HISTORIA DE LA CONFIGURACIÓN DE LA VERDAD Y LA TRANSFIGURACIÓN DE LOS MODOS DE SER

Interactants draw on syntactic rules to project potential places of speaker change. With the exception of minimal TCUs, which consist of one word only, most TCUs are shaped as clauses, phrases, or sentences, i.e. exhibit a rule-governed and therefore syntactically predictable structure (Clayman 2013: 154). In fact, CA typically regards grammar as both being shaped by and shaping the turn-taking system.29 _{Even though Schegloff also} acknowledges other resources as influencing the projectability of a TCU (e.g. prosody or semantics), he clearly states that grammar and interaction are closely interrelated: Grammar is influenced by its “natural habitat”, i.e. talk-in-interaction, but it also affects turn-taking (Schegloff 1996: 55f). Grammatical structures therefore have an important function in allowing potential next speakers to project upcoming TRPs and to prepare for starting up. Consequently, in the CA paradigm, syntax is viewed in its interactional context and with respect to its turn-holding or -yielding qualities.

Any analysis of turn-taking thus has to take into account the syntactic makeup of the conversationalists’ language. This is corroborated by recent psycholinguistic studies (e.g. Levinson & Torreira 2015), which further highlight the role of grammatical structures for the projection of TRPs. Whereas next speakers on average respond 0.2s after the current speaker has stopped talking, the actual preparation of the turn-to-come starts much earlier. In fact, by visualising brain waves EEGs30 _{can identify the beginning of the planning} process, i.e. the conceptualisation phase, at approximately 0.6s before the actual launching of a next turn. That is, there has to be a period in which the next speaker is already preparing their turn, but while the current speaker is still talking. Levinson & Torreira call this period the “crunch zone” and argue that, even though lexis and prosody also play a role in identifying TRPs, “morphosyntax may provide most of the early clues […] offering some long distance [sic] projection” (2015: 13). Thus, syntax and grammar are an essential component in TRP projection, and they constitute an important factor in allowing smooth transition to the next speaker.

29 _{See, for instance, Roberts & Levinson (2017), who show that the word order of many languages is}

influenced by interactional constraints.

30 _{EEG stands for ‘electroencephalography’, which is a method of visualising the electrical activity of the}

It is therefore not surprising that syntax has been discussed extensively in CA literature. In their “simplest systematics for turn-taking”, Sacks et al. had already defined “sentential constructions […] [as] the most interesting of the unit-types [i.e. TCUs], because of the internally generated expansions of length they allow – and, in particular, allow BEFORE first possible completion places” (1974: 709, emphasis in original). Since then, their ideas have been taken up and elaborated on. In 1996, Schegloff closely investigated the relationship between grammar and turn-organisation, eventually concluding that “[f]rom the point of view of the organization of talk-in-interaction, one of the main jobs grammar or syntax does is to provide potential construction- and recognition-guides for the realization of the possible completion points of TCUs, and potentially of turns” (1996: 87). Other scholars have focused on specific grammatical structures, such as turn-extensions (e.g. Lerner 1996; Ford et. al 2002) or repair (e.g. Fox et el. 1996), or have looked into the interaction between syntax, prosody, and pragmatic aspects (e.g. Ford et al. 1996; Selting 1996 (on German); Tanaka 1999 (on Japanese); Li 2014 (on Mandarin)). Apart from that, grammatical practices in turn-taking have also been investigated from a cross-linguistic perspective (e.g. Lerner & Takagi 1999 (on English and Japanese); Couper-Kuhlen & Ono 2007 (on English, Japanese and German)).

As spontaneous spoken data often does not coincide with the traditional idea of ‘grammatical sentences’ and as grammar in interaction always is “positionally sensitive” (Schegloff 1996: 111), Crystal (1979: 159f) suggests that clauses might play a prominent role when it comes to projecting turn completion, particularly as they also often coincide with prosodic boundaries (cf. also Selting 2000: 489). In her analysis of turn-taking in Japanese conversations, Tanaka therefore uses the term “conversational syntax” to avoid confusion with traditional linguistic notions of the sentence, and she also stresses the interrelatedness of syntax and the turn-taking system as such: “It is difficult to conceive of such all-pervasive systems of conversational organisation as conversational syntax and turn-taking not being dynamically interrelated in actual practice” (1999: 31). That is, when analysing conversation, syntax and grammar have to regarded primarily as interactional practices,

as a set of social resources that is in the first instance situated in the hands of participants who can deploy and exploit (and play with) these used-in-common features of sociality […]. This does not erase language structure from the description, but respecifies the features of language as features of talk in interaction (Lerner 1996: 238f).

