3/2/2022 Collaborative OverlappingCollaborative Overlapping is a fabulous conversational concept but it can be a euphemism for interrupting. It can tell us a lot about the status of people in the conversation. And it can be seen as a difference in the way men treat women when they talk. True, actual Collaborative Overlapping is where a listener talks along with a speaker not in order to interrupt but to show enthusiastic listenership and participation. It can be a type of active listening, it can encourage the speaker, and layer on top of what they are saying to boost the conversation.
However, it can also in another sense be interrupting. It can break the speaker's flow, it can stop them expressing themselves as they want to and, in the wrong context, it can be down right rude. It can therefore be Collaborative Overlapping or it can be Competitive Interrupting. According to linguist Pamela Saunders, this can depend upon the speakers’ ethnicity, gender, and relative status. She gives an example of when a teacher, a person of higher status, overlaps with her student, a person of lower status, where typically the overlap is interpreted as an interruption. Reverse the roles and it's a collaborative overlap, helping the student to make their point. And here's the rub. Women talking with women tend to use collaborative overlapping to enhance and progress the conversation. But there is evidence though that when a women is speaking, men (and this is of course a stereotype) tend to interrupt a women more often and not in a 'collaborative' manner. Further, men will tend to (again a stereotype) get more irritated when interrupted by a woman. There are lots of reasons given for why this might be. What might be seen as an interruption rather than an overlap might be due to the conversational style of the parties, or the volume of the voice used by the listener. And as a man, I feel interrupting is a more common method of communicating between men which I do not feel translates into male/female communication. I have to confess I have to watch myself that my enthusiasm for a conversation doesn't become a series of interruptions. The next time you're the listener in a conversation and you say something, think about it - are you collaboratively overlapping or competitively interrupting? If you're not sure, either ask the speaker for how they feel or, if that's not practical, then maybe just not say anything at all until they have finished. And when talking with junior colleagues, make them feel valued within the conversation. Conversation is one of the most wonderful, uplifting, rewarding things we can do (much to the annoyance of my children I will have a conversation with whoever I meet, stranger or close friend). Let's all make sure both parties get the most out of it Comments are closed.
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AuthorRichard Marshall is an Accredited Civil and Commercial Mediator with over 25 years experience as a Litigation Solicitor, as well as being a qualified Solicitor-Advocate. He is the founder of Striving to Settle, through which he works as a mediator and provides negotiation training. www.strivingtosettle.co.uk Archives
August 2022
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