Conversational strategies: towards a phonological description of turn-taking in Akan.

Abstract

Phonetic features have function relevance for conversational participants. I provide evidence from three natural conversations ( in Akan) to show that turn-taking correlates with such phonetic features as tempo and rhythm. I argue that rallentando or lento tempo deployed singly or conjointly with a drawled-syllable-time rhythm is turn delimitative. Allegro or accelerando tempo and a clipped-syllable-time rhythm are projective of further speakership by a current speaker. I also show co-participants' response to such features.