Topic Management and Turn Taking in Professional Communication

This study describes and contrasts the communication behavior of Hong Kong Cantonese bilingual speakers as they interacted in comparable first- and second-language strategic formulation and decision-making meetings. Statistical analyses of 11 groups disclosed similarities in terms of volume, context level, and ideas; and differences in areas of turn-taking frequency, length of spoken time per turn, amount of felt information exchange, and degree of felt influence. A detailed analysis of one group revealed that different communication behavior patterns emerged in the domain of topic management for both Cantonese and English speakers.