Tools of Engagement: Selecting a Next Speaker in Australian Aboriginal Multiparty Conversations

ABSTRACT

Building on earlier Conversation Analytic work on turn-taking and response mobilization, we use video-recorded multiparty conversations to consider in detail how Australian Aboriginal participants in conversation select a next speaker in turns that are grammatically designed as questions. We focus in particular on the role of a range of embodied behaviors, such as gaze direction, body orientation, and pointing, to select—or avoid selecting—a next speaker. We use data from four remote Aboriginal communities to also explore the claims from ethnographic research that Aboriginal conversations typically occur in nonfocused participation frames. Data are in Murrinhpatha, Garrwa, Gija, and Jaru with English translations.

Notes

¹ There are real-world consequences for the general acceptance of these observations, as they have formed the basis for guidelines to cross-cultural communication written for non-indigenous health workers, legal workers, and school teachers (e.g., Eades, 1992; Hughes & Andrews, 1988; Keefe, 1992; Lowel, 2001; Morgan, 2006).

² Although Walsh worked widely, documenting a number of Australian languages, he is best known for work on the Murrinhpatha language. It is thus fitting that we investigate his model in conversation conducted in the same language he was observing.

³ The languages we have investigated for this study are both typologically diverse in the Australian context and also represent different states of endangerment. Murrinhpatha is spoken by all generations in the community of Wadeye where most of our video recordings took place; Garrwa and Gija are spoken in daily life only by the oldest generation in their communities, with younger generations speaking local varieties of Kriol; Jaru is still spoken by several elders in Halls Creek and by most adults in Yaruman (Ringer’s Soak).

⁴ The interrogative formats we consider are “content questions” (which correspond to “Wh-questions” in English) and polar (yes/no) questions.

⁵ While we have examples in our corpus from all four languages for all of ways of engaging that we discuss here, we have limited our discussion to only a few examples in the interest of space.

⁶ For each extract, the relevant seating arrangement is depicted as one of the “scenes” in Figure 4.

⁷ In this extract we will concentrate on the exchange between Barbara and Judy. To facilitate the transcript’s readability, we’ve grayed out Claire and Naida’s exchange.

⁸ Lines 1, 2, and 3 represent an almost simultaneous start that results in the schism.

⁹ Barbara’s answer at line 8 is not unusually delayed. Speculatively, she may have held back her reply long enough to ascertain that Claire’s softly spoken explanation at line 5 is not a response to Barbara’s question (which it isn’t because it belongs to an altogether parallel sequence).

¹⁰ We are uncertain what ngadarrijba (line 5) means.

¹¹ In Extract (1) we have a classic F-formation, while Extract (2) is a semicircular configuration. Strictly speaking, the configuration in Extract (3) is an exception because Hilda and Kate are seated side by side along the edge of the table, not facing each other. However, because Hilda does not speak in this extract, we maintain that for Kate and Daphne at least, the arrangement is a classic F-formation.

¹² That is, when Phyllis commences speaking, she does so by enacting the second of the Sacks et al. ordered turn-taking rules (1b), rather than the prior rule (1a) (1974, p. 704).

¹³ That Naida also answers the question at line 13 is probably an incidental outcome of Barbara’s stick being curved. Thus, at the stroke of the pointing gesture, the tip of the stick is aiming at Naida, while the hand that holds the stick (and indeed, Barbara’s eye gaze) is directed at Judy (see Figure 14). Furthermore, Naida’s uptake is sanctioned both epistemically, in that both possess the required information, and deontically, in that she and Judy are sisters, making Naida another “mother” of Mike, according to the Jaru kinship system.

¹⁴ The caveat mentioned in FN11 with respect to Extract (3) from Garrwa applies equally to Extract (9). Although Hilda and Kate are seated side by side, Hilda does not speak in the extract. Moreover, because she is leaning forward (see Figure 19), she and Kate can see each other easily enough.

¹⁵ This interrogative is marked as polar in two places: firstly by the polar suffix -ma to the coverb ngardawoo (“cry”), and secondly by the tag goo gaboo (“or what?”).

¹⁶ For instance, Phyllis’s second question at line 6 of Extract (8) after a brief disfluency, as well as Kate’s second question at line 6 of (9), which is latched onto her first question.

¹⁷ The person designating function of speaker gaze is also important in recruiting others to perform physical tasks, such as making tea, passing cigarettes, etc. (Blythe, in press).

¹⁸ The importance of epistemic skewing in question construction, relative to morphosyntax and prosody, accords with similar observations about polar questions in Italian, American English, and Yélî Dnye (Levinson, 2010; Rossano, 2010; Stivers, 2010). In Yélî Dnye, particularly, morphosyntax and prosody seem not to be involved in polar question construction at all.

Additional information

Funding

Field research was funded by the European Research Council (StG 240853), the Australian Research Council (DP110100961, DE130100399), the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (G05/7053) and the University of Queensland (NSRSF).