Jennifer Coates

Turn-Taking Patterns in Deaf Conversation.

This paper will focus on the turn-taking patterns of Deaf signers and will compare them with turn-taking patterns found in spoken interaction. Turn-taking in the conversation of hearing people has been the subject of considerable attention, but the way conversation is organised by Deaf conversationalists has received less attention. This paper reports on a small project involving conversational data obtained from two Deaf friendship groups, one all-female and one all-male. Our main aim was to establish whether Deaf interactants orient to a one-at-a-time model of turn-taking, or whether there was any evidence to suggest they can also orient to a more collaborative model. It has been assumed by researchers in the field of Deaf Studies that Deaf interactants orient to a one-at-a-time model since, where the medium of communication is visual rather than sound based, participants can attend to only those sources of talk that they can see. The paper also examines the data to see if there are any gender differences in the way Deaf interactants organise conversation.

Language and Gender

In all known societies, gender is a key construct, involving binary distinctions such as man–woman, male–female, masculine–feminine, and in all known societies language plays a crucial role in constructing and maintaining these distinctions. Womens and mens language usage has been found to vary in terms of grammar and pronunciation as well as in terms of conversational strategies such as hedging and turn-taking. There are many different—and conflicting—explanations for gender differentiation in language and the sociolinguistic understanding of gender the has changed greatly in the last 20 years. Early sociolinguistic research into the interaction of language and gender relied on a predominantly essentialist paradigm which categorized speakers primarily according to biological sex, and used mainly quantitative methods. Next, in the 1970s and 1980s, came a period which recognized the cultural construction of categories such as gender. During this period, more qualitative, ethnographic approaches predominated. In recent research, a more dynamic social constructionist approach has emerged which makes possible the combination of quantitative and qualitative research.

The discursive production of everyday heterosexualities

In this article, I examine the role of talk in constructing speakers as heterosexual beings. Heterosexuality is a cultural construction relying on strictly enforced norms for its continuing dominance. Queer linguistics initially focused on the language of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups, but is now widening its focus to explore the discursive construction of heterosexuality, and to show that language does not just reflect the heteronormative order; it is also involved in reproducing that order. I shall explore how heterosexuality is ‘done’ in everyday talk, drawing on Cameron and Kulick’s idea of ‘the heteronormative hierarchy’. I shall also show how closely sexuality and gender are linked, and will argue that this closeness is essential to the maintenance of heteronormativity.

The acquisition of the meanings of modality in children aged eight and twelve.

Little is known about childrens acquisition of modality. It seems clear that at the age of five, when they are said to be linguistically competent, children have not mastered the adult system of modal meaning. This paper describes research which tests childrens understanding of modal meaning at the ages of eight and twelve. The results of these tests are compared with the results of the same test on adult informants. The research uses the card-sorting method devised by Miller (1971) to investigate semantic similarities and dissimilarities; cluster analysis of the data reveals the underlying patterns. My tests revealed that eight-year-old children have only a rudimentary system of modal meaning, and even by the age of twelve a childs system will not be isomorphic with the adult system.

‘My Mind Is with You’: Story Sequences in the Talk of Male Friends [2001]

In this chapter,1 I want to focus on the extent to which narrative construction involves collaboration between speakers, and how collaboration functions in informal friendly talk. Increasingly, conversation is seen as an achievement which involves ‘the collective activity of individual social actors whose final product … is qualitatively different from the sum of its parts’ (Duranti 1986: 239). More specifically, narrative that occurs as part of spontaneous conversation is never a solo performance in the way oral narratives performed out in the public arena are (see Abrahams 1983; Bauman 1986; Labov 1972b). Conversational narrative is only possible when all participants in conversation jointly orient to someone telling a story. The terms ‘narrator’ and ‘audience’ set up a false picture of an active story-teller and a passive group of listeners, whereas the reality is that co-participants (the audience) are always co-authors in some sense. Commentators on narrative (for example, Goodwin 1986; Goodwin 1990; Ryave 1978; Sacks 1995) emphasise the fact that story-telling in conversation is a collaborative achievement, with narrative form and content being ‘continuously reshaped by the co-participants, through their ability to create certain alignments and suggest or impose certain interpretations’ (Duranti 1986: 242).

