second series, the topic is
about Tess’s birthday. As usual, they welcome the listeners and recall about
this program back in mind. The topic was presented by Ravi as he ask Tess
whether she will tell the listeners or not. According to Ravi, he said that
they have chosen that day as the special day to come back. But, Ravi uses
question tag to confirm about that.
Furthermore,
in this episode, Tess uses minimal response or back-channel response yeah as the confirmation of Ravi’s tag.
The topic then moves to the upcoming events that will be done by Tess in her
birthday at that moment. The movement of the topic is initiated by Ravi as Tess
respond to his expression. Not like the first episode in the first series, in
this series, there is a clear movement of the topic in the conversation.
3.2.1.3 Episode 1 series 3 analysis
Then,
the table 3 in the following describes the analysis of the turn-taking in the
episode 1 series 3 as discussed above:
Table 3
|
Turn
|
Person/sayer
|
Dialogue
|
Aspects
|
|||
|
Topic Development
|
Back-channel
Response
|
|||||
|
Topic starter
|
Topic changer
|
Question-asking
|
||||
|
1
|
Ravi
|
Hi everyone, I’m Ravi.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
And I’m Tess.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
2
|
Ravi
|
And our job is to tell you about some of
the things you think are typically British. In this series we’ll tell you
about British weather, the royal family, British pets… lots of ‘typical’
British things. But today we’re going to tell you about a very famous British
food – a dish that lots of people think is the typical British thing to eat.
Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s fish and chips.
|
Yes
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
Mmm, nice. It’s true that lots of people
think that fish and chips is what British people eat all the time. My Spanish
friends really wanted to try fish and chips when they came to visit. So, OK
then Ravi – tell us what you’ve learnt.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes (followed by full response)
|
|
3
|
Ravi
|
Well, first of all, I’ll say a little
bit about what fish and chips are – people don’t always know. It’s a piece of
fish, covered in batter and deep fried..
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
Can you tell us what batter is?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
4
|
Ravi
|
It’s a mixture of flour and water,
usually. You cover the fish...
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
What kind of fish is it?
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
5
|
Ravi
|
Good question. It can be different kinds
of fish but the most popular are cod and haddock – two fish that were very
common in the sea around Britain.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
Are they not so common now?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
6
|
Ravi
|
No, they aren’t – but I’ll talk about
that in a minute. So, you cover the fish in batter and then you deep fry it –
that means you cook it in a deep pan of very hot oil, vegetable oil usually.
You cook the chips the same way, you deep fry the potatoes in very hot oil.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Tess
|
And chips are chips, aren’t they?
Americans call them ‘fries’ or ‘French fries’ but we call them chips.
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
Total
|
1
|
2
|
5
|
1
|
||
Next,
as analyzed in the table 3, in the first episode of the third series, the topic
is mainly about what things are included to typically British. The first thing
of this topic is introduced by Ravi that is about fish and chips. Based on what
has said by Tess, fish and chips is what British people eat all the time. Then,
Ravi moves the first topic to the next topic that is about the terms of batter and deep fry. Subsequently, Tess changes the topic with her question to
Ravi that is about the kind of fish. It is rather back to the first topic about
fish and chips.
Moreover,
in this episode, Tess uses minimal response or what is called back-channel
response Mmm as she starts to give
her opinion about what has been said by Ravi. But the movement of the topics in
this episode is centered to Tess who mostly changes the topic that is initiated
by Ravi in the first line of the conversation. Therefore, as like in the second
series, Tess uses again the back-channel response more than Ravi does.
3.2.1.4 Episode 1 series 4 analysis
Then,
the table 4 in the following describes the analysis of the turn-taking in the
episode 1 series 4:
Table 4
|
Turn
|
Person/sayer
|
Dialogue
|
Aspects
|
|||
|
Topic Development
|
Back-channel Response
|
|||||
|
Topic starter
|
Topic
changer
|
Question-asking
|
||||
|
1
|
Tess
|
Hello
again, everyone. My name's Tess.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Ravi
|
And
I'm Ravi.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
2
|
Tess
|
And,
as usual, we're here to talk about Britain. The things that you know about it
…
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Ravi
|
…
and the things you think you know. We've already talked about a lot of
different topics – things that you think are typically British. And today
we've got something nice. Tess, how's Oscar?
