Speech Rate and Turn-Transition Pause Duration in Dutch and English Spontaneous Question-Answer Sequences

The duration of inter-speaker pauses is a pragmatically salient aspect of conversation that is affected by linguistic and non-linguistic context. Theories of conversational turn-taking imply that, due to listener entrainment to the flow of syllables, a higher speech rate will be associated with shorter turn-transition times (TTT). Previous studies have found conflicting evidence, however, some of which may be due to methodological differences. In order to test the relationship between speech rate and TTT, and how this may be modulated by other dialogue factors, we used question-answer sequence... Mehr ...