Speech Science Forum - Richard Ogden (University of York)

This talk explores the use of clicks—a nonverbal vocalization—in everyday talk. It is argued that clicks are one way of not saying something, i.e., of not producing talk when talk was due. While many clicks occur alongside verbal material, which provides a method for participants to ascribe an action to the turn in which they are embedded, many do not. The talk explores the linguistic (especially phonetic), sequential and embodied resources available to participants to make sense of such clicks. It is argued that some clicks have properties of linguistic organization: they have non-arbitrary form-meaning mappings. Other clicks by contrast are interpreted more as ad hoc, singular events. The article contributes to a less logocentric and more multimodal view of talk-in-interaction. Data are in British and American English from audio and video.​

Please note: some of the data extracts contain material that might be offensive, with references to sex, drinking, body parts and examples of sexism.