Conversational turn-taking violations in mother-child interaction

Abstract

Conversational turn-taking violations and corresponding repair mechanisms in mother-child interaction were examined. Thirty mother-child dyads, with children ranging in age from 2:10 (years:months) to 6:3, were videotaped in a 10-min free play situation. The interactions were analyzed for several aspects of overlaps (i.e., simultaneous talking), including general characteristics, participant involvement, turn-taking repair mechanisms, topic characteristics, and communicative intent. Of the 246 overlaps identified, the majority were single, nonconsecutive, and internal (Gallagher & Craig, 1982). Mothers interrupted significantly more than did the children. In terms of repair mechanisms, children exhibited a greater frequency of discontinuation of talking when the mothers interrupted than did the mothers for the comparable situation. Both within and following the majority of overlaps, mothers and children maintained the same topic. Utterances consisting of informative statements were interrupted more often than those consisting of requests. In general, mothers did not appear to be as facilitative of their children's turn-taking skills as they are for other pragmatic skills.