Timing and turn taking in children's conversations1

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Abstract
The relations between pauses and turn taking in the dyadic conversations of three age groups of nursery school children were investigated. In Study 1 the duration of between‐speaker pauses in three types of successfully completed exchanges were compared. In Study 2 the duration of within‐speaker pauses was examined in sequences in which a speaker re‐solicited a response after the partner had failed to respond. Pause durations varied systematically across the exchange types and these durations were consistently briefer than the pauses preceding the re‐solicitations. Rare cases of simultaneous speech were also examined. The results suggest that children use their expectations of a context‐specific, normal range of pause duration in timing the onset of a turn‐at‐speaking.

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