|
Yes
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
3
|
Tess
|
He's
fine, thanks. Why?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
|
Ravi
|
I'm
introducing the topic, Tess. Pets.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
4
|
Tess
|
Ahh. Very clever.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes (not followed by full response)
|
|
|
Ravi
|
Oscar
is Tess's cat.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
5
|
Tess
|
And
a member of the family.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Ravi
|
Hmm
... A lot of people believe that the British are crazy about animals. We're
often called 'a nation of pet lovers'. But is it true? To begin with – do we
have more pets than anyone else? So I did a bit of research. And yes, a lot
of people in Britain have pets – 49 per cent of British homes – that's nearly
half – have an animal.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes (followed by full response)
|
|
6
|
Tess
|
Is
that a lot?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
|
Ravi
|
That's
nearly 30 million pets – cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters, parrots – but not
including fish! That's a lot of pets. But there are a lot of other places
with as many pets as Britain, or even more ... the USA, New Zealand, some
countries in Europe – 62 million homes in Europe have pets. Britain isn't
that unusual.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
7
|
Tess
|
And it depends what you count as a pet.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Ravi
|
Well, yes, that's true.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
8
|
Tess
|
Cats and dogs are the most common pets
in Britain, right?
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
|
Ravi
|
Well, actually, they now think that the
most popular pets in Britain are ...?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
9
|
Tess
|
Well, if it isn't dogs or cats … um … I
don't know. Rabbits?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes (followed by full response)
|
|
|
Ravi
|
Nope ... Give up? ... Reptiles. Snakes
and lizards and iguanas and things. And insects – spiders are really popular
now.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
10
|
Tess
|
Yeuk. I'm not sure I could love a
spider.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes (followed by full response)
|
|
|
Ravi
|
Nor me.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
11
|
Tess
|
Do you want to know something
interesting?
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
|
Ravi
|
Erm, yes.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes (followed by full response)
|
|
12
|
Tess
|
Well, Britain was the first country to
have an organisation to look after animals. The RSPCA. That's the Royal
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It was started in the
nineteenth century when things were bad for animals in Britain – for horses,
dogs, all of them. So some people started the RSPCA. But – and this is the
important thing – there were no organisations or charities at that time to
protect children or babies or people at all. And life was really hard in the
nineteenth century.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Ravi
|
Wow.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes (not followed by full response)
|
|
13
|
Tess
|
So people started to say that the
British care about animals more than people.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Ravi
|
But don't you sometimes think it's true?
That the British like animals more than people? We give more money to animal
charities, like the RSPCA, than to charities for people. That's a fact. And
there are lots of programmes about animals on television and stories in the
newspapers.
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
14
|
Tess
|
I know. It's true. And do you know,
people who ask for money on the street, well, if they have a dog with them,
then they get more money.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Ravi
|
Ha! Is that true? Money for the dog, but
not for the person?
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
|
15
|
Tess
|
Yep.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes (not followed by full response)
|
|
|
Ravi
|
So we are crazy about animals. It's
true. You'll have to go home and tell Oscar.
|
-
|
Yes
|
-
|
-
|
|
16
|
Tess
|
I think he already knows.
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|
Total
|
1
|
4
|
9
|
7
|
||
Lastly,
as tabulated in the table 4, in the first episode of the fourth series, Tess
acts the first one who starts the conversation of the program. Ravi opens for
the first topic as he ask Tess about her cat named Oscar. Ravi then introduces
the topic together with his answer to Tess’s question of why he wants to know
about her cat. Thus, the topic is about pets that are such cat (mentioned to
Oscar), dogs, rabbits, hamsters etc.
The
movement of the topic is initiated firstly by Tess that she ask Ravi whether he
wants to know something interesting or not. The interesting thing is that
British people care about animals or pets more than people. This topic then is
supported by the statement people give more money to animal charities, like the
RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), than to
charities for people. According to Tess, that is a fact. And there are lots of
programs about animals on television and stories in the newspapers.
Then,
in this episode, Tess also uses more minimal responses such as ahh, um, yeuk, and yep than Ravi.
Whereas, Ravi uses less minimal responses than Tess do such as hmm and erm. Moreover, Tess uses more question tags as the confirmation of
Ravi’s statement or question such as Why?,
and about her uncertainty right? And Rabbits? Then, Ravi’s question tag is to
show uncertainty such as are ...?
3.1.2
Interruptions
and overlaps
Minimal
response or back-channel response as has been discussed above, such as yeah or mhm do not constitute a turn; people are a way of showing that the
speaker has got the listener’s attention and interest. Zimmerman and West
(1975), argue that there are two irregularities or violations of normal
turn-taking in conversation. They are interruptions and overlaps which after
them speakers tend to fall silent than other speaker. According to data, average
silence in the conversations lasted for 1.35 seconds. The listener has an
active role in the conversation, not a passive one. If the listener does not
use these minimal responses, the speaker may seem as if he is talking to
himself.
