TEMPORAL TACTICS OF ACCOMMODATION IN TALK-IN-INTERRACTION OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE

Abstract

The study addresses an issue of temporal structure of coordinated communication between British English speakers from the perspective of two scientific traditions – Conversation Analysis and the Theory of Communicative Accommodation. The authors focus on such prosodic parameters, as phonation, pausing and overlapping in unprepared conversational speech. The analysis of the authentic speech samples makes it possible to conclude that turn-taking in conversation may not always involve pausing but may rather be realised by overlapping the interlocutors’ remarks. In such cases overlapping is perceived as a sign of communicative support and genuine interest in the conversation, and not as interrupting. The active speaker’s choice of prosodic tactics is conditioned by the communicative preferences of their interlocutor, if they intend to maintain a coordinated, conflict-free and continuous conversation flow.