‘So I Thought “Bollocks to It”’: Men, Stories and Masculinities [2000]

My aim in this chapter1 is to look at the way masculinity is constructed in conversational narrative, that is, in stories told in spontaneous conversation involving male friends. Narrative is an important resource for speakers in the construction of self (Bruner 1990; Kerby 1991; Linde 1993). Telling stories not only allows us to give shape to our lives and to maintain our sense of self; it also allows us the possibility of exploring alternative selves. And given that the self is gendered (Benjamin 1990; Jukes 1993: xxiii), then narrative is a key resource for speakers in the construction of gender.

One-at-a-Time: The Organisation of Men’s Talk [1997]

Until the publication of Sally Johnson and Ulrike Meinhof’s (1997) book Language and Masculinity, the talk of men and boys, and, in particular, the talk of all-male groups, had been not been the focus of much sociolinguistic research.1 This, paradoxically, was a direct result of androcentric tendencies in sociolinguistic research. Because male practices were accepted as the norm, with women’s practices being viewed as deviant (see Cameron 1992; Coates 1993: 16–37; Graddol and Swann 1989), male speaking patterns have been taken for granted, and not seen as a salient topic for investigation. It is also probably true to say that the (less noticed and therefore arguably more pernicious) heterosocial tendencies of academic research have meant that sociolinguistic work has focused on speakers in mixed groups, so it is cross-sex talk (and cross-sex miscommunication) which has been analysed and discussed.

Having a Laugh: Gender and Humour in Everyday Talk [2006]

This chapter will explore the way gender is constructed in humorous interaction, drawing on a database of spontaneous talk involving all-female, all-male and mixed groups.1 I shall take the theoretical position that gender is not fixed but is accomplished in interaction with others. Humour is a normal component of everyday talk and serves (among other things) to reproduce gendered stereotypes, ideologies and identities. I shall examine humorous talk in a wide range of contexts, including the home, the pub, the classroom and the workplace, but concentrating on informal contexts and on humour’s role in creating and maintaining solidarity among speakers.

Competing Discourses of Femininity [1997]

The two most important things being accomplished in the talk of women friends are friendship and femininity. In this chapter1 I want to focus on femininity and on the role of talk in constructing us as gendered beings, as women. (‘Femininity’ is a problematic word, because of the everyday connotations of the adjective ‘feminine’. By ‘femininity’ I mean the abstract quality of being feminine, just as masculinity is the abstract quality associated with being masculine. ‘Doing femininity’ can be paraphrased as ‘doing being a woman’. The latter is a much clearer and less ambiguous way of saying what I mean, but far too clumsy to use repeatedly.)

Turn-Taking Patterns in Deaf Conversation [2001]

In this chapter,1 we intend to analyse the turn-talking patterns of Deaf2 signers and to compare them with the turn-talking patterns found in spoken interaction. Turn-taking in the conversation of hearing people has been the subject of considerable attention, but the way conversation is organised by Deaf conversationalists has received less attention. One of the more interesting findings of recent years in research on spoken interaction is that speakers have the choice of two modes of conversational organisation (Edelsky 1981). In the first, speakers take turns to hold the floor, with one speaker’s turn ideally following on from the previous one without any perceptible gap and without any overlap (this model is sometimes referred to as the ‘no gap, no overlap’ model — see Sacks et al. 1974). In the second, speakers share the conversational floor, which means that overlapping talk is one of the main characteristics of this mode of talk. A subsequent finding, again arising from research into spoken interaction, is that in informal conversation involving friends, male speakers seem to prefer the no gap, no overlap way of talking, while female speakers seem to prefer the all-in-together mode (Coates 1994, 1997a, 1997b).