Melodic Cues to Turn-Taking in English: Evidence from Perception

This paper presents a study of the effects of syntax and melodic configuration on turntaking in Southern British English. Using dialogue materials, two perception experiments were carried out. In the first, subjects heard dialogue fragments in which syntactic completeness and melodic contour were systematically varied, and were asked whether they expected a subsequent turn exchange or not. In the second, subjects were presented with short speaker exchanges taken from the same material, and asked whether they thought the first speaker had intended to cede the turn or not. The results suggest that syntactic completion or non-completion is the main factor in predicting turn-taking behaviour. Only one melodic contour, the high level tone H* %, appears to operate as a turn holding device, regardless of whether the utterance is grammatically complete or not. The results of this study were found to be similar to those of a study of Dutch turn-taking.