Transition relevance places and overlapping in (Spanish-English) conversational etiquette.

Present-day pragmaticists regard Henk Haverkate's work on conversational etiquette as a momentous insight into politeness studies. In spite of recent endeavours to highlight the socio-pragmatic disparities between Spanish and British politeness models, very little research has been conducted into conversational etiquette. This paper seeks to examine different models of conversational etiquette in Spanish and English in order to offer an introduction to turn-taking theory, conduct an empirical analysis of turn-taking in these languages in formal scenarios, and discuss the results within the framework of politeness studies.

Introduction

Henk Haverkate distinguished two categories of metalinguistic politeness: Malinowski's phatic communion; and conversational etiquette. (1) According to this scholar, conversational etiquette is based on three maxims: 'No hables gritando ni susurrando, no interrumpas al que esta hablando y presta atencion a lo que dice tu interlocutor.' (2) Undoubtedly, these maxims of conversational etiquette convey politeness--since politeness is essentially the avoidance of friction in communication. (3) In his elaboration of conversational etiquette, Haverkate quoted Fraser and Nolen, (4) who had previously noted that attitudes such as interrupting or not listening are intrinsically impolite. Indeed, Haverkate's conversational etiquette is quite similar to Fraser and Nolen's conversational contract, which these authors defined as the rights and duties of participants in verbal interaction. They further suggested that interlocutors can only be truly polite if they comply with the conversational contract. More recently, Milagros Del Saz has viewed the conversational contract as the chief factor determining 'las directrices basicas de lo que sera la interaccion'. Del Saz concludes: 'ser cortes consiste simplemente en cumplir las pautas exigidas por el contrato conversacional y no es razon para violar el CP de Grice'. (5)

Notwithstanding its acknowledged impact on linguistic politeness, linguists have scarcely scrutinized the communicative functions of conversational etiquette. The great bulk of the studies carried out have stemmed from cross-cultural research, pointing to the extent to which conversational etiquette differs from one language to another. None the less, the discussion on Spanish-English politeness, which is the object of this research, has thus far failed to stress the differences regarding turn-taking in these two languages. Accordingly, Miranda Stewart has made the following suggestion:

There is scope for cross-cultural miscommunication between speakers who do not share the same conventions, such as the need for pre-sequences in certain circumstances or the rule governing the negotiation of 'air-time' or the allocation of turns. This is an area where cross-cultural research could show up very interesting findings. It is also an area of great relevance to language learners who may have achieved a degree of mastery over the language system but may be unaware of crucial conventions of language use. (6)

In examining conversational etiquette in Spanish and English, this paper seeks to (1) offer a theoretical approximation to turn-taking theory, (2) report on an empirical analysis of turn-taking in these languages in situational contexts of formality, and (3) discuss the results and their impact on politeness studies. Although the framework of Conversation Analysis has provided a successful approach, (7) conversational etiquette stems from the field of politeness studies, and has traditionally attracted pragmaticists. This research addresses the issue of conversational etiquette in order to vindicate its relevance in English-Spanish cross-cultural politeness studies and, as such, follows in the footsteps of former politeness discussions on conversational etiquette. (8)

Turn-Taking and Overlapping