Switching pauses in adult-adult and child-child turn takings: An initial study

Based on the Japanese conversation obtained from five adult-adult and five child-child dyads, the present study investigated whether the duration of switching pause (silence between two different speakers) differed depending on the existence of linguistic cue (e.g., anaphoric reference) and/or the phonetic cue (rising intonation). Switching pause durations were measured acoustically whereas the phonetic cue was examined by a listening test. The results showed that switching pause durations are likely to be short when they are accompanied by the linguistic cue whereas they are likely to be long when accompanied by no cue. This tendency was observed both in adult and child dyads. The results also showed that the ratios of using the linguistic and/or the phonetic cue are almost the same for adults and children.