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ABSTRACT
This article reviews the prospects for the cross-fertilization of conversation analytic (CA) and neurocognitive studies of conversation, focusing on turn taking. Although conversation is the primary ecological niche for language use, relatively little brain research has focused on interactive language use, partly due to the challenges of using brain-imaging methods that are controlled enough to perform sound experiments but still reflect the rich and spontaneous nature of conversation. Recently, though, brain researchers have started to investigate conversational phenomena—for example, by using “overhearer” or controlled interaction paradigms. We review neuroimaging studies related to turn-taking and sequence organization, phenomena historically described by CA. These studies, for example, show early action recognition and immediate planning of responses midway during an incoming turn. The review discusses studies with an eye to a fruitful interchange between CA and neuroimaging research on conversation and an indication of how these disciplines can benefit from each other.
Funding
This work was supported by an ERC Advanced Grant (269484 INTERACT) to Stephen C. Levinson.
Notes
1 CA treats turns as made up of one or more TCUs, where by definition a TCU is a linguistic unit that can be heard as possibly complete—where an addressee does not take the opportunity to intervene here, the turn may continue, yielding a turn of two or more TCUs. This analysis captures the contingent, collaborative nature of the unit that emerges as a turn. In many of the following experiments the distinction between turn and TCU is experimentally finessed, but it is important to bear in mind.