Kendrick-Torreira2015

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Kendrick-Torreira2015
BibType ARTICLE
Key Kendrick-Torreira2015
Author(s) Kobin H. Kendrick, Francisco Torreira
Title The timing and construction of preference: a quantitative study
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Preference, Quantitative
Publisher
Year 2015
Language English
City
Month
Journal Discourse Processes
Volume 52
Number 4
Pages 255–289
URL Link
DOI 10.1080/0163853X.2014.955997
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Conversation-analytic research has argued that the timing and construction of preferred responding actions (e.g., acceptances) differ from that of dispreferred responding actions (e.g., rejections), potentially enabling early response prediction by recipients. We examined 195 preferred and dispreferred responding actions in telephone corpora and found that the timing of the most frequent cases of each type did not differ systematically. Only for turn transitions of 700 ms or more was the proportion of dispreferred responding actions clearly greater than that of preferreds. In contrast, an analysis of the timing that included turn formats (i.e., those with or without qualification) revealed clearer differences. Small departures from a normal gap duration decrease the likelihood of a preferred action in a preferred turn format (e.g., a simple “yes”). We propose that the timing of a response is best understood as a turn-constructional feature, the first virtual component of a preferred or dispreferred turn format.

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