The Estonian-Estonian and the Finn-Finn dialogues

The Estonian-Estonian and the Finn-Finn dialogues

The speech samples analyzed were recorded from live broadcasts of Estonian Radio, Radio 2, Radio Kuku, Yleisradio, and Radiomafia, containing interviews and talk-shows with Estonian and Finnish public persons (journalists, politicians, intellectuals, etc.) and experts. The analysis was applied to ten Estonian-Estonian and ten Finn-Finn dialogue excerpts (v. Texts).

At that we measured the duration of the following components of the dialogues:

a - the turn of the leading interviewer without intra-turn double speaking ((s)ab) and intra-turn pauses ((s)p)

b - the turn of the interviewee (sometimes also of another interviewer) without intra-turn double-speaking ((s)ab) and intra-turn pauses ((s)p)

(s)ab - simultaneous speaking not leading to turn-switching (intra-turn double speaking)

(l)ab - simultaneous speaking leading to a switching of turns (turn-ending double speaking)

(s)p - pause not leading to turn-switching (intra-turn pause)

Note: Pauses were measured only where the speaker seemed to expect a switch of turn, but seeing it did not come, continued in his turn. All other pauses that may sometimes occur in speech, such as the drawing of breath in the middle of an utterance, pauses signaling of emphasis to follow, etc. were not considered.

(l)p - pause leading to a switching of turn (turn-switching pause).

The duration of every dialogue component just listed was measured in seconds and the components were counted so that their mean duration, their proportion of the total dialogue duration and their average occurrence per minute could be calculated. For the results v. Tables 1, 2 and Figs. 2, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b, 5, 6a, 6b.

According to our material the Estonian turns of speech are twice shorter than the Finnish ones, while the Estonian pauses are shorter too. The Estonian simultaneous speech lasts longer than the Finnish one (v. Table 1, Figs. 2, 3a, 3b).

TABLE 1. General character of the Estonian-Estonian and the Finn-Finn dialogue components.

ESTONIAN-ESTONIAN DIALOGUE COMPONENTS	total duration (sec)	% of the total dialogue duration	mean duration (sec)	frequency of occurrence	% of all component occurrences in the dialogue
a	349.164	35.9	6.13	57	31.0
b	544.178	56.0	9.55	57	31.0
(s)ab	12.780	1.3	1.16	11	6.0
(l)ab	28.759	3.0	1.60	18	9.8
(s)p	12.907	1.3	0.99	13	7.0
(l)p	24.485	2.5	0.87	28	15.2
Total	972.273	100.0		184	100.0

FINN-FINN DIALOGUE COMPONENTS	total duration (sec)	% of the total dialogue duration	mean duration (sec)	Fin mean/Est mean	frequency of occurrence	% of all component occurrences in the dialogue
a	489.671	34.8	11.66	1.9	42	30.2
b	854.839	60.7	21.92	2.3	39	28.0
(s)ab	4.117	0.3	0.82	0.7	5	3.6
(l)ab	5.776	0.4	1.44	0.9	4	2.9
(s)p	16.284	1.2	1.25	1.3	13	9.4
(l)p	36.881	2.6	1.02	1.2	36	25.9
Total	1407.569	100.0			139	100.0

TABLE 2. The Estonian-Estonian and the Finn-Finn dialogue components: occurrence per minute, % of the frequency of occurrence of the total number of dialogue components per minute

ESTONIAN-ESTONIAN DIALOGUE COMPONENTS	occurrence per minute	% of overall componet occurrence per minute
a	3.5	31.0
b	3.5	31.0
(s)ab	0.7	6.2
(l)ab	1.1	9.7
(s)p	0.8	7.0
(l)p	1.7	15.0
Total	11.3	100.0

FINN-FINN DIALOGUE COMPONENTS	occurrence per minute	% of overall component occurrence per minute
a	1.8	30.5
b	1.7	28.8
(s)ab	0.2	3.4
(l)ab	0.2	3.4
(s)p	0.5	8.5
(l)p	1.5	25.4
Total	5.9	100.0


Dialogue components	Est mean (sec)	Fin mean (sec)
a	6.13	11.66
b	9.55	21.92
(s)ab	1.16	0.82
(l)ab	1.60	1.44
(s)p	0.99	1.25
(l)p	0.87	1.02
FIG. 2. Average duration of the Estonian-Estonian and the Finn-Finn dialogue components.


Dialogue components	%
a	35.9
b	56.0
(s)ab	1.3
(l)ab	3.0
(s)p	1.3
(l)p	2.5
FIG. 3a. Duration diagram of the Estonian-Estonian dialogue components.


Dialogue components	%
a	34.8
b	60.7
(s)ab	0.3
(l)ab	0.4
(s)p	1.2
(l)p	2.6
FIG. 3b. Duration diagram of the Finn-Finn dialogue components.


Dialogue components	%
a	31.0
b	31.0
(s)ab	6.0
(l)ab	9.8
(s)p	7.0
(l)p	15.2
FIG. 4a. Frequency diagram of the Estonian-Estonian dialogue components.

Dialogue components	%
a	30.2
b	28.0
(s)ab	3.6
(l)ab	2.9
(s)p	9.4
(l)p	25.9
FIG. 4b. Frequency diagram of the Finn-Finn dialogue components.


Dialogue components	Finn-Finn	Estonian-Estonian
a	1.8	3.5
b	1.7	3.5
(s)ab	0.2	0.7
(l)ab	0.2	1.1
(s)p	0.5	0.8
(l)p	1.5	1.7
Total	5.9	11.3
FIG. 5. The Estonian-Estonian and the Finn-Finn dialogue components: rate per minute.


Dialogue components	%
a	31.0
b	31.0
(s)ab	6.2
(l)ab	9.7
(s)p	7.1
(l)p	15.0
FIG. 6a. Component per minute rate diagram of the Estonian-Estonian dialogue.


Dialogue components	%
a	30.5
b	28.8
(s)ab	3.4
(l)ab	3.4
(s)p	8.5
(l)p	25.4
FIG. 6b. Component per minute rate diagram of the Finn-Finn dialogue.

From the turn per minute rate of dialogue components it appears that an Estonian minute of speech is more variegated than a Finnish one. Estonian speakers switch turns seven times a minute on the average, in addition there are pauses and simultaneous speaking. Finns would switch turns merely 3.5 times per minute on the average, in addition there are pauses to mark the end of a speech turn. In a Finn-Finn dialogue simultaneous speaking is extremely rare, occurring just a couple of times during a five-minute talk. All that is indicative of considerable structural (incl. time-patterning) differences existing between the Estonian and the Finnish dialogues.