Conversation consists of exchanging speaking turns. Our focus is on the ways in which already completed speaking turns are continued again by the same speaker, which has been studied under such terms as turn continuation and increment. This is a rather mundane part of daily life, yet exploration into it rewards us with a myriad of insights about the workings of human language at the very basic level, including intonation, rhythm, timing, grammar, non-verbals, and the various functions it serves.

This workshop is the most recent reincarnation of the series of workshops on this topic which have been taking place in recent years. This will be our fourth meeting, which originally started as a panel at the International Pragmatics Association meeting in Toronto in 2003. We have since met at the University of Hong Kong (2006) and the University of Potsdam, Germany (2007). At the end of 2007, a special volume of Pragmatics focusing on this topic was published under the editorship of Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (University of Helsinki) and Tsuyoshi Ono (University of Alberta).

SPONSORS

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
University of Alberta
Faculty of Arts
China Institute
Department of East Asian Studies
Spoken Discourse Research Studio