Resources for a Lapse Management Device

• In Event: 279 - Regular Session. Conversation Analysis

Abstract

Lapses are a regular occurrence in talk-in-interaction, and in certain situations are experienced by participants as unpleasant periods of ‘awkward silence’. Almost invariably, however, such troublesome lapses are resolved, and talk proceeds along its course. This paper outlines the problems endogenous to lapses, and describes some procedures for their practical management. The data come from a collection of 300+ lapses identified in audio/video recordings of natural interactions in English. These are analyzed using conversation analytic methods (Sidnell and Stivers, 2013).

In settings organized for continuously sustained talk (telephone conversations, dinner parties, etc.), lapses rupture what should be an unbroken procession of talk. They violate the one-at-a-time distribution of turns, and so pose a problem for conversationalists. Specifically, lapses present a ‘less-than-one’ problem: no speaker appears in the space normatively reserved for one, meaning participants must work out who among them will speak next. The resources brought to bear in these settings are part of a ‘lapse management device’ (cf. Schegloff, 2000), and are aimed at mitigating the pressure of transition-relevance for the duration of the lapse. Two generic practices are highlighted whereby participants in a lapse either redirect the force of transition-relevance onto another participant, or reduce its bearing for a given participant.

In examining the range of contingencies involved in participants’ practical management of lapses, this paper addresses one underspecification of the Sacks et al. (1974) turn-taking system, namely, what happens when all parties to conversational interaction forgo the option to speak at a place of transition-relevance.

Author

• Elliott Hoey, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics