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Robot backchanneling is implemented using verbal expressions, such as reiterating after remembering the response of the user or chiming in with the user. We performed experiments to investigate how the backchannel behavior of the robot affects the user's perception of the robot's empathy and attentiveness toward their reported pain and sleep concerns. The results indicate that users prefer the robot that provides backchannel and perceive it as more intelligent. Where the robot backchanneled, the number of conversational turns between the user and the robot decreased compared to situations where the robot did not backchannel. The refusal rate of the robot repeating the same question to the user decreased. When a robot is conducting a medical questionnaire and offers backchannels to the user, the overall efficiency of the conversation improves. Users also perceive the robot as understanding and empathetic towards their pain and discomfort, leading to a positive evaluation of the interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Response signals (RS) have emerged as a powerful interaction tool, but they have yet to be fully understood. The current study analyzes 16 h of daily conversations using discourse-pragmatic frameworks to discuss certain aspects of the most prevalent primary and secondary Persian RSs. An RS is identified as a brief interactive response to a prior speaker's statement, typically expressing (dis)confirmation, (un)acceptance, or backchannel (including assessment and continuer feedback). The research also differentiates and compares the functional and distributional differences and similarities between confirmation and backchannel signals. Following that, it takes a semasiological approach and discusses how the emergence, overlap, and markedness of certain functions for an item can be determined by the persistence of its original propositional meaning as well as the item's grammaticalization and cooptation. The paper thus reviews the markedness of the backchannel function for na 'no' compared to this function's development for ɂāre 'yes'. Last but not least, cross-linguistic phonological tendencies, such as the integration of the phoneme /ɂ/ or /h/ in positive RSs and click sounds in negative ones, are supported by Persian RSs and their variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large classroom configurations and lecture-centered pedagogy discourage student engagement. The advances in educational technology have empowered instructors to fill the gap. This study designed a digital question board (DQB) on digital canvas to facilitate student engagement in large lecture classes. A mixed-methods study with a quasi-experiment was conducted to investigate the influence of such intervention. The study was situated in an introductory research methodology course in a large comprehensive university in eastern China (n = 253). The quasi-experiment lasted for six weeks. The data from surveys, interviews, observations, and online posts were collected and analyzed. This study mainly presented qualitative analysis results from the exploratory approach. Eight themes emerged from 12 interviews, 161 survey responses and 457 student posts were discussed. It was found that following the proposed design principles, the presence of a DQB effectively facilitated students' cognitive and emotional engagement. The enhanced self-regulation and co-construction of knowledge all led to the improved cognitive engagement. The reduced social pressure of questioning and increased interactivity contributed most to their emotional engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding children's conversational skills is crucial for understanding their social, cognitive, and linguistic development, with important applications in health and education. To develop theories based on quantitative studies of conversational development, we need (i) data recorded in naturalistic contexts (e.g., child-caregiver dyads talking in their daily environment) where children are more likely to show much of their conversational competencies, as opposed to controlled laboratory contexts which typically involve talking to a stranger (e.g., the experimenter); (ii) data that allows for clear access to children's multimodal behavior in face-to-face conversations; and (iii) data whose acquisition method is cost-effective with the potential of being deployed at a large scale to capture individual and cultural variability. The current work is a first step to achieving this goal. We built a corpus of video chats involving children in middle childhood (6–12 years old) and their caregivers using a weakly structured word-guessing game to prompt spontaneous conversation. The manual annotations of these recordings have shown a similarity in the frequency distribution of multimodal communicative signals from both children and caregivers. As a case study, we capitalize on this rich behavioral data to study how verbal and non-verbal cues contribute to the children's conversational coordination. In particular, we looked at how children learn to engage in coordinated conversations, not only as speakers but also as listeners, by analyzing children's use of backchannel signaling (e.g., verbal “mh” or head nods) during these conversations. Contrary to results from previous in-lab studies, our use of a more spontaneous conversational setting (as well as more adequate controls) revealed that school-age children are strikingly close to adult-level mastery in many measures of backchanneling. Our work demonstrates the usefulness of recent technology in video calling for acquiring quality data that can be used for research on children's conversational development in the wild.

Japanese tend to deliver backchannel for being supportive and representing people’s interest in their interaction. Many linguists believed Backchannel as discourse markers that showed interlocutors’ negative faces and determined their social hierarchy position. Brown and Levinson’s (henceforth BL) politeness theory has been modified, criticized, and applied to all languages globally. This research aims to know whether the BL politeness theory can explain Backchannel as a consideration behavior. Furthermore, we investigate the position, situation, and the relation between the speaker listener in a conversation. The primary data are a data corpus of 30 minutes’ length of 15 natural conversations. The age of the target is between the ‘20s to ‘40s. We also compare and analyze the situation from a first-timer conversation, a conversation between friends, and a hierarchical relationship. This study will help understand the relation between speaker and listener or whether Backchannel is considered a consideration behavior. Consideration is one act to shows politeness to the interlocutors. The result shows that Japanese people use different Backchannel according to the partner he/she speaks. When the interlocutors meet for the first time or have a higher position, they mostly use the polite form. They also consider the relationship, the interlocutor's gender, and age. This finding shows that the Japanese use Backchannel as a consideration to maintain the interlocutor's face.

Group work is a necessary element of engineering education and group members need information about one another, group process, shared attention and mutual understanding during group discussions. There are several important elements for establishing and maintaining a group discussion such as participant's role, seating arrangement, verbal and non-verbal cues, eye gaze, gestures etc. The present study investigates these elements for identifying the behavior of group members in a blend of traditional face-to-face discussion along with computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) setting. The results of this study have shown that, speaking duration is the key factor for identifying the leadership in a group and participants mostly used eye gazes for turn taking. Although this study is a mix of face-to-face and CSCW discussion setting, participants mostly behave like face-to-face group discussion. However, unlike the previous studies involving face-to-face discussion, the relation between seating arrangement and amount of attention is not apparent from the data during this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of the College Of Basic Education is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In everyday conversation, turns often follow each other immediately or overlap in time. It has been proposed that speakers achieve this tight temporal coordination between their turns by engaging in linguistic dual-tasking, i.e., by beginning to plan their utterