Spoken Discourse Analysis: Turn-Taking

Discourse analysis is the examination of language use by members of a speech community. It involves looking at both a language form and language function and includes the study of both spoken interaction and written texts. It identifies linguistic features that characterize different genres as well as social and cultural factors that aid in our interpretation and understanding of different texts and types of talks.
As there are different people, the level of difficulty vary in getting into a conversation. Some people do it easily, but some have difficulties, knowing when to give up their turns to others, and in bringing conversation to a close. In order for a conversation to work smoothly, all participants have to be alert to signals that a speaker is about to finish his/her turn, and be able to come in with a contribution which fits the direction, in which the conversation is moving.
The goal of the present paper is to prove the importance of spoken discourse analysis in conversation and to demonstrate the usefulness of turn-taking and its teaching in English language.
In order to achieve the aim, the following tasks were set: 1) to carry out a selective analysis of the theoretical sources relevant to the topics under investigation; 2) to study turn-taking in audio and video materials; 3) to draw relevant conclusions.
The present term paper intends to demonstrate the importance and necessity of turn-taking in modern English teaching, as its hypothesis is: if an interlocutor uses turn-taking strategies, supported by appropriate body language, communication becomes more efficient.…