Rhythmicity, sequence and syncrony of English and Japanese face-to-face conversation

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate interactional rhythmicity among a group of four people. Two analytic models, defining the concepts of floor and time space, were developed to account for when, how and why verbal and non-verbal rhythmic coordination occurs during conversational interaction. The interactional rhythmicity which occurred in both sequential time and sync time is part of a strategy for managing a created floor, and is a form of community competence among the interactants. When floor operates positively, interactants create an ensemble of words and body movements. On the other hand, a negative operation of floor work is a cause of interactional arhythmicity in which interactants contextualize their conflict in the role relationships of floor maintenance and support. The observational findings and theoretical accounts are further compared cross-culturally to verify the proposed models and to investigate cross-cultural differences.