The Analysis of Thunderstorm through the Use of Turn—taking

朱娜 王潔

【Abstract】Turn-taking is a basic form of conversation and turn-taking analysis is an important way to analyze drama， which could help people have a better understanding of the characters and the theme. Taking Thunderstorm as an example， this paper uses the turn-taking models to analyze the characters and reveal the characteristics of the characters and also shows that turn-taking analysis is an effective way to analyze drama.

【Key words】Thunderstorm； Turn-taking analysis； characteristics

【作者簡介】朱娜（1987-），女，漢族，山東濰坊人，碩士，青島理工大學琴島學院外語系講師，研究方向：英語語言文學；王潔（1985-），女，漢族，山東濰坊人，碩士，青島理工大學琴島學院外語系講師，研究方向：英語教學。

Generally speaking， turn-taking is talking in turn and it is the basic form of organization for conversation. According to Harvey Sacks， the basic unit of the conversation is the “turn”， which has two kinds of meanings： the first is the right of the speech and the second means all the words from the beginning to the end talked by the person who has the right of the speech. The turn structure can vary from words to sentences. The choice of the turn structures made by the speaker may be revealed by various language features while the listener judges the occasion he could become the speaker through these features. This occasion is called transition-relevance place， TRP for short. There are two types of turn-allocational techniques： a） the current-speaker selects the next-speaker； b） the next turn is allocated by self-selection.

Turn-taking shows the characteristic of the conversation for even the causal talk could contain the competition decided by the turn-taking. We all know that conversation is the main part of drama. But the conversation in drama is different from the daily causal talk， for the conversations in the drama are prearranged by the writer. But even so， the turn-taking analysis could also reveal the relationship and the characteristics of the characters.

1. Turn-taking model

Turn-taking model was proposed by Sacks， which includes turn-construction component and turn-allocation component. In the analysis of the conversations in drama， the turn-taking analysis may include the following aspects： the turn distribution and the initiation and control of topics， the turn-length， the interruption and monologue， the turn-control strategies and the assent terms and the adjacency pairs.

Turn distribution is also the distribution of the right of speech in conversation. And topics refer to the main content in peoples conversation. In drama， the turn distribution can tell the relationship between speaker and listener and also can tell the characteristics of the speaker and listener.

The turn-length is always decided by the competition between the speaker and listener during their conversation. Generally speaking， if a character has a longer turn-length than the other in their conversation， that means the character controls more in the conversation.

In drama， the interruptions were made by the writer on purpose in order to push the development of the plot or show the characteristics of the character.The monologue in drama belongs to the interruption. So the monologue has formed its special use in the drama and means a lot in fashioning the characters character.

Turn-control strategies mainly include two types： a） the strategy of the current-speakers selecting the next-strategies or his or her handing over the control of the topics； b） the strategy of the involver getting the control of the topics and continuing his or her turn.

Assent terms， such as “Yes”， “OK”， “Uh-huh” and “Right”， could make it clear that the speaker had taken in and understood the previous message. They also serve to establish the listeners ongoing availability， and they commit him or her to attend the speakers next utterance. Adjacency pairs are composed of any two types of utterance that are linked， either by logic or convention. The typical pairs include “question--answer”， “greeting--greeting” and “invitation—acceptation/refuse”. There is also a kind of preferred option and dispreferred option.

2. The main idea of the Thunderstorm and selection of the sample

Thunderstorm， written by Cao Yu， is mainly about the tragic life of Zhou Puyuans family and Lu Guis family. It reveals the disintegration of the feudalism consciousness and the tragic life of the laboring people.

The sample extracted here is from scene two when Zhou Puyuan and Lu Shiping had met each other after all these years. After Zhou recognized Lu， the topic of their conversation had changed a lot and in the changes of conversation， Zhou gradually controlled the whole situation and achieved his purpose. These also revealed Zhous hypocrisy and merciless and Lus kindness.

3. The analysis through the use of take-turning

In this extract， the number of turns amounts to sixty-four， and they share the same turns. All the turns are mainly adjacent pairs. There are three topics in this extract.

The main topic here is that Zhou wants to make sure that the secret between he and Lu could be safe forever and Lu and his family would never appears in his life. But in the conversation， in order to achieve his goal， Zhou had changed the topic three times. The first one is about Lus hatred to Zhou， the second about his love to Lu and the third about his purpose. All the three topics are in adjacent pairs， but the turn length and the control of the topics are different， which reveals the characteristics of Zhou and Lu.

In the first topic， the topic changed from Zhous thinking of Lus finding him on purpose to Lus hatred to Zhou and the latter one has more proportion. Though they had the same number of turns， the initiation of the topics is mostly controlled by Zhou， which shows that Zhou is a kind of person who wants to control everything. And in these conversations， we could find that although Zhou promoted the most questions， his turn-strength is much shorter than Lus， which shows that though he had initiated most topics. Most of the speeches were made by Lu， and at the end of the conversation Lu gradually got the control of the topic. These show that in this topic Lu plays a more important role in the section， and her words shows her miserable life she had suffered in the past and the past had hurt her deeply.

At the end of the first topic， Lu was in emotional situation and Zhou had gradually lost his control of the topic， which was very bad for him to achieve his goals. Then Zhou started the second topic—his love to Lu， which was very important in showing their characters though only in a few sentences. In the beginning， Zhou promoted the topic that he did not forget Lu and was still in love with her， which successfully distracted Lus attention and let Zhou get the control of the speech again. In this period of conversation， Lu did not interrupt Zhous speech but used the assent terms once and the turn-control strategies twice. The assent term Lu used indicated that she did not want to interrupt Zhous speech. This shows that Zhou has successfully changed the topic and also tells us that Lu still had feeling on Zhou and Lu was much simpler compared to Zhou. And the turn-control strategies she used are her lowering her head and her sighing. The second strategy was that Lu sighted and wanted to get the control of the topics in order to change the topic. Here this action tells us that Lu has waked up from the sweet lies Zhou told.

During the topic， the two characters have almost the same turn-length， which shows that the two characters here both are important in the scene. In this conversation， Zhou had initiated the topic four times and used turn-strategies twice， which was quite usual compared to his action at the beginning. The strategies he used were chilly smile and giving Lu a note. The chilly smile showed that Zhou was not satisfied with Lus information and reveals his cruel nature. And his next strategy was giving Lu a note. This shows that to Zhou， everything could be bought by the money， and money could get him everything. While in this topic， Lu had only changed the topic twice and interrupted the speech twice. The two interruptions all happened when they two talked about their first son. In this section， Lu also had five turn-control strategies， including smiling， filling her eyes with tear and tearing up the notes.

To sum up， through the use of turn-taking analysis， we could tell Zhous cruel nature and the fact he did not care about his family even his son while Lu was a kind mother who always put her children on the first place.

4. Conclusion

Conversation is the main part of drama and also a cooperative activity. In drama the conversation is not just casual talk but could reveal the character of the speaker. When the writer creates the characters， he must consider the use of the conversational strategies and when the reader reads the drama， he or she would also use the strategies to understand the characters and the plot. Through the use of turn-taking analysis， people could have a better understanding of the relationship of the characters and the characteristics of the characters， which could help the reader have good understanding of the theme.

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