The Conversational Discourse Unit: Identification and Its Role in Conversational Turn-taking Management

Junfei Hu, Liesbeth Degand


Abstract
This study investigates how discourse segmentation and turn-taking interact. Mapping syntactic, prosodic and pragmatic units, five types of conversational discourse units (CDU) were identified. Based on this segmentation, associations were examined between the syntactic, prosodic and pragmatic boundaries and turn-taking, as well as the transition speed after each type of CDU. Results show: 1) The relationships between the three linguistic boundaries and the occurrence of turn-taking were significant, and the association was the strongest for the pragmatic boundaries; it was weaker for prosodic boundaries and the weakest for the syntactic boundaries. 2) The type of CDU influenced the transition speed, with the pragmatic-syntax-bound CDU being fastest. The study highlights the importance of meaning-connection and earlier emergence of the utterance gist in timing turn-taking.
Anthology ID:
2023.dnd-14.1
Volume:
Dialogue Discourse Volume 14
Month:
November
Year:
2023
Address:
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Editors:
Manfred Stede, Amir Zeldes, Vera Demberg, Barbara Di Eugenio, Junyi Jessy Li
Venue:
DND
SIG:
SIGDIAL
Publisher:
University of Illinois Chicago
Note:
Pages:
83–112
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2023.dnd-14.1/
DOI:
10.5210/dad.2023.203
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Junfei Hu and Liesbeth Degand. 2023. The Conversational Discourse Unit: Identification and Its Role in Conversational Turn-taking Management. Dialogue & Discourse, 14:83–112.
Cite (Informal):
The Conversational Discourse Unit: Identification and Its Role in Conversational Turn-taking Management (Hu & Degand, DND 2023)
Copy Citation:
PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2023.dnd-14.1.pdf