1. London February 20071 TURNTAKING IN SIGN LANGUAGE INTERACTION Anne Baker

2. London February 20072 The importance of turn taking? Ever had the feeling of : not getting a word in edgeways? that the other person would rather you stopped talking? that the other person wants you to do all the talking BACKGROUND

3. London February 20073 What is turn taking? Universal pragmatic principle: conversations involve different speakers who take the floor. The taking of turns is regulated: - behaviour to hold the floor - behaviour to give the floor to another BACKGROUND

4. London February 20074 Regulators of turn taking Transition Relevance Place ( Sachs, Schlegloff & Jefferson 1974) Verbal signals Vocal signals Somatic signals All for both turn holding and turn yielding. Feedback or backchannels BACKGROUND

5. London February 20075 The form of the signals Verbal signals questions, syntactic completeness Vocal signals intonation, speed of talking, vocalizations Somatic signals eye contact, head movement, body contact CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

6. London February 20076 The use of the signals Verbal signals is a direct question polite? what are the indicators of completeness? Vocal signals intonation contours vary Somatic signals is eye contact polite? CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

7. London February 20077 Simultaneous talk/sign Vocal/verbal feedback tolerance/requirement varies Interruptions tolerance varies Quick uptake amount of time between turns varies Floor sharing joint construction of talk CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

8. London February 20078 Variables Speed of talk Length of turn Length of pauses Turn at syntactic break Interruptions and overlap Feedback Type of feedback A STUDY OF TWO CULTURES

9. London February 20079 Method (Baker & Junefelt 2007) Conversation between 4 people 2 men: 1 older, 1 younger 2 women: 1 older, 1 younger Topic: what is typical of your culture? Length 30 minutes A STUDY OF TWO CULTURES

10. London February 200710 Results Dutch/Swedish comparison Speed of talk Length of turn Length of pauses Turn at syntactic break Interruptions and overlap Feedback Type of feedback Swedish Slower Fewer and longer Longer More at break Fewer Fewer in total More vocal, less verbal A STUDY OF TWO CULTURES

11. London February 200711 Quantitative Results A STUDY OF TWO CULTURES VariableDutchSwedish Words per min207122 ** Turns per min12.8 6.9 *** ML turn words13.5 28 *** Pauses > 1sec26%37% * ML pauses sec1.22.1 **

12. London February 200712 Quantitative Results A STUDY OF TWO CULTURES VariableDutchSwedish Change at syn break turns 64%93% *** Interrupt min2.30.4 *** Overlap min1.40.2 ** Feedback min verbal4.40 *** vocal1.01.4 * somatic3.02.9

13. London February 200713 Gender differences Men in both cultures had more interrruptions than the women Men had longer turns Older men more than younger. A STUDY OF TWO CULTURES

14. London February 200714 The role of vision Somatic signals are mostly seen What happens in turn taking when you cannot see these? e.g. telephone conversations? in the dark? if you are blind?

15. London February 200715 Results Speed of talk Length of turn Length of pauses Turn at syntactic break Interruptions and Overlap Feedback Type of feedback Blind vs sighted Quicker Longer DU: shorter; SW:longer More Fewer DU:more; SW: fewer DU:more verbal; SW: less vocal No somatic A STUDY OF TWO SUB-CULTURES

16. London February 200716 Explanations for the differences between blind and sighted? Fewer and longer turns? Visual cues missing, so continue longer. Turn at syntactic break more often? More use of this non-visual cue. Fewer interruptions? Two conflicting auditory signals more confusing A STUDY OF TWO SUB-CULTURES

17. London February 200717 Why the cultural differences? Dutch blind shorter pauses than sighted; Swedish blind longer pauses than sighted? Dutch more overlap; Swedish less? Dutch more verbal feedback; Swedish more vocal. A STUDY OF TWO SUB-CULTURES

18. London February 200718 Why the cultural differences? Dutch shorter pauses; Swedish longer? Dutch more overlap; Swedish less? Dutch more verbal feedback; Swedish more vocal. Swedish lack of tolerance for simultaneous talk and tolerance of silence Dutch more pressure to grab floor. Both follow feedback patterns of own culture. What will happen in a blind-sighted conversation? What happens in children? A STUDY OF TWO SUB-CULTURES

19. London February 200719 Conclusions Clear cultural differences In the absence of visual cues blind adults have learned to adapt to their cultural pattern leading to different behaviours. Blind children have to learn the pattern. A STUDY OF TWO (SUB-)CULTURES

20. London February 200720 Visual attention in sign languages Signers focus on each other’s faces when signing in signing space. Manual signs are seen. Children have to learn to divide their attention between sign language and environment. A STUDY OF TURNTAKING IN A SIGN LANGUAGE

21. London February 200721 Strategies in turntaking Adults wait for eye contact before signing (Harris 1987, van den Bogaerde 2000, Loots & Devisé 2003) In Child Directed Signing adults shift the signing space into visual field of child Waving or tapping used to attract attention or sometimes to signal desire to take turn TURNTAKING IN A SIGN LANGUAGE

22. London February 200722 Strategies in turntaking (2) Collaborative floor (simultaneous signing) occurs easily in adult sign language interaction (Coates & Sutton-Spence 2001) Overlap in adult-adult signing: for feedback for feedback using repetition for clarification TURNTAKING IN A SIGN LANGUAGE

