Is taking turns to speak a Western cultural phenomenon?

March 27, 2006 7:22 AM

Is taking turns to speak a Western cultural phenomenon?

Last year I worked in a school where the majority of the children were of Pakistani origin (aged 11-18, either first or second generation). The staff told me that the biggest problem with the kids was that most of them didn't understand the concept of not speaking while the other person speaks. They assured me that this was because they had been brought up in "foreign" households where this mode of conversation is rarely employed. I found it hard to believe. I would have found it impossible to believe if not for the fact that it appeared to be true:

1) most of the upper school kids took turns talking, and most of the lower school kids didn't.

2) (all three) parents I met had this (incredibly annoying) problem too.

3) this happened in the playground as well as in the classroom.

I doubt it was an act of conscious defiance (or even just being naughty children) as they would talk to each other like this too. The non-Pakistani (mostly white, but some Indian) children were typically noisy, but in the alpha-male-playing-to-the-audience pattern rather than constant two-way escalating shouting. In the classroom, the shouting matches usually had to be ended by a teacher, but in the playground, they would be resolved by either one kid backing down, or a fight.

There are also a few things that make me think there's more to it:

1) the (Pakistani) children were mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds, were low attainers, and had behavioural issues; a classic recipe for all kinds of bad results.

2) the (majority white) teachers were mostly pretty damn racist. On the whole, race relations in the school were poor. This was clearly a racial phenomenon, but not clearly a Pakistani culture thing.

3) I have never seen this behaviour anywhere else, ever, amongst adults or children.

So what the hell was going on? I spent quite a bit of time talking this over with the staff, laying out the above and insisting there must be another explanation, but they had nothing else to offer other than "it's the asian kids".

Do Pakistani communities emigrate en masse? Could a whole community have come from the same region in Pakistan where this is actually how things are done? Has anybody here met people who do this?

posted by hoverboards don't work on water to Society & Culture (17 answers total)

where was this school?

I'm from the UK and was recently taken aback, during a visit to France, to see a debate on French television (about the new employment contract, and education policy in general) during which everyone was speaking at once. There was a person chairing the debate, but she failed to maintain control over the proceedings and it was impossible to follow what was going on. Also, I was attending a conference during my visit, and French delegates didn't show any hesitation at talking during the more boring speeches.

So yes, this would seem to happen elsewhere. I know several people from Pakistan and have never found them to behave like this - have never interacted with large groups of Pakistani schoolkids though.
posted by altolinguistic at 7:44 AM on March 27, 2006

Certainly, major portions of a community could emigrate en masse from anywhere to anywhere. After all, it's a lot easier to emigrate somewhere if you know someone from your local village who's already there, and can help you set yourself up / make contacts and the like.

I don't have any particular examples from personal experience or evidence to draw on, but I do think "taking turns to speak" is an upper-class/educated phenomenon, as opposed to a racial one.
posted by badlydubbedboy at 7:46 AM on March 27, 2006

That's interesting. I've heard that many cultures also have no concept of standing in line for anything.

Any situation that requires people to wait and take turns is total chaos.

So if that is true, then speaking out of turn, or the level of common courtesy is not human nature but a learned cultural practice.

Since it is relevant, I'd like to ask the poster what is the situation with automobile drivers in that region?
posted by SwingingJohnson1968 at 7:49 AM on March 27, 2006

I wouldn't say that Pakistani communities emigrate en masse, but there is a good chance that family members/friends/acquaintainces from the same area in Pakistan are likely to move to the same area of the city as other people that they know, even if they emigrate at different times.

As for this phenomenon, I'm surprised that altolinguistic was shocked to see this during a political debate. Every political debate I've ever seen has been full of politicians talking over each other ad nauseum. Outside of politics though, I have never seen it, and it's definitely not a pakistani thing, as the pakistani kids I grew up with (varying levels of immigrant-osity, from FOBs to 2nd and 3rd gens) never exhibited said behaviour.
posted by antifuse at 7:50 AM on March 27, 2006

antifuse - I'm used to this phenomenon in political debate, of course - but what surprised me was seeing this in a debate in a television studio (involving politicians, experts and the general public). In the UK, in a televised debate, there would be an element of control exercised by the chairperson, in order to prevent the programme from becoming completely unwatchable (as was the case of this French debate).
posted by altolinguistic at 8:01 AM on March 27, 2006

Response by poster: where was this school?

Southeast England.

I don't have any particular examples from personal experience or evidence to draw on, but I do think "taking turns to speak" is an upper-class/educated phenomenon, as opposed to a racial one.

That's a definite possibility, but I've been in other schools with poor-white and poor-non-white kids. They have their problems to be sure, but not of this character.


Since it is relevant, I'd like to ask the poster what is the situation with automobile drivers in that region?

I can't comment on the driving situation in the immediate area since I commuted in from a distance, but drivers in the UK are by and large excellent, regardless of race.

As for this phenomenon, I'm surprised that altolinguistic was shocked to see this during a political debate.

Hmm yes, I've seen that too, but I never considered it a "real" natural situation; those debates are calculatingly offensive whereas these kids meant no harm.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 8:19 AM on March 27, 2006

I took a linguistics class which briefly focused on these cultural differences. Compared the conversation styles of New Yorkers with the Japanese, said with the Japanese it's like tennis, with the conversational ball being passed back and forth, without interruptions (I've also noticed that Europeans and US mid-westerners talk this way) whereas with the New Yorkers, it's more like soccer or basketball -- a continual struggle over possesion of the conversational ball.
posted by Rash at 9:05 AM on March 27, 2006

In Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand, she characterizes two different styles of interrupting: the male, competitive, hierarchical style in which you're attempting to silence and dominate the other person, and the female, nurturing, supportive style in which talking all over each other is egalitarian and community-building.

If taking turns vs. talking all over each other is a cultural norm, and it doesn't map neatly to sexist vs. egalitarian societies, it would seem to do damage to Tannen's thesis.

I have met individuals for whom talking all over each other is the norm. Once, in the company of two such, I had the experience of feeling shut out of the conversation, because I kept waiting for a break in the talking to say something, but there weren't any. (I'll emphasize that the talkers clearly didn't mean to shut anyone out; they were just playing by different rules than I'm used to.)
posted by Zed_Lopez at 10:02 AM on March 27, 2006

Taking turns to speak is a phenomenon of discourse that differs by age, gender, class, ethnicity, familial relation, etc. Depending on the contextual situation, any one (to all) of these could be prominant. If you wanted to do some academic reading, I could give you some discourse analysis and ethnographic resources that talk a lot about this.
posted by mrmojoflying at 11:05 AM on March 27, 2006

Taking turns to speak is a phenomenon of discourse that differs by age, gender, class, ethnicity, familial relation, etc.

Quite. I have a friend from a Lutheran family in Philadelphia who had this problem as a child. She went to Catholic school and her teachers complained to her parents that she didn't wait for others to finish. But that's just the way she and her family spoke.

Your school has the same problem with a clash of cultures, but they've got it en masse with a larger "family".

The problem of course, is the racism. Rather than say "this is obviously how their culture works, what shall we do?" they're being regarded as "rude" and lacking "common courtesy".

I don't know why someone hasn't had an assembly and said "in this school, we're going to wait for someone else to finish before we start speaking" or even made it into a game or something. It will probably help them get along in British society to learn this arbitrary cultural rule, so why not, as long as it's not presented as "you Pakistani kids are all rude"?
posted by AmbroseChapel at 12:06 PM on March 27, 2006

For Israelis and NYers (it is not seen as rudeness) waiting and not jumping in would signify not showing interest. It can be difficult for someone not used to just jumping into a conversation.
posted by terrortubby at 12:55 PM on March 27, 2006

Response by poster: I don't know why someone hasn't had an assembly and said "in this school, we're going to wait for someone else to finish before we start speaking"

They pretty much have - that's how the older kids have been trained to "act our way".

I think the difference between your Lutheran friend and these kids is that very little discernible* communication is taking place between the kids. I wasn't able to communicate with the parents. They spoke good English, but weren't interested in what we would call a conversation. Of course the only reason I met parents was because they had been called in to discuss their childrens' frankly atrocious behaviour, so maybe it was just a plain old confrontation... but I don't think so.

* I say discernible because who knows what kind of cues I didn't pick up on?
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 1:30 PM on March 27, 2006

I have to say that as a Brit, I find this to be a major problem in America. I am constantly exasperated by how often people interrupt during conversation. It happens at work, in bars, in friendships... i can't count the number of times I have to bite my tongue in order not to say, 'EXCUSE ME but I was in the middle of a sentence there, did you really not notice?"

It isn't just me either. I hear people cutting across others in meetings at work... everywhere. It's amazing.

I do think this is a cultural thing, though. I've certainly noticed in some southern European countries that people are far more comfortable with talking across each other. But man, I hate it.
posted by Decani at 6:52 PM on March 27, 2006

Decani, I can definitely say that it's not a major problem with the whole of America. I'm fairly certain it's considered rude to interrupt people anywhere I've been in the states, which is mostly limited to the northern midwest.
posted by cellphone at 8:42 PM on March 27, 2006

One of the big issues is that what constitutes "interrupting" is different across all those cultural intersections I mentioned earlier. Conversation is a culturally constructed activity that's made out of language and physical gestures. Recognizing when it's your turn to talk is a very, very complex activity. It's part recognizing and properly interpreting the physical gestures that give clues as to when one is done speaking (such as changes in eye contact, hand signals, posture shifts, head movement). You also need to recognize your relative "status" in social and institutional relationships (e.g. have you noticed that it is *never* okay to interrupt a teacher in elementary school, but in a graduate seminar you are expected to learn how to do it effectively). You have to nagivate individual personality traits and inherited beliefs about how much time someone who is speaking should be allowed to speak, when interjections are appropriate and when they are not, what order people speak in, when you are speaking too much, when you are not speaking enough to maintain the conversation, etc.

I would hazard a fair bet that just about any group of children plopped down into an alien culture are not going to know the myriad unspoken rules that they are expected to follow for academic and social success. I recommend being explicit with them about these rules on an individual basis. You may not get the satisfaction of immedate results, but you are preparing them for future success in navigating the cultural minefield that they must walk through.
posted by mrmojoflying at 5:16 AM on March 28, 2006

Another aspect of turn-taking is that different cultures have different lengths of time between turns. Even a variation of a few milliseconds can leave one person stuck in a monologue ("Whenever I stop, there's this awkward silence and I have to start again because it feels weird!") and others who never break in ("I can't get a word in edgewise!"). This most certainly varies from culture to culture, and is rarely recognised as a linguistic difference. We usually just assume that when someone has an accent, that's cultural variation, but when they don't play by our conversational rules, they're being "rude" on purpose.

From a comparison of Korean and English turn-taking conventions:
“A listener may claim the speaking turn when the current speaker gives a turn signal, defined as the display, at the end of a phonemic clause, of at least one of a set of six cues. The cues are
1. Intonation: the use of any pitch level/terminal juncture combination, other than 22.
2. Paralanguage: drawl on the final syllable or on the stressed syllable of the phonemic clause.
3. Body motion: the termination of any hand gesticulation or the relaxation of a tensed hand position.
4. Sociocentric sequences: the appearance of one of several stereotyped expressions, such as ‘but uh’, ‘or something’, ‘you know’, labeled sociocentric by Bernstein (1962).
5. Paralanguage: a drop in paralinguistic pitch and/or loudness, in conjunction with a sociocentric sequence.
6. Syntax: the completion of a grammatical clause involving a subject-predicate combination

These conventions will vary, and make cross-cultural communication difficult sometimes. If you're interested in these aspects of conversation, Deborah Cameron's Working With Spoken Discourse is interesting and well-written.
posted by heatherann at 8:34 PM on March 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

I really think this might be an individual thing more than a cultural thing, and this school might just be facing a coincidence and looking to race to explain it.


I say this because within the culture I am a part of, there are vast differences in conversational style.

Some people interrupt, some wait their turn, some go on uninterrupted monologues.

I tend to be a listener so when I open my mouth people figure I have something of interest to say, so I don't have too much trouble.

I can't help with the classroom situation, but for the brit who wants to say, "EXCUSE ME...."

No, don't do that. The proper response in America when you have something to say and people won't listen is (in my anecdotal experience....)


"SHUT UP, I'M TALKING NOW, SHUT UP AND LISTEN."

Harsh and impolite in any situation, but it works, just make sure you really have something good to say. If not, why are you bothering to demand your right to speak anyway? ;)

"It happens at work, in bars, in friendships"

Look, at work, say in a meeting the boss/manager should be moderating the discussions and not allowing interruptions in much the same way the TV host should not allow guests to talk over each other.

But in a bar?

Look, I haven't been to many English bars (Eh, none) but in the bar I go to the discussion can switch from stocks, to politics, to sports in five minutes. And I think that is part of the fun.

But really, that can't happen if some guy doesn't interrupt the guy talking about PE ratios to mention Bush is an idiot and that conversation doesn't stop until someone mentions that Terrell Owens is an asshat.

But in friendships, people should have more respect. There is no moderator or drunkenness to excuse interruptions. But I don't think that is an American thing, it's a bad friend thing.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:45 AM on March 29, 2006