Professional's turn or client's turn? : an insight into the manifestation of power and turn-taking in lawyer-client and notary-client interactions

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyse the turn-taking processes involved in lawyer-client and notary-client interactions in Malta and how these are influenced by power. Two types of interactions were analysed, a dyad for the lawyer-client and two triads for the notary-client interactions. Through relevant examples from the data together with reference to particular theoretical works, turn-taking, adjacency-pairs, overlapping and repairs were considered. The results demonstrated that while a number of similarities and differences existed between the two interaction types, the manifestation of power was one of the main determiners of the turn-taking processes. Throughout, it was discovered that while current speaker selects next (Sacks, Schelgoff and Jefferson: 1974) is the default turn-taking process for both interaction types, overlaps and personal experience shifts occur nevertheless. The conclusion also gives possibilities and suggestions for further research. It was also concluded that the nature and type of case being tackled play an important part on the turn-taking processes as these will affect occurance of overlaps or simultaneous starts. All the examples used for analysis have been rendered in English, and placed with the Maltese transcription extract in separate tables. The transctiptions of the interactions analysed may be found in the appendix section together with the coding list and consent forms. A CD containing the audio data in audio format has been included on the last page of the appendix section, together with the data transcriptions and consent forms.