23. London February 200723 Research Questions In early mother-child interaction: Is visual attention to signing established at the beginning of utterances? How much overlap is found? What is the function of overlap? Are there differences between deaf and hearing children? TURNTAKING IN NGT ACQUISITION

24. London February 200724 Method one deaf child one hearing child (brothers) at ages 2;0, 3;0 and 6;0 in interaction with same deaf mother Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) and Dutch are used, plus combinations Five minutes of interaction analyzed per session Units of analysis: turns, utterances and signs TURNTAKING IN NGT ACQUISITION

25. London February 200725 Contribution of child Percentage of turns produced by the child in dyad 2;03;06;0 Deaf-deaf 374344 Deaf-hearing524642 Jonas (H) is more active at age 2;0 than Mark (D) Probably related to Jonas’ general language level (further in spoken Dutch than Mark in NGT) Results: general measures

26. London February 200726 MLU in signs Average number of signs per utterance 2;03;06;0 Mother M1.9 2.13.0 Mark (D)1.52.32.3 Mother J2.02.02.3 Jonas(H)1.11.82.3 Mother mostly ahead of child in MLU as expected Both children increase their MLU Jonas has a slower start in signs – only 36% of utterances contain a sign at 2;0, but 78% at 6;0 Results: general measures

27. London February 200727 How often is the beginning of the utterance seen by addressee (%)? 2;03;06;0 Deaf-deaf (Mark) seen by mother 859599 seen by child779198 Deaf-hearing (Jonas) seen by mother 444967 seen by child726162 Jonas sees 80% of signs; Mark 99% R Results

28. London February 200728 Percentage of overlapping utterances in dyad 2;03;06;0 Deaf-deaf 404263 Deaf-hearing182644 Increase in overlap in both dyads Deaf-deaf dyad far more overlap – collaborative floor Deaf-deaf dyad - long chains of overlaps; not in Deaf-hearing Results

29. London February 200729 Percentage of child interruptions and simultaneous starts 2;03;06;0 Child Interruptions Mark (D) 322843 Jonas (H)581434 Simultaneous starts Deaf-deaf 102817 Deaf-hearing101417 Results

30. London February 200730 Functions of overlap Mother uses all functions at all ages Mark Jonas Feedback> after 2;0 few Repetitionfew few Clarificationsmall increase none Othermost most Results

31. London February 200731 Mark with his mother (6;0)

32. London February 200732 Jonas with his mother (6;0)

33. London February 200733 Conclusions Visual attention at start of turn - mother at 2;0 waits for attention - deaf child learns to check for signing - hearing child looks when mother speaks Amount of overlap increases with age - Deaf-deaf dyad: high percentage of overlap - Deaf-hearing dyad: increase as Jonas signs more

34. London February 200734 Conclusions (2) Child Interruptions - Mark slight increase between 2;0 and 6;0, learning collaborative floor - Jonas overlaps with speech at 2;0, learns not to by 3;0 and sign overlap at 6;0 Simultaneous start - Mark more active at 3;0 resulting in more - Jonas increases slightly

35. London February 200735 Conclusions (3) Functions - most overlap for children ‘real’ interruption - Mark is learning functions of overlap (feedback and clarification) Deaf-deaf dyad moving towards collaborative floor Deaf-hearing dyad functions more as hearing, voice used by mother to gain attention/turn Fine-tuning in deaf-hearing dyad more complex due to mother’s deafness

36. London February 200736 Effect of turntaking patterns Jonas as CODA makes different language choices than his mother and than Mark: - more Dutch - more Dutch Base Language (code-blending) Jonas’ mother asks very few clarification questions compared to other mothers of CODAS. Effect on his language choice?

37. London February 200737 References Baker, A.E. & B. v.d. Bogaerde (2006) Factors influencing child CODAs in early bilingual language acquisition. TISLR9, Brazil. Bogaerde, B. van den 2000 Input and interaction in deaf families, UvA. Utrecht: Lot (wwwlot.let.uu.nl) Bogaerde, B. v.d. & A. Baker 2002 Are deaf young children bilingual? In G.Morgan & B.Woll, Directions in sign language research, Amsterdam: Benjamins Coates J & R. Sutton-Spence 2001 Turn-taking patterns in Deaf conversation. Journal of Sociolinguistics 5/4, 507-529 Harris M.J. et al. 1987 Communication between deaf mothers and their deaf infants. Proceedings of CLS. In P.Griffith et al. (eds) Univ. of York Loots, G. & I. Devisé (2003) The use of visual-tactile communication strategies by deaf and hearing mothers of deaf children. JDSDE 8, 31-42.

38. London February 200738 CONTACT a.e.baker@uva.nl https://home.medewerker.uva.nl/a.e.baker ACLC University of Amsterdam Spuistraat 210 1012 VT Amsterdam The Netherlands

39. London February 200739 Amount of overlap 2;0 M J 3;0 M J 6;0 M J Total no.utt. + overlap 103 40 221 18 96 42 218 26 185 63 139 44 Overlap by mother 603245714049 Overlap by child 325828144334 Sim.start of overlap 10 281417