The Project

Background

Speaking relies on breathing; and breathing behaviour underpins many underexamined sounds in conversation: audible in- and out-breaths, clicks (‘tsk’, ‘tut’ sounds); laughter, sighs and gasps. These non-lexical vocalisations are common in conversation, and have crucial functions like regulating turn-taking, commenting on talk, displaying shared pleasure or expressing a feeling; yet such sounds are rarely replicated in experimental data. A growing body of work in the psychological and cognitive sciences argues that humans are designed for dialogue rather than monologue, implying that sounds like these must be central to how we understand conversation and social relationships. 

Our knowledge of the phonetic form and positioning of non-lexical vocalisations and the link to breathing behaviour in spoken talk-in-interaction is very limited:

• We understand rather little about their variability, or what role this variability plays in spoken interaction.

• We lack conversational data with high-quality audio, video and respiratory kinematic data that allows us to track breathing patterns.

• We need an interactionally informed understanding of how breathing and speaking in conversation are intertwined.

By combining the methods of Conversation Analysis and Phonetics, we will achieve a more nuanced understanding of the variability we see in speech, using categories grounded in tasks like turn-taking, turn-construction and the organisation of social actions, and seeing conversation as a joint, social achievement.  

Aims

The project has four main aims:

1. To investigate the relationship between breathing and affiliated vocalisations in natural spoken interaction in English (including as a second language), German and French.

2. To identify and explain the variable forms and functions of breathing and affiliated sounds, such as audible breath noises, laughter, and tongue clicks. 

3. To investigate how such sounds contribute to the fine-grained timing, turn construction, and social organisation of conversation.

4. To explore the emergent nature of turns at talk, marked by e.g. pauses, turn-taking cues, unfolding sentence structures, and signs of speech planning and ultimately visualise and model the core elements of this linguistic organisation.

To achieve this, we will collect and analyse a novel dataset of high-quality conversational data, complete with synchronised audio, video, and non-invasive respiratory kinematic data using respiratory belts. 

Further information

UKRI project description on Gateway to Research

DFG announcement of funded projects