Turn-constructional unit (TCU)

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Turn-constructional unit (TCU)
Author(s):	Shimako Iwasaki (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6593-7203)
To cite:	Iwasaki, Shimaki (2024). Turn-constructional unit (TCU). In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: [ ]

Within Conversation Analysis (CA), talk-in-interaction is conceptualized as the coordinated alternation of turns that are composed of turn-constructional units (TCUs) (Sacks et al. 1974). Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974: 702) proposed that turns are incrementally built out of a series of TCUs (either single TCUs or multiple TCUs), where TCU “unit-types for English include sentential, clausal, phrasal, and lexical constructions.” The following example shows TCUs of various unit types, each of which terminates in a place of possible turn completion:

(1) [Debbie and Shelly 5:33-40] (adapted from Sidnell 2010: 41)

33     Debbie:   Ma:ll ya shoudn't be defensive I mean theres been
34               pa:rtie:s like here comere here do this or
35               whatever:an [.hhh                                   Multi-unit turn
36    Shelley:               [you were at the halloween thing.       Sentential TCU
37     Debbie:   huh?                                                Lexical TCU
38    Shelley:   the halloween p[arty                                Phrasal TCU
39     Debbie:                  [ri:ght.                             Lexical TCU

At possible turn completion the speaker arrives at a transition-relevance place (TRP). This marks where transition to a next speaker becomes relevant. Single-unit turns terminate in a TRP, but multi-unit turns have multiple places of possible completion before reaching a TRP. For example, in a story-telling sequence the speaker may hold the floor with several TCUs and places of possible completion before a TRP and turn transition occur.

As suggested by the range of possible turn types that a TCU may take, strictly linguistic criteria for defining a TCU are insufficient (Ford 2004; Selting 1996, 2000; Szczepek Reed & Raymond 2013). Instead, a TCU is perhaps better viewed as “the smallest interactionally relevant complete linguistic unit, in a given context, that is constructed with syntactic and prosodic resources within their semantic, pragmatic, activity-type-specific, and sequential conversational context” (Selting 2000: 477). Furthermore, as Couper-Kuhlen & Selting (2018: 39) put it, “TCUs are interactionally achieved, flexible and adaptable units in turns at talk that are oriented to as relevant by the participants. They are not ends in themselves. They are epiphenomena of turn construction, which itself delivers action.” In other words, a TCU is a unit of talk that accomplishes particular action in conversation and is an interactionally-relevant unit that interlocutors monitor and respond to.

A key notion for the production and recognition of a TCU is projectability. This is the property whereby TCUs foreshadow or project the likely trajectory of a turn-at-talk and what it might take for that TCU to reach a possible completion (Sacks et al. 1974; Schegloff 1996). The recognizable completion of a turn or TCU is not merely marked by its occurrence but is also projected in advance. Participants must be able to both recognize the type of action underway and project its possible completion. For example, in Extract (1), Debbie monitors the unfolding production of Shelly’s turn in line 38 in order to start her own turn in line 39 in overlap. Such precision timing is based on participant’s online analyses of TCU completion. The completion of TCUs is identifiable through a combination of grammatical, prosodic, pragmatic (Ford & Thompson, 1996; Ford, Fox & Thompson 1996, 2013; Selting 1996; Szczepek Reed & Raymond 2013), and embodied practices (e.g., Lerner & Raymond 2021; Mondada 2006, 2007). For example, in line 36 Shelly provides a declarative question with final falling intonation that is grammatically and intonationally possibly complete and the action of questioning is completed.

