On tempo in dispreferred turns: A recurrent pattern in a Dutch corpus

Purpose: This paper addresses the question as to whether dispreferred response turns in spoken interaction have recurrent prosodic characteristics. Following observations on the phonetics of dispreferred turns found in the literature, the paper focuses on the temporal organisation of dispreferred turns. In particular, it investigates whether the tempo of dispreferred turns correlates with the tempo of the immediately prior turns to which they respond. Methodology: The paper focuses on a collection of dispreferred turns taken from a corpus of Dutch conversation. Dispreferred turns are identified and analysed structurally and pragmatically using the methods of Conversation Analysis. Relevant components are subjected to temporal phonetic analysis, and patterns are quantified where possible. Findings: The paper suggests that dispreferred turns of the type considered are consistently paced relative to their prior turns. In particular, the turn component thatmost clearly implements the dispreferred action is, in a majority of cases, slow relative to the turn to which it responds. While dispreferred turns without this characteristic are found, the paper suggests that these may be oriented to as unusual or problematic by participants in the interaction. Value: The paper increases our understanding of the organisation of dispreferred turns, which continue to attract debate in the conversation-analytic literature, and, more generally, of the systematic use of prosodic resources by participants in spoken interaction.