Then,
according to the data of recordings and audioscripts, the researcher could not
find any kinds of interruptions and overlaps. It is mostly because the program
is the elementary products that refer to the listeners who are still in the
beginning to intermediate level of learning English. This can make them easy to
understand and recognize the topic and the vocabularies which are used in the
conversation by both speakers. Thus, interruptions and overlaps definitely will
interfere the listeners to catch the ideas or topics from the speakers.
Based
on the above analysis of the topic development and minimal responses, there are
several differences occurred in the conversation between Ravi and Tess. The
table 5 below depicts and tabulates the results of those differences as
analyzed above:
Table 5
|
Aspects
|
Gender
|
|
|
Male Speaker
|
Female Speaker
|
|
|
Topic development
|
· Topic
starter: 3 of 4 starts
· Topic
changer: 4 of 7 changes
· Question-asking:
12 of 26 questions
|
· Topic
starter: 1 of 4 starts
· Topic
changer: 3 of 7 changes
· Question-asking:
14 of 26 questions
|
|
Back-channel responses (followed or not
followed by the full response)
|
· Back-channel
responses: 6 of 14 responses
|
· Back-channel
responses: 8 of 14 responses
|
3.2 Summary of The Analysis
Four
audio-recordings of the first section of the first episode from four series
have been transcribed and analyzed to see how far gender affects conversation
especially in turn-taking activities. Both female and male native speaker of
English in the program are involved in this analysis. Then, the analysis has
arrived to the following results:
1. Female
speaker uses ‘question-asking’ a lot in her conversation which shows that she
faced some troubles in the topic and she failed in developing and discussing
it.
2. Unlike
female speaker, male speaker succeeded in choosing and developing their topics.
This supports the claims that men are ‘decision-makers’ and that they have
power of decision making more than women.
3. Male
speaker, based on the analysis, starts the conversation more than female in the
selected program. Male speaker also changes the topic very often than female.
4. Female
speaker uses minimal responses or back-channel responses more than male speaker
in the conversation selected.
CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION
4.1
Conclusion
The
present study aimed to investigate gender differences and interactional
features of turn-taking activities in an English learning program. The
conventions involved are ‘topic and topic development’, ‘minimal/back-channel responses’
and ‘turn-taking mechanisms’ which also include ‘interruptions’ and ‘overlaps’.
To achieve this objective the interactional conversations were analyzed and
discussed, and the analysis has shown important findings. That is,
interactional conventions vary between male and female speaker. These
differences were analyzed and discussed in details in chapter three. The
subjects who have participated in the experiments were two English native
speakers.
In
conclusion, the turn-taking activities occur variously by some features and
mechanism of conversation. Those features or strategies as mentioned above
which consciously or unconsciously are conducted such as topic development
consists of three different aspects; topic changer, topic starter, and
question-asking; and then also the consideration about back-channel responses
used by both speakers. Based on the analysis, turn-taking happens as one of the
speakers starts each conversation. Indeed, the turn-taking mechanism or
strategies mostly influence these features in advance.
According
to the dialogues between male and female speaker of English, it can be
concluded that indeed gender plays an important role in turn-taking. In
advance, male speaker is known as he has more advantages behavior in some
respects than female speaker. As described in the last chapter that male
speaker succeeded in choosing and developing their topics. This supports the
claims that men are ‘decision-makers’ and that they have power of decision
making more than women. Then, male speaker, based on the analysis, starts the
conversation more than female in the selected program. Male speaker also
changes the topic very often than female. But instead female speaker uses minimal
responses or back-channel responses more than male speaker in the conversations
selected. Therefore, the researcher overall concludes that male speaker is more
dominant than female speaker especially in four selected dialogues of selected
program.
4.2
Recommendations
The
researcher believes that the following recommendations may prove to be useful
for further research:
1) Due
to the big significance of conversation as our daily life interaction, an
intensive work and studies should be done on this area.
2) The
researcher recommends the further research or analysis on women’s language
attitude to be compared with men’s language attitude.
3) Further
studies should be conducted on a larger sample on areas of conversation in
order to include large groups of participants and individual differences.
References:
LearnEnglish elementary podcast series or No.
1 – 4 (audio files and audioscripts), downloaded on https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/elementary-podcasts at 18th of May
2016
McCarthy, Michael. 2000. Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers.
New York: Cambridge University Press
Abdelrahim,
Naglaa Mohammed. 2006. Turn-taking
Behavior and Gender Differences in Speech: A Case Study of A Group of Educated
Sudanese. University of Khartoum: Unpublished thesis
Wei-dong,
Yang. 2007. Realizations of Turn-taking
in Conversational interactions.
US-China Foreign Language, ISSN1539-8080, USA, Volume 5, No.8 (Serial
No.47)
Ghilzai, Shazia Akbar. 2015. Conversational
Analysis of Turn taking Behavior and Gender Differences in Multimodal Conversation.
Unpublished Journal
