Discourse Approach to Turn-taking

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH

15

3.1

Methods of Research

15

3.2

Data and Findings

17

3.2.1

Data 1

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3.2.2

Findings

18

3.2.3

Data 2

19

3.2.4

Findings

20

3.3

Analysis of Statement-Form Utterances

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3.3.1

Speaker’s Choice of a Falling Tone for the Last Tone Unit

20

3.3.2

Speaker’s Choice of a Referring Tone for the Last Tone Unit

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3.3.3

Speaker’s Choice of a Level Tone for the Last Tone Unit

32

3.3.4

Adjacency Pairs and Phatic Expressions

33

3.3.5

Back-Channel Responses to Statement-Form Utterances

34

CHAPTER 4 DISCUSSION

38

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION

43

APPENDIX

Table Indicating the Relation between Turns

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REFERENCES

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1

1  INTRODUCTION

This paper aims to discuss turn-taking, from the perspective of tone choice between

the speaker and the next speaker. Turn-taking is often troublesome for learners of a

foreign language, owing to its sociocultural component and various turn-eliciting cues.

The research specifically looks at the relation between the first tone choice of the next

speaker’s or the listener’s utterance and the last tone choice of the speaker’s utterance

in turn-taking in a discourse-based framework. The function of tone becomes clear

when the context of interaction and the role-relationship between the participants are

taken into account. It is expected that paying attention to the meaning of tone presents

implications for pedagogy in turn-taking and provides learners with an insight into

both the communicative value of tone and rules of turn-taking. The material used in

this research is a movie film. Movie films allow constant emphasis on meaning. A

detective film is chosen for the specific aim of this research, since the plot develops

logically, which will allow students easy access to the context.