Coordinated Turn-Taking as Problem Talk Strategy

Abstract

In the post-meeting interviews, the Chinese participants mentioned how carefully they had prepared and rehearsed the whole procedure of the meeting. This drew my attention to the coordination of the Chinese official speakers’ turns. Close examination of the topic structure of the Chinese speakers’ turns indicate that their topics are seamlessly synthesized. It seems that the Chinese speakers had a well-prepared action scheme for problem talk that involves complicated cross-speaker cross-turn coordination. It is argued below that this cross-turn coordination is a relational strategy that was designed to avoid direct conflict at the meeting.