Overlaps In Maltese: A Comparison Between Map Task Dialogues And Multimodal Conversational Data

This paper deals with overlaps in spoken Maltese. Overlaps are studied in samples from two different corpora, one consisting of Map Task dialogues, and the other of free face-to-face conversations. The results show that the number and function of the overlaps vary with the presence or absence of pre-defined roles, the nature of the dialogue and the subjects’ familiarity with the situation. Overlaps are used to achieve optimal information exchange in the Map Task dialogues, and are a sign of ease and familiarity in the free conversations.