A Pragmatic analysis of Overlap in Some Selected Conversations of Titanic and The King of Summer Movies

Abstract

Overlap is a phenomenon that occurs when the new speaker starts speaking at the possible completion point of the current turn while trying to avid gap and silence between the two turns. It also occurs when new speaker's words overlap with the last words of the current speaker. Sometimes, overlap takes place when interlocutors misunderstand the end of the turn and start talking at the same time. Hence, overlap is one aspect of the irregularities in conversation, in that, the basic rule of "one party talks at a time" is violated. This study deals with the pragmatic analysis of overlap in the two American movies, namely Titanic and the King of Summer. Four selected conversations are to be analyzed from the two movies according to Sacks, Jefferson and Schegloff (1974) model in their paper "A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-taking in Conversation". This model adopts an organizational device that allows parties to achieve the basic feature of 'one part at a time'. In this study, it is hypothesized that talk by more one speaker at a time in the same conversation is observed, in that, the turn-taking violation occurs due to overlapping talk in the same conversation. Conversations are analyzed in terms of identifying overlapping talk and the pragmatic explanation related to them. Each conversation is dealt with according to three steps: firstly, the original conversation is brought. Secondly, the analysis of conversation and finally the discussion of conversation. Finally, it is concluded that turn-taking violation occurs frequently in the two movies, mostly due to self-selection procedure.