Abstract
The study of dramatic dialogue as discourse has caught the attention of researchers in recent times. A defining watershed moment regarding this was the publication in 1974 of Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson’s framework of turn management for conversation and their notions of turn and turn-taking. Dramatic dialogue is generally considered as a multi-input form and this raises the issue of the distribution of turns and their management. This paper first outlines the theoretical framework of Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson’s notion of turn management before discussing the contribution that turn-taking patterns make to the understanding of situation and characters in plays. The paper then analyses an extract from Dattani’s Bravely Fought the Queen (1991) using the theoretical insights from Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson’s framework of turn management and shows how turn-taking choices affect the reader’s interpretation of the characters’ speech.
Keywords: Turn, turn management, turn-taking, turn-grabs, turn allocation, turn order, turn size and texture
Theoretical Framework
Central to the dynamics of interaction is the concept of the turn, which can generally be interpreted as the enactment of a speaker’s right to speak by taking an opportunity to speak in a speech event or situation (Herman, “Turn Management” 19). The systematics involved in turn-taking and turn management was explored by Harvey Sacks, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Gail Jefferson, who proposed a systematics composed of two components: (a) the turn-allocational component and (b) the turn-constructional component.
The turn-allocational component regulates the changeover of turns. Generally, a turn change proceeds smoothly — one participant talks, stops, the next participant talks, stops, and so on. But there can be conflict at the changeover point, also termed as the Transition Relevance Place (TRP). The turn-constructional component controls the size or length and the linguistic structure of a turn.
Types of Floor
The turn-taking system provides conventions for the conversational ‘floor’ (Edelsky 189). There are two kinds of floor: the usually orderly ‘one-at-a-time’ type and a collaborative venture where two or more people took part in an apparent ‘free-for-all’ type or jointly built an idea operating on the same wavelength.
Analysis of the Extract
In Act III (titled ‘Free for All!’) of Bravely Fought the Queen, the claustrophobic ‘female’ world of Act I and the ‘male’ world of business of Act II clash and collapse, stripping the family of the Trivedis of its veneer and everyone standing “exposed to unpalatable realities of abuse, alcoholism, adultery and homosexuality as a fallout of the war on the home front” (Kuthari Chaudhuri 33).
In the analysed extract, all three turn-allocation options are used but with different frequencies. The two most frequent are the current speaker selecting the next speaker and self-selection. Jiten is the dominant character. Nine of the twenty-five turns are Jiten’s and Jiten does most of the selection. The self-selections are turn-grabs by unauthorised speakers who interject themselves between Jiten and his targets.
Turn-Grabs, Allocation, and Order
Turn-grabs function as other-oriented interventions: the sarcasm directed at Alka is deflected from developing by Dolly who interjects her own contribution. Jiten’s turn allocation strategies via participant selection target those he names as the butts of his speech and the passing of turn to them is challenging and confrontational. Turn order reveals unequal distribution of turns among those present, with Jiten central to all the interactions.
Turn change, on the whole, is smoothly achieved. The two dominant participants, Jiten and Alka, conduct their interactions via a smooth turn change, which paradoxically does not produce comity, but facilitates equality between them in the control of the conflict that is enacted between them. Jiten’s turns are occasionally longer, multi-clause turns which he uses to develop or intensify some personal point, while Alka’s turn-lengths are very short.
Conclusion
A detailed examination of this extract from Dattani’s Bravely Fought the Queen shows that what is important in interpreting dramatic dialogue is not just the meaning of what is said, but the management of the saying itself, in the judicious use of the variables of the turn-taking system which the dialogue projects.
Works Cited
- Carter, Roland and Paul Simpson, eds. Language, Discourse and Literature: An Introductory Reader in Discourse Stylistics. London: Routledge, 1989.
- Culpeper, Jonathan, Mick Short and Peter Verdonk, eds. Exploring the Language of Drama: From Text to Context. London: Routledge, 1998.
- Herman, Vimala. “Turn Management in Drama.” Exploring the Language of Drama: From Text to Context. Eds. Jonathan Culpeper, Mick Short and Peter Verdonk. London: Routledge, 1998. 19-33.
- Dattani, Mahesh. Collected Plays. New Delhi: Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 2000.
- Edelsky, C. “Who’s Got the Floor?” Gender and Conversational Interaction. Ed. D. Tannen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. 189-227.
- Herman, Vimala. Dramatic Discourse: Dialogue as Interaction in Plays. London: Routledge, 1995.
- Kuthari Chaudhuri, A. Contemporary Indian Writers in English: Mahesh Dattani. New Delhi: Foundation Books, 2005.
- Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Gail Jefferson. “A Simplest Systematics for the Organisation of Turn-Taking for Conversation.” Language 50.4-1 (1974): 696-735.