This distinction between linguistic and interactional features, or linguistic and conversational grammar, is central. As described above, the turn-taking system is built

around the two notions of the TRP and the TCU, with TCUs being defined as interactionally complete units which allow TRP projection while minimising gaps (and overlaps). Frequently, syntactic (or grammatical) completion and interactional completion coincide, as in (3.9) below, where two speakers are talking about the teacher’s day in Vietnam.

Example (3.9): Teacher’s day (ACE, VN_LE_con_pho restaurant)

01 Dia: =↑er WHAT ARE ↑THE: GIFTS (0.2) from the students usually?= 02 Hue: =↑er:- [>actually- at lea]st< ↑FLOWERS and sometimes the:: 03 N.N.: [ > a ↑TIE: < ]

04 Hue: er may↑be: [ ( ) ! ] 05 Thu: [↑clothes]

Dian, an English teacher from Indonesia, is interested in how teacher’s day is celebrated in Vietnam. The question what are the gifts from the students usually? (l. 01) is a prime example for the TCU as a complex but holistically complete gestalt: Its prosodic contour ends in an intonational rise, marking it as an interrogative; its syntactic makeup is that of a question with an increment after the 0.2s gap; and interactionally, Dian has just opened up the first pair part (FPP) of an adjacency pair – a question. The reaction of the other interactants confirms this analysis: They complete the adjacency pair by providing answers to the question (l. 02, 03, and 05) with speaker Hue even starting up in latch position, which shows that she has closely monitored Dian’s turn and is able to precisely project the upcoming TRP. What this extract illustrates is that macro- and micro-projection of a TRP cannot be separated – a TCU’s structure is shaped in reference to the action it purports to do (in the example above, a question FPP), while the action underway also depends on the interactants’ online step-by-step processing of the TCU (cf. Schegloff 2013: 42). This obviously also implies that different grammatical structures trigger or enable different turn- holding or -claiming moves. As Schegloff puts it, “the grammatical properties of a language may contribute to the organization of turns-at-talk in that language and of the turn-taking device by which they are employed” (1996: 56).

That is, as different typologies allow for different sentence structures, languages do not rely equally on syntax when it comes to projection. Cross-linguistic research has shown that languages such as English or German can be described as ‘early projection’ languages. That is, their syntactic structure typically requires that the core elements of the sentence, i.e. subject and object, are mentioned very early in the clause – at the beginning of the TCU. As it is these elements which typically determine the trajectory of the TCU, potential next speakers will be able to project upcoming TRPs at a very early stage (cf. Egbert 1996; Ford

et al. 1996). Japanese, on the other hand, is an SOV language, i.e. the verb is mentioned late in the TCU, and syntactic structures can be revised relatively flexibly. This means that

crucial information concerning the shape of turn being produced tends to be concentrated towards the end of a turn. These features can make it difficult for participants in Japanese to project a possible completion point or the type of activity which will be performed by a turn until slightly before the end of a turn (Tanaka 1999: 143; cf. also Ford et al. 1996: 213).

This is further reinforced by the fact that contextually inferable constituents may be omitted in Japanese syntax (Hayashi 2004: 1344). Japanese has thus been called a “delayed projection language” (e.g. Tanaka 1999) with consequences for the turn-taking system: Japanese speakers will draw on other aspects of the TCU to project upcoming TRPs, such as phonological and prosodic elements or particles (cf. Tanaka 1996; Iwasaki 2009). Apart from that, Japanese syntax has been claimed to be associated with a culturally specific interactional style, which emphasises affective information (e.g. Suzuki 2006).

As varieties of English do not necessarily follow standard British or American English syntax, they might differ in how much they allow for early projection. In the Southeast Asian data group, for instance, speakers come from a variety of linguistic backgrounds, and their Englishes are influenced by Mandarin, Malaysian Malay, Indonesian Malay, and Vietnamese. All of these languages can omit syntactic constituents, such as subject or object pronouns, articles, or copula be, if they are clear from the context, and this has also been attested for the corresponding varieties of English, (cf. Kortmann & Lunkenheimer 2013, see also Leuckert & Neumaier 2016). Similarly, Caribbean Englishes also exhibit different morphosyntactic patterns, such as a lack of subject-verb inversion in interrogative sentences, which has been reported for Trinidad and Tobago (James & Youssef 2004: 46). In order to investigate syntactic projectability in varieties of English, research from World Englishes therefore has to be taken into account.

In my study, I focus on how interactants use grammar and syntax as resources in claiming or holding a turn. Four larger aspects are investigated: the use of recycles (chapter 4.5.1), the use of syntax to obscure or delay TRPs, e.g. via cut-offs or compound TCUs (chapter 4.5.2), requests to produce longer turns, e.g. via pre-announcements or tag questions (chapter 4.5.3), and topic placement (chapter 4.5.4).