Power-oriented and Rapport-oriented Interruptions Among Professional Women in Small Group Conversations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1204.09Keywords:
power-oriented interruption, rapport-oriented interruption, dominance, intrusive, cooperativeAbstract
Interruptions in conversations have long been regarded in negative ways and are associated with dominance and power. The purpose of this study is to examine if women in the professional field interrupt each other in casual conversations with the intention to show power or to show rapport. The samples for this study were the verbal utterances and the interview data from the selected three professional women participants. The utterances among the participants were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the Goldberg (1990) model for interruptions. Subsequently, Murata’s (1994) and Kennedy and Camden’s (1983) sub-categories for interruption analysis were also applied for a detailed analysis. The linguistic elements that existed within the interaction were examined to find out if the speakers demonstrated power-oriented interruptions (intrusive) or rapport-oriented interruptions (cooperative). The study reveals that the function of interruptions in conversations may not be for the purpose of portraying dominance alone. Interruptions among speakers that are supportive and cooperative, promoted solidarity among speakers. This study is significance to understand that with interruptions, speakers can work out a topic or a conversation together to produce a shared meaning. Interruptions could be power-oriented or rapport-oriented, depending on the functions assumed in the context.
References
Aries, E. (1976). Interaction Patterns and Themes of Male, Female, and Mixed Groups. Small Group Behaviour 7, 7-18
Booth-Butterfield, S. (1988). Inhibition and student recall of instructional messages. Communication Education 37- 312-324.
Bohn, E., & Stutman, R. (1983). Sex role differences in the relational control dimension of dyadic interaction. Women's Studies in Communication 6, 965-104.
Cafaro, A., Glas, G. & Pelachaud, C. (2016). The Effects of Interrupting Behavior on Interpersonal Attitude and Engagement in Dyadic Interactions, 15th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems AAMAS'16, Singapore, May 2016.
Clifton, J. (2014). Small stories, positioning, and the discursive construction of leader identity in business meetings. Leadership, 10, 99-117. doi:10.1177/1742715013504428 Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI.
Coates, J., & Pichler, P. (2011). Language and gender: A reader. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell.
Coates, J. (1989). Gossip revisited: Language in all-female group. In J. Coates & D. Cameron (Eds.), Women in their speech community (94-122). New York: Longman.
Dunne, M., & Ng, S. H. (1994). Simultaneous speech in small group conversation: All-together-now and one-at-a-time? Journal of Language and Social Psychology 13, 45-71.
Ferguson, N. (1977). Simultaneous speech, interruptions, and dominance. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology Banner. 16(4), 295-302.
Ghafar Samar, R. & Alibakhshi, G. (2007). The Gender Linked Differences in the Use of Linguistic Strategies in Face-to Face Communication. The Linguistics Journal 3 (3), 59-71.
Goldberg, J (1990) 'Interrupting the Discourse on Interruptions'. Journal of Pragmatics, 14: 883- 904
Gravano, A. & Hirschberg, J. (2012). A corpus-based study of interruptions in spoken dialogue. In INTERSPEECH, 13th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association. 855–858.
Greif, E. B. (1980). Sex differences in parent-child conversations. Women's Studies International Quarterly 3,255258.
Holmes, J. & Stubbe, M. (2003). Power and Politeness in the Workplace: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Talk at Work. London: Longman.
Hung Ng, S., Brooke, M., & Dunne, M. (1995). Interruption and influence in discussion groups. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 14(4), 369-381.
James, D., & Clarke, S. (1993). Women, men, and interruptions: A critical review. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Oxford studies in sociolinguistics. Gender and conversational interaction (pp. 231- 280). New York, NY, US: Oxford University Press.
Jariah Mohd. Jan. (1999). Malaysian Talk Show: A Study of Power and Solidarity in Inter- Gender Verbal Interaction (Unpublished Ph. D Thesis). University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Kennedy, C. W., & Camden, C. T. (1983). A new look at interruption. Western Journal of Speech Communication 47, 45-58.
Kramarae, C, Muriel S & William M. O Barr (eds). (1984). Language and Power. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Michael, A.S., Liaw, S. C., Muthusamy, C., & Veeravagu, J. (2010). Gendered-Linked Differences in Speech Styles: Analysing Linguistic and Gender in the Malaysian Context. Cross Cultural Communication, 6 (1) 18-28 http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/ccc/issue/view/60 (accessed 21/01/2021).
Murata, K. (1994). Intrusive or cooperative? A cross-cultural study of interruption. Journal of Pragmatics 21, 385-400.
Ng, S. H., & Bradac, J. J. (1993). Language and language behaviors, Vol. 3. Power in language: Verbal communication and social influence. Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications, Inc.
Roger, D., Bull, P. & Smith, S. (1988). The development of a comprehensive system for classifying interruptions. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 7(1), 27-34.
Sebba, M. (2007). Spelling and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shashkevich, A. (2018). Stanford researcher examines how people perceive interruptions in conversation. https://news.stanford.edu/2018/05/02/exploring-interruption-conversation/ (accessed 21/01/2021).
Tannen, D. (1992). That’s Not What I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Your Relations with Others. London: Virago Press.
West, C. and Zimmerman, D. (1987). Doing Gender. Gender & Society 1 (2), 125-151.
Zimmerman, D. H., & West, C. (1975). Sex roles, interruptions, and silences in conversation. In B. Thome & N. Henley (Eds.), Language and sex: Difference and dominance (105-126). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
