Of timing, turn-taking, and conversations

Invoking turn-taking to explain conversations has long blocked progress in the field. Not only are there no logical or empirical grounds for saying conversation is constructed out of 'turns', but acoustic records show talk to be inseparable from how, in a micro-temporal dimension, individuals orchestrate their words. Conversations are dialogical activity irreducible to sequences of forms: phonetic substance matters. Talking of 'turns' obscures the significance of how people act. By subordinating action to word-based patterns, talk comes to be conceptualized independently of timing. in advocating the contrary view that timing is central to talk, the paper highlights pitch matching. Using acoustic,measures, persons are shown to orchestrate the pitch of their voices so that interindividual patterns embody the interpersonal sense of events. Observations about timing thus clarify what listeners hear when utterances are spoken in a particular sense.