01The gesture and its intended meaning
In the conversational cultures of the Mediterranean and Latin America, speaking at the same time as the other person is not necessarily cutting them off: it is often a way of taking part in what they are saying. The sociolinguist Deborah Tannen (Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends, Ablex, 1984) named this phenomenon "cooperative overlapping" and described two opposing styles: the "high-involvement" style (fast delivery, overlaps, rapid-fire questions, enthusiastic uptakes), in which verbal energy signals interest, and the "high-considerateness" style (clean turns at talk, pauses, no interruption), in which respect is expressed by waiting. The same overlap says "I am with you" in the first register and "I am not listening to you" in the second.
The theoretical foundation comes from conversation analysis: Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson ("A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation", Language, 50(4), 1974, pp. 696-735 - the journal's most cited article) established that the turn at talk is a finely tuned social mechanism; what varies from one community to another is the settings, and above all the social value of overlap.
02Where it goes wrong: geography of the misunderstanding
In a mixed meeting - Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, Lebanese or French on one side; Germans, German-speaking Swiss, Scandinavians or Dutch on the other - each side applies its own grid: the one who overlaps reads the silence opposite as disinterest or coldness; the one who waits for their turn reads the overlap as chaos or disrespect. Each attributes to character (or to competence) what belongs to conversational style. Molly Wieland (1991) documented this empirically on French-American dinner conversations: the French turn-taking structure, more tolerant of interruption, is a recurrent source of misunderstanding for Americans who nonetheless speak French.
An important scientific nuance: Stivers et al. ("Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation", PNAS, 106(26), 2009, pp. 10587-10592), working on ten very diverse languages, show that the mechanics of turn-taking are largely universal - fast transitions, avoidance of prolonged overlap - and that the cultural variation measured is far smaller than the stereotype. What differs above all is the social tolerance of brief overlap and its meaning (engagement or aggression), not the existence of the turn at talk. The cliché of "Mediterraneans all talking at once" describes a difference of degree and of interpretation, not an absence of rules.
03Historical genesis
The founding case is a Thanksgiving dinner recorded in 1978 and analysed by Tannen in Conversational Style (1984): six guests, three of them New Yorkers of Jewish culture practising a high-involvement style, and two and a half hours of conversation - the enthusiastic overlaps of some progressively reduced the others to silence, each camp coming away with a judgement about the other's character. Tannen and subsequent research find comparable high-involvement features in Mediterranean, Latin American and Middle Eastern conversational styles, without ever turning this into a mechanical equivalence. John Gumperz (Discourse Strategies, Cambridge University Press, 1982) showed for his part that these contextual cues (rhythm, intonation, overlap) work as markers of belonging: when they are imperfectly shared, they produce misunderstandings wrongly attributed to intentions.
Against a frequent shortcut, Hofstede's scores explain nothing here: Greece (112), Spain (86) and Italy (75) have higher uncertainty avoidance scores than Germany (65) - that dimension does not predict turn-taking styles. Reading the phenomenon through Hall's polychronic time (The Dance of Life, 1983) is more relevant: where several strands of activity coexist, several strands of talk can coexist too.
04Documented incident
The Thanksgiving dinner of 1978. Six guests, two and a half hours of recording: Tannen's founding analysis (Conversational Style, 1984) shows the three high-involvement New York guests unintentionally dominating the conversation, while the others withdrew into a polite silence that the former read as reserve or boredom. None of the participants was "rude": the two systems of politeness were incompatible. This is the documented case that brought cooperative overlapping into the scientific literature.
05Practical recommendations
Do: in a Mediterranean or Latin context, accept brief overlap as participation - and raise your own level of verbal energy if you want to be heard; in a Germanic or Nordic context, wait for sentences to end and leave pauses; in a mixed meeting, make the convention explicit ("we let each person finish" or "open discussion") and, if necessary, entrust the distribution of speaking turns to a facilitator; interpret styles, not characters.
Don't: do not read Mediterranean interruption as aggression or as a lack of manners; do not read strict turn-taking as coldness or disinterest; do not impose your own style as "the" universal politeness; do not confuse conversational style with professional competence.
Geography of misunderstanding
Neutral
- france
- italy
- spain
- greece
- lebanon
Historical origins
Chevauchement coopératif et styles haute implication / haute considération formalisés par Tannen (Conversational Style, 1984, à partir du dîner de Thanksgiving 1978) ; socle de l'analyse conversationnelle : Sacks, Schegloff et Jefferson (1974). Gumperz (1982) sur les indices contextuels comme marqueurs d'appartenance ; Wieland (1991) sur le malentendu franco-américain ; Stivers et al. (PNAS, 2009) sur la part universelle du tour de parole.
Documented incidents
- 1978 — Dîner de Thanksgiving 1978 : deux heures et demie de conversation enregistrée, analysées dans Conversational Style (1984). Les chevauchements enthousiastes des convives à haute implication réduisent les autres au silence ; chaque camp attribue le malaise au caractère de l'autre. Cas fondateur de l'analyse des styles conversationnels croisés et du « chevauchement coopératif ». (Tannen, D. (1984), Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends, Ablex (rééd. Oxford University Press, 2005))
Practical recommendations
To do
- En contexte méditerranéen ou latino : acceptez le chevauchement bref comme de la participation, et haussez votre énergie verbale pour être entendu.
- En contexte germanique ou nordique : attendez la fin des phrases, ménagez des pauses.
- En réunion mixte : explicitez la convention (« chacun finit » vs « discussion libre »), au besoin avec un animateur qui distribue la parole.
- Interprétez les styles, pas les caractères.
Avoid
- Ne lisez pas l'interruption méditerranéenne comme une agression ou un manque d'éducation.
- Ne lisez pas le tour de parole strict comme de la froideur ou du désintérêt.
- N'imposez pas votre propre style comme la politesse universelle.
- Ne confondez pas style conversationnel et compétence professionnelle.
Neutral alternatives
- Clarify in advance the preferred meeting style ("formal turn-taking" vs. "free discussion").
- Use neutral moderator in cross-cultural meetings to balance styles.
- Record meeting and playback in "playback" mode to show that there is no aggression.