Turn-Taking, Overlap, and the Task at Hand

Ordering Speaking Turns in Legal Settings

Bibliographic Data

ID2979558
AuthorsRobert M Hayden (0000-0002-4379-3325, University of Pittsburgh, corresponding author)
Year1987
Volume14
Issue2
Pages251-270
Publication date1987-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Ethnologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-0496 • E-ISSN: 1548-1425
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/ae.1987.14.2.02a00050
OpenAlexW2170925104
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited50

Anthropologists and linguists have often noted the careful sequencing of speaking turns in Western courts, and have posited that overlapping speech in legal contexts is dysfunctional and obstructs the proceedings. Data from panchayats (councils) in India and among Indians in Fiji indicate that these functional arguments may be unfounded when, as in most legal cases, the task at hand is not one of fact-finding, but rather of the normative evaluation of known facts. The distinction between these disparate tasks is critical for understanding legal processes, which may be distinguished through examination of the degree of sequencing of speaking turns. This narrow point has broader implications regarding the presumption that conversations and other group verbal activities are cooperative undertakings, and may aid in avoiding false comparisons of legal processes, thereby leading to a more general anthropology of law. [legal processes, argument, ethnography of speaking, India, U.S

Argument (complex analysis · Dysfunctional family · Economics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Law and economics · Normative · Political science · Presumption · Sociology · Task (project management · Anthropology · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism

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