As dynamic and contingent components that facilitate turn-taking within temporally unfolding interactions, TCUs provide a foundational infrastructure for human sociality (Schegloff 1996, 2006). TCUs are a rich topic for continued investigation as CA and interactional linguistics scholars identify their properties and roles across a range of languages (e.g., Ford 2004; Kim 2001; Li 2019; Selting 1996, 2000; Szczepek Reed & Raymond 2013; Tanaka 1999). As Couper-Kuhlen and Selting (2018: 34-39) noted, some areas of examination include TCUs as cooperatively achieved entities (e.g., Goodwin 1979, 2017), TCUs as flexible units with projection and expansion (Ford et al. 1996; Sacks et al. 1974), whether participants orient to TCU completion (e.g., Mazeland 2007; Schegloff 1979), whether recipient action can be relevant within the boundaries of a TCU (e.g., Goodwin 1979, 1986; Hayashi 2003), in particular, within a compound TCU (e.g., Lerner 1991, 1996) and whether TCUs can be further subdivided into smaller interactionally relevant sub-unit components, creating interactive turn spaces (e.g., Iwasaki 2009, 2013). Our understanding of TCUs has also continued to expand through consideration of the roles that multiple resources and senses play in demarcating boundaries and negotiating transitions between interlocutors (e.g., Ford et al. 2012; Goodwin 1986, 2006, 2017; Iwasaki 2011, 2022; Li 2019). In addition, the concepts of turns and TCUs have provided valuable frameworks for examining language and social interaction across a wide diversity of spoken (e.g., Holler et al. 2016; Stivers et al. 2009) and signed language interactions (e.g., Girard-Groeber 2015; Iwasaki et al. 2022).

Additional Related Entries:

• Gap
• Incipient talk
• Micropause
• Pause
• Social action
• Transition-relevance place (TRP)
• Turn-taking

Cited References:

Couper-Kuhlen, E., & Selting, M. (2018). Interactional linguistics: Studying language in social interaction. Cambridge University Press.

Ford, C. E. (2004). Contingency and units in interaction. Discourse Studies, 6(1), 27–52.

Ford, C. E., & Thompson, S. A. (1996). Interactional units in conversation: Syntactic, intonational, and pragmatic resources for the management of turns. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff, & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Interaction and grammar (pp. 134-184). Cambridge University Press.

Ford, C. E., Fox, B. A., & Thompson, S. A. (1996). Practices in the Construction of Turns: The ‘TCU’ revisited. Pragmatics, 6.3, 427-454.

Ford, C. E. Fox, B.A., & Thompson, S. A. (2013). Units and/or action trajectories: The language of grammatical categories and the language of social action. In B. Szczepek Reed & G. Raymond (Eds.), Units of talk – Units of action (pp. 13-55). John Benjamins.

Ford, C. E., Thompson, S. A. & Drake, V. (2012). Bodily-visual practices and turn continuation. Discourse Studies, 49(3-4), 192-212.

Girard-Groeber, S. (2015). The management of turn transition in signed interaction through the lens of overlap. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 741.

Goodwin, C. (1979). The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 97-121). Irvington.

Goodwin, C. (1986). Between and within: Alternative sequential treatments of continuers and assessments. Human Studies, 9(2-3), 205-217.

Goodwin, C. (2006). Human sociality as mutual orientation in a rich interactive environment: Multimodal utterances and pointing in Aphasia. In N. J. Enfield & S. C. Levinson (Eds), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition and interaction (pp. 97-125). Berg.

Goodwin, C. (2017). Co-operative action. Cambridge University Press.

Hayashi, M. (2003). Joint utterance construction in Japanese conversation. John Benjamins.

Holler, J., Kendrick, K. H., Casillas, M., & Levinson, S. C. (Eds.) (2016). Turn-taking in human communicative interaction. Frontiers Media.

Iwasaki, S. (2009). Initiating interactive turn spaces in Japanese conversation: Local projection and collaborative action. Discourse Processes, 46(2), 226-246.

Iwasaki, S. (2011). The multimodal mechanics of collaborative unit construction in Japanese conversation. In J. Streeck C. Goodwin & C. LeBaron (Eds.), Embodied interaction: Language and body in the material world (pp. 106-120). Cambridge University Press.

Iwasaki, S. (2013). Emerging units and emergent forms of participation within a unit in Japanese interaction: Local organization at a finer level of granularity. In Szczepek Reed, B & Raymond, G. (Eds), Units of talk – Units of action (pp. 243-275). John Benjamins.

Iwasaki, S., Bartlett, M., Willoughby, L., & Manns, H. (2022). Handling turn transitions in Australian tactile signed conversations. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 55(3), 222-240.

Kim, K. (2001). Turn-constructional practice in Korean conversation: Organization of turn increments. Language Research, 37(4), 885-922.

Lerner, G. (1991). On the syntax of sentences in progress. Language in Society, 20, 441-458.

