Temporal characteristics of child-adult conversations: utterances and turn-taking
Articles
Viktória Horváth
Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics
Valeria Krepsz
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics
Published 2023-05-11
https://doi.org/10.15388/Taikalbot.2023.19.2
PDF
HTML

Keywords

children’s speech
conversation
temporal characteristics
turn-taking
Floor Transfer Offset

How to Cite

Horváth, V., & Krepsz, V. (2023). Temporal characteristics of child-adult conversations: utterances and turn-taking. Taikomoji Kalbotyra, 19, 3-13. https://doi.org/10.15388/Taikalbot.2023.19.2

Abstract

Since its inception, conversation analysis has focused on the question of how participants achieve a fast and smooth alignment between two turns. Most research has analyzed adults’ conversations, but much less has been known about child-adult interactions. The aim of this study is to analyze the temporal patterns of children’s utterances and turn-taking (TT). Twenty adult-child conversations (ages 5 and 7) were selected from the GABI database. Articulation rate, duration of interpausal units, pauses, and FTO-value (Floor Transfer Offset) of turn-taking launched by the children were analyzed. Temporal patterns did not differ between the two age groups, but individual differences were found within both groups. TT mostly occurred with a gap, but children were also able to take the floor immediately. TTs after a gap were significantly longer than after overlapping speech. The results provide new information on the communicative competence in childhood, particularly regarding timing patterns and organization of child-adult dialogues.

PDF
HTML

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Most read articles in this journal

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >>