The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

CONVERSATION TELLS
take over the speaker role. However, as we shall see later
on, other cases of overlap talk arise, not through competition,
but purely because the listener wants to
encourage the speaker.
In order to take turns in a conversation it's necessary for
the speaker and the listener to show each other whether or
not they want the floor. In principle this could be achieved
by each person declaring what he or she wants, but this
method would be very clumsy and inefficient. Instead,
turn-taking is organized through a set of conventionalized
signals that people produce while they are talking or
listening. 2 Any conversation therefore operates at two
levels - an 'official' dialogue, where people exchange
ideas and opinions, and an 'unofficial' dialogue where
they exchange signals about turn-taking and demonstrate
how committed they are to the conversation. By using
turn-taking signals the listener can indicate whether he or
she wants to 'avoid' the speaker role or to 'take' it, and the
speaker can signal whether he or she wants to 'hold' the
floor or 'yield' the floor to the listener.
Turn-avoiding Tells
There are several ways that a listener can demonstrate that
he or she doesn't want to take over the role of speaker and
is happy to remain in the listener role. One is by producing
'back-channel' signals. 3 These consist of verbal
responses like 'uh-huh', 'yes' and 'yeah', repetition of the
speaker's words, nods and brief smiles, which are
designed to show that the listener agrees with the speaker
or understands what the speaker is saying.
105