Lerner, G. (1996). On the “semi-permeable” character of grammatical units in conversation: Conditional entry into the turn space of another speaker. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff, & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Interaction and grammar (pp. 238-276). Cambridge University Press.

Lerner, G. & Raymond, G. (2021). Body Trouble: Some Sources of Difficulty in the Progressive Realization of Manual Action. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 54(3), 277-298.

Li, X. (2019). Multimodal turn construction in Mandarin conversation – Verbal, vocal, and visual practices in the construction of syntactically incomplete turns. In X. Li & T. Ono (Eds.), Multimodality in Chinese Interaction (pp. 181-212). De Gruyter Mouton.

Mazeland, H. (2007). Parenthetical sequences. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(10), 1816-1869.

Mondada, L. (2006). Participants’ online analysis and multimodal practices: Projecting the end of the turn and the closing of the sequence. Discourse Studies, 8(1), 117-129.

Mondada, L. (2007). Multimodal resources for turn-taking: Pointing and the emergence of possible next speaker. Discourse Studies, 9(2), 194–225.

Sacks, H. Schegloff, E.A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696-735.

Schegloff, E. A. (1979). The relevance of repair to syntax-for-conversation. In T. Givón (Ed.), Syntax and semantics 12: Discourse and syntax (pp. 261-286). Academic Press.

Schegloff, E. A. (1996). Turn organization: One intersection of grammar and interaction. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff, & S. A. Thompson (Eds.) Interaction and grammar (pp. 52-133). Cambridge University Press.

Schegloff, E. A. (2006). Interaction: The infrastructure for social institutions, the natural ecological niche for language, and the arena in which culture is enacted. In N. J. Enfield & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition, and human interaction (pp. 70-96). Berg.

Selting, M. (1996). On the interplay of syntax and prosody in the constitution of turn-constructional units and turns in conversation. Pragmatics, 6.3, 371-388.

Selting, M. (2000). The construction of units in conversational talk. Language in Society, 29, 477–517.

Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation analysis: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.

Stivers, T., Enfield, N. J., Brown, P, Englert, C., Hayashi, M., Heinemann, T., Hoymann, G., Rossano, F., de Ruiter, J. P., Yoon, K.-E., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(26), 10587-10592.

Tanaka, H. (1999). Turn-taking in Japanese conversation: A study in grammar and interaction. John Benjamins.

Szczepec Reed, B., & Raymond, G. (2013). Units of talk – Units of action. John Benjamins.

Additional References:

Clayman, S. E. (2013). Turn-constructional units and the transition-relevance place. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.) The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 150–166). Wiley-Blackwell.

Chevalier, Fabienne H. G., & Clift, R. (2008). Unfinished turns in French conversation: Projectability, syntax and action. Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 1731-1752.

Ford, C. E., Fox, B.A. & Thompson, S. A. (Eds.). (2002). The language of turn and sequence. Oxford University Press.

Houtkoop, H., & Mazeland, H. (1985). Turns and discourse units in everyday conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 9, 595-619.

Keevallik, L. (2014). Turn organization and bodily-vocal demonstrations. Journal of Pragmatics, 65, 103–120.

Kendrick, K. H., Holler, J., & Levinson, S. C. (2023). Turn-taking in human face-to-face interaction is multimodal: gaze direction and manual gestures aid the coordination of turn transitions. Philosophical Transactions B, 378, 20210473.

Koshik, I. (2002). Designedly incomplete utterances: A pedagogical practice for eliciting knowledge displays in error correction sequences. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 35(3): 277-309.

Lerner, G. (2013). On the place of hesitating in delicate formulations: A turn-constructional infrastructure for collaborative indiscretion. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond & J. Sidnell (Eds.), Conversational repair and human understanding (pp. 95-134). Cambridge University Press.

Robinson, J.D., Rühlemann, C. & Rodriguez, D.T. (2022). The Bias toward single-unit turns in conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 55(2), 165-183.

Schegloff, E. A. (2001). Discourse as an interactional achievement III: The omnirelevance of action. In D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen, & H. E. Hamilton (Eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis (pp. 229-249). Blackwell.

Schegloff, E. A. (1987). Recycled turn beginnings: A precise mechanism in conversation’s turn-taking organization. In G. Button & J. R. E. Lee (Eds.), Talk and social organization (pp. 70-85). Multilingual Matters.