Latching and rush-through in multi-unit turns: Continuing talk beyond possible completion in Chinese conversation

Studies in Conversation Analysis (CA) have identified recurrent regularities which underlie the smooth coordination of turn transitions between conversational participants. One of the practices is that a current speaker may continue with further talk beyond a turn’s possible completion if he/she has not selected a next speaker and no other participant has self-selected to be the next speaker. Recent works have examined how linguistic (e.g. syntax and prosody) and interactional aspects figure in the organization of turn continuation (mostly from English data). This study reports our initial examination on turn continuation in Mandarin Chinese conversations. We examine a number of sequential contexts where clausal turn continuations are found, e.g. where speakers talk past the completion point of their own assessment, after their own question, and after their non-substantial response to a topic proffer. We also examine the prosodic features associated with such turn continuations, particularly near the completion point of one turn constructional unit and the beginning of the next. Two prominent and very similar features, i.e. latching and rush-through, are found at this juncture. Although they are recognized as turn-holding devices, no systematic and detailed examination of their exact phonetic design (in English) has been reported until recently (Walker 2010). In this study we also attempt a detailed analysis to phonetic correlates, i.e., pitch, intensity, and speaking rate, of latching and rush-through as found in our Mandarin data.