Explanation
Turn-taking is the interactive organisation of who speaks when and how a change of speaker occurs. Participants recognise possible completion points, project continuations, select next speakers, or self-select. Pauses, overlaps, and interruptions are not simply disturbances but analysable outcomes of finely timed expectations. Practices vary with interaction type, medium, institution, and culture. The conceptual movement leaves behind the idea of preallocated speaking blocks and treats conversation as local coordination in which every turn responds to what came before while opening possibilities for what comes next.
Movement of thought
1. An ongoing turn projects possible completion through syntax, prosody, and the action it performs. 2. Participants simultaneously monitor whether a next speaker is selected or self-selection becomes possible. 3. At a transition point another voice enters, while silence and overlap also acquire interactional significance. 4. A counter-test examines institutional allocation, technical delay, and power asymmetry rather than equating all changes. 5. Many local decisions produce an ordered sequence that nevertheless has to be made anew at every moment.
Scientific use case
Conversation analysis, sociolinguistics, and human-computer interaction study transition relevance, pauses, and overlap in time-aligned transcripts. Audio and video preserve gaze and gesture as interactional resources.
Example
The doctor lowers pitch and gaze at the end of her question; after a short pause, the patient begins. When both start together, she stops and visibly yields the next turn to him.
Counterexample
A predetermined list of presentations gives a speaker order but does not necessarily instantiate local conversational turn-taking. Technically caused overlap should not be classified as a strategy of interruption without contextual evidence.
Distinction
Turn-taking coordinates opportunities to speak, including silence, overlap and repair; it is not merely a collision-avoidance technique. Distinguish turn-taking from mere speaker order, chairing, and interruption as an isolated event. It is the ongoing system of local practices organising speaking rights and transitions.
Effect on thought and perception
Turn-taking enables coordinated joint action with little central control. Its subtle norms can open participation but can also systematically delay or exclude particular voices.
Resonance
One voice carries speech to a possible threshold and another takes up its movement. Conversation arises in the interval where listening already prepares the next contribution.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Turn-Taking“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-119-024. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-119-024The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
In 1974, Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson model conversational speaker change through locally operating rules. At a possible completion, current-speaker selection has priority; otherwise self-selection and then continuation by the current speaker become relevant possibilities. Their account treats allocation as locally organized rather than predetermined. This historical formulation concerns turn-taking as a system and should be distinguished from an individual turn and from later German adoption of the term.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
Reconstruct speaker change through possible completion points and observable selection practices. A pause or grammatical sentence boundary alone does not require a change of speaker.
References for the historical section
- A-SSJ1974-TURNTAKING · Printed pp.702–704, §§3.1–3.3; PDF pp.7–9, previously visually reread in this worker run