Arts and Social Sciences Journal

Sudanese Women’s Usage of Interruptions

Abstract

Muna Babiker Mohamed Tabidi

This paper investigates the way Sudanese women interact in friendly talk in relation to Turn-Taking in conversation. It examines women’s use of interruptions in interactions. The main assumption the researcher has in mind is that Sudanese women’s linguistic behavior, considering interruption, has a role to play in creating cooperation and intimate social relationships among them. The analysis is based on recordings of naturally occurring talk among women friends in Khartoum, the capital state of Sudan. Recording was used in data collection as it is the most reliable method in such kinds of studies. The recording covered forty-one women from different age groups and educational levels. The subjects were divided into three groups (named as Maya, Malak, Homy) according to their ages. The total period of the recorded data was twenty-three hours and thirty minutes. One hour transcribed talk from each group was used in the process of data analysis (three hours in total). The selection of the samples was based on the occurrence of the linguistic devices to be examined. The data have been transcribed, transliterated, and translated (line by line) into English. The Conversation Analysis approach was adopted in analyzing the data. Results show that the subjects tended to break the rules of turn-taking by using interruptions. Results also suggest that the women in the sample adopted this linguistic form to co-operate in completing communicative tasks during natural interactions.