OVERLAP AND OVERLAP RESOLUTION IN DEBATE

Talk in interaction is maintained with a systematic and orderly exchange of turns with minimum silence and overlap. An overlap refers to the simultaneous attempts of the interactants to take the turn using a variety of interactional resources and thus to talk at the same time. This study presents an investigation into overlapping talk in a debate show on TV. The data in the present study comes from a show broadcast on the 9th of March 2015. The focus of this single case analysis is on the management of overlapping talk through an in-depth examination of the data. To this end, the detailed transcriptions have been examined in terms of the interactional resources that occur around overlaps and then further functions and implications of these resources have been discussed.