The use of turn-taking resources in a Khmer-Australian English conversation

This research investigates the turn-taking system used in an English conversation across different cultural backgrounds: between an Anglo-Australian female and a Khmer-background female. Throughout the data there is evidence of both speakers’ orientation to the rules of turn-taking as described by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974). The normative speaker reveals nonnative speakerlike features in her grammar, but on an interactive level the turn-taking system is working smoothly and without hitches. Both speakers have the skills to interactionally coordinate speaker transitions in a systematic and orderly way, following the rules and using the resources described by Sacks et al. It is particularly striking that in this conversation, the nonnative speaker’s language reveals many nonnative features, but the turn-taking system operates on a native speaker level.