Psychology 409b September 16, 2006

Observations on Interruption in Conversation

By:  Angela Murray

 

Instructions for this activity are found at:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/g25-oral1.htm

Instructor:  Dr. Leon James

 

Deborah Tannen (1994).  Gender and Discourse.  (New York, N.Y.:  Oxford University Press).  Reviewing pages 53-67.

 

 

I.              High Involvement Style

a.    Cooperative overlap is often used within this type of communication

b.    Generally listeners will talk along with speakers to show enthusiastic listenership and participation

c.    New York Jews seen as pushy when really they are showing involvement in conversation

d.    Opposite of High Involvement would be Òhigh consideratenessÓ

e.    Author wishes to show that not all forms of interruption are used to dominate

 

II.           Interruption between the Sexes

a.    Women sometimes report having trouble getting voices heard when interacting with men

b.    Overall men interrupt women more than women interrupt men

c.    Stereotype is to think that it is always women talking and men can never get a word in

 

III.         Zimmerman and West studies on Males Interrupting Females

a.    During 46 out of 48 instances it was the male interrupting the female in 1975 study

b.    They call interruption Òa device for exercising power and control in conversationÓ

c.    They also claim silence is a devise for exercising dominance

d.    By putting both interruption and silence as ways to dominate, it makes it questionable to assume domination is the motivation in either situation

 

IV.         Problems with the Methodology

a.    ÒOperationalÓ definitions of interruption include people waiting in turn for the other to speak

b.    There could be a transition-relevance place that a speaker sees as an opportunity to engage which would be considered interruption

c.    There must be a distinction between overlap and interruption

d.    It is a question of ÒeticÓ and ÒemicÓ

                                              i.     Overlap is in the ÒeticÓ category

                                            ii.     Interruption is in the ÒemicÓ category

 

e.    Some interruptions are procedural rather than substantive

f.     There is no Òabsolute syntactical or acoustic criteria for recognizing an occurrence of an interruption

g.    A personÕs completion rights depend on many things-length, frequency of speech, etc.

h.    Procedural metacomments such as asking for food, and asking for someone to not mess up a notebook take some precedence over conversations at hand

 

V.           Problems with the Sociolinguistics

a.    Assumption that interruption is single handed

b.    Conversation is a joint activity, not single handed

c.    Interruption involves one person cutting in and the other stopping speaking

d.    If the other keeps speaking, it becomes an overlap

e.    Sometimes overlap is supportive, not obstructive

 

VI.         High Rate of Interruption is Associated with higher rates of Social Comfort

a.    Example of Dara, Steph, and Max:  girls consistently finish each otherÕs sentences, but their interruptions make the new friend Max uncomfortable

b.    Girls wish to include Max in their banter but he wishes to hold floor without intrusions

c.    He denies solidarity with the two girls by doing this

 

VII.      Common misassumption is that Conversation is taken in turns, one then other

a.    We believe one ought to speak without interruption, but this is hardly the case in most situations

b.    Interruptions involve pacing, pausing, and overlap

c.    Interruption can be seen as solidarity not an exercise of power

d.    It can also be the result of style contact-2 differing turn-taking systems

 

VIII.    Negative face vs. Positive Face

a.    Positive Face-speakers need to know that others are involved in the conversation

b.    Negative Face-speakers need not to be imposed upon

c.    High involvement speakers often wish to receive positive face whereas high considerate speakers wish to receive negative face

d.    High Involvement Speakers can be seen interrupting many times

e.    In the example Tannen gives she explains that Steve does not feel intruded upon because he ignores some questions

f.     Latching and overlapping questions can only be seen as positive by those high involvement speakers

 

 

Related Links:

 

1)      Gender and Conversational Style

Researchers looked at the possibility that some speech disjunctions may come from confederate speech style rather than confederate gender style.  Tera Murachver and Annette Hannah train speakers to speak in specific ways in order to figure out whether it is gender that is playing the main influence or whether it is just the style of conversation.  The full article can be found in PDF format from this website.

http://jls.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/18/2/153

 

2)      Interruptions in Group Discussions

Lynn Smith-Lovin and Charles Brody examine interruptions within Group discussions in an attempt to find out if these interruptions are in fact a means to dominate women.  They assert that men commonly interrupt women in discussions and try to classify these types of interruptions into different groups.  They believe that men interrupt women more than they interrupt other men, whereas women interrupt both men and women equally.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224(198906)54%3A3%3C424%3AIIGDTE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N

 

3)      Frustrated and Interrupted Women

A woman writes to Vera that she is frustrated often being the only woman in her conferences and also being interrupted often.  She talks about how women and men have different speech patterns especially when it comes to Japanese-American culture.  What she writes is a plea to other men in the business world to save women from being interrupted and mistreated in the work environment.

http://vera.wordpress.com/2006/02/15/may-i-finish/

 

My Homepage:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bf2006/murray/murray-home.htm

 

Class Homepage:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/classhome-g25.htm