Utterance length and how it changes throughout conversation
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2006
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
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Abstract
In linguistic literature, little attention has been paid to quantifying UTTERANCE LENGTH, or the number of words or other units of length used by a speaker per turn, through the course of conversation. Using a playwriting exercise by Philadelphia playwright Bruce Graham, as a window into the issue, this paper discusses how one can go about studying such a surprisingly complex issue. As observed in an original experiment eliciting two-person, spontaneous conversations from college students, Graham's template for utterance length proves inaccurate. Instead, instances of a multi-turn pattern of utterance lengths, given the name BEAT, emerge. When the speakers' beats are analyzed through the course of dialogues, they outline a beat-level MACROTURN-TAKING SYSTEM that shares many of the features of the utterance-level TURN-TAKING SYSTEM described in linguistic literature. Using the concepts of beats and macroturns, I construct a new template for utterance lengths throughout the course of a twenty-five-turn dialogue that more accurately reflects real-life speech than Graham's template.