ABSTRACT
The English word ‘conversation’ is made up of two Latin roots: ‘con’ which means ‘with’ and ‘vers’ which means ‘to turn about in a given direction’. This means that to have a conversation literally means: ‘to turn about with others’. So once a conversation has been initiated, it needs to be maintained and we do this by taking turns. The organisation of turn taking was first explored as a part of conversation analysis by Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson in the late 1960s/early 1970s and they state that ‘taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversations, as well as to other speech-exchange systems’. To accept the selection, the person receiving the eye gaze simply returns it and smiles and/or nods slightly. The other listeners will see the eye contact between them and know that the next speaker has been decided, so someone who ignores this and tries to speak will be seen as rude.
