Questions with address terms in Indonesian conversation: Managing next-speaker selection and action formation

Abstract

This study explores the turn-taking system in conversations involving speakers of Indonesian, focusing on explicit next speaker selection in Indonesian multiparty conversation. The dataset comes from nine and a half hours of recordings of everyday conversations between 64 people. Using conversation analysis, this study examines Indonesian speakers use of an explicit practice for next speaker selection – address terms – in questions. Specifically, it focuses on 238 questions including address terms. This study demonstrates that address terms are used to commence courses of action and deal with problems of mutual orientation, deal with problems that emerge in a turn or sequence, address a person-specific action, or carry out fine aspects of action formation. These findings offer a dimension for describing diversity and commonality in conversation across languages and cultures.