Turn Taking(Discourse Analysis)

Devi Cahyani
5-TI
E1D118028

Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan

Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris
Universitas Mataram
 Conversation is a process where someone talks to someone or many
people by listening to each other, exchanging opinions or feelings. which usually
occurs in people's daily lives in certain social and cultural interactions, such as
greeting, asking and answering questions. Conversation analysis is an approach
that aims to explore the structural organization of conversation such as pairing
closeness, preference organization, turn taking, feedback improvement, Rymes
(2009), as elements of oral discourse. Therefore, it is very clear that the
conversation analysis area tries to look at regular conversations (Paltridge, 2012),
in particular, examining how people take and organize turns. Taking turns refers
to the process by which the people in a conversation decide who will talk next.
After the topic was selected and the conversation started, conversation switching
problems arose. Knowing when it is acceptable or mandatory to take a turn in the
conversation is important for the cooperative discourse department. In general, the
phenomenon of turns taking is based on a variety of rules.

I agree with Sacks' statement in the book Cam bridge Language Teaching
Library by Michael Mc Car Thy stating that "People take turns when they are
selected or nominated by the current speaker, or if no one is selected they can
speak for themselves accordingly (election). himself). If neither of these
conditions holds, the speaker can continue (Sacks et a! 1974) ". Someone speaks
according to a variety of rules in which they are. This is in line with the statement
of Richards and Schmidt (1983) in a journal written by Agus Subiyanto entitled
Turn-taking in The colloquial Indonesian language, saying that “participants in a
conversation do not take random turns, but are tied to a special turn-taking system
that regulates the conversation”. So here the turn-taking system is how turn-taking
in a conversation is arranged based on systematic rules that aim to determine who
will speak then systematically according to the rules agreed upon by the speaker
with other speakers or an agreement with the organizers of the place to speak or
according to their own customary rules according to the environment in which
they are in, These vary widely in the level of formality and suitability for different
situations. Turn-taking has been observed in debates, speeches, conferences and
talk shows, conversation mode forms al and formal. Sack et al. Reaffirming his
statement quoted in a journal entitled Conversational Analysis of Turn taking
Behavior and Gender Differences in Multimodal Conversation by 2 authors,
namely Shazia Akbar Ghilzai and Mahvish Baloch explains “Turn-taking
organizational system as a model, which is based on the turn-taking phenomenon.
This model is centered on the notion of a turn construction unit. There are three
possibilities involved in the organization's turn-taking arrangement and system.
First, the current speaker can 'choose for himself' and continue speaking. Second,
the current speaker can select the next speaker and third, the current speaker can
select another speaker instead of selecting the next speaker. This is reinforced by
the statement of Sacks et al which states that “They believe that turn taking is
usually used through various social contexts for discussions in class, daily
conversations etc. In their research collaboration, Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson
(1974) "in a journal entitled Turn Taking Strategies and Its Relations to EFL
Learners' Personality and Power in The Interaction of English Conversation Class
by Rohmatul Fitriyah Dewi.

"There is also a linguistic way of not taking turns when the opportunity
arises, or simply explaining to the speaker that we exist." I do not agree with the
sentence in the book Cam bridge Language Teaching Library by Michael Mc Car
Thy because here they still take part in the conversation but more as a response
and here the speaker certainly takes the opportunity to adjust to other speakers and
is included in turn taking. Yielding. as quoted in a journal entitled Turn Taking
Strategies and Its Relations to EFL Learners' Personality and Power in The
Interaction of English Conversation Class by Rohmatul Fitriyah Dewi. Yielding
turns is how each participant or speaker is given a chance by the previous speaker
to have a turn to speak. It means that the speaker becomes the listener for hearing
the responses (Strenstrom, 1994). And reinforced by the statement Yngve said
"vocalizations such as mm, ah-ha, and short words and phrases like yes, no, true,
definite are usually referred to as back-channel responses" (see Yngve 1970). The
form of response varies widely from culture to culture. My opinion is
strengthened by Sacks' statement in a journal written by Agus Subiyanto entitled
Turn-taking in The colloquial Indonesian language which states that "Sacks et al
(1974), turn changes are marked by a change of speakers, and it occurs in the
place of turn-relevance, namely a place where speaker changes can legally occur.
This implies that the signal is like a minimal response like 'hm, huh, hmh, hmm'.

I also agree with some opinions of experts in these 3 journals and 1 book
on the application of turn taking. Garcia (1991) described several differences
between turn taking system of mediation and ordinary conversation. She
suggested that the disputing process depends on the speech exchange system of
casual conversation and this exchange system can be distinguished on the basis of
turn taking system and organization of interactions within the participation frame
work. In ordinary conversation turn transition ensues at the end of a unit type i.e.
phrase, clause or a sentence. The disputants do not interrupt each other during
telling their stories but the mediator can ask questions. The story teller usually
choses the “self-selection” option to continue the story. She argued that the
disputing techniques require flexible speech exchange system because the
disputant needs to place his/her response to the adjacent utterance. Turn taking
deals with controlling and regulating the conversations, by means, the notion of
interruptions and overlaps are systematically occurred which can be understood
by the speakers due to the familiarity within cultural context(Thornbury and
Slade, 2006). The possibility which will be going on, hence, the participants in the
classroom will remain silent if nobody takes the floor in the beginning of
conversation which actually the individual has the same opportunity to speak.
Gorjian and Habibi (2015) mention that social relationship is established and
maintained by each individual with others, as a result, turn taking can be achieved
as well. In this case, classroom is the place where the instructors and the learners
exchange turn taking in communicative event. Therefore, the most elementary
unit on conversation, the heart, is turn taking. The traditional classroom, as
observed by Sinclair and Coulthard, has very ordered turn-taking under the
control of the teacher, and pupils rarely speak out of turn. More recent trends in
classroom organisation, such as pair and group work, attempt to break this rigid
turn-taking pattern; but do

not always succeed in recreating more natural patterns.

According to Sacks et al (1974), a change of turn is indicated by a change

of speaker, and it takes place at a turn-relevance place, that is a place where a
speaker change can legitimately occur. So turn taking is something that may not
need to be 'taught', but certain linguistic realizations can be presented and
practiced and significant cultural differences can at least be demonstrated to
learners.
Reference

Akbar Shazia Ghilzai, Baloch Mahvish. 2016. Conversational Analysis of Turn

taking Behavior and Gender Differences in Multimodal Conversation. Journal of
Perspectives in Language, Linguistics and Media 1 (2016) 1-13.

Fitriyah Rohmatul Dewi. 2016. Turn Taking Strategies and Its Relations to EFL
Learners’ Personality and Power in The Interaction of English Conversation
Class. Journal of English Teaching Learning and Research. (2018)

McCharty, Michael. 1991. Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers. Cambridgi

University Press. Cambridge.

Subiyanto, Agus. 2017. Turn-Taking in Colloquial Indonesian. NUSA - Vol. 12,

No. 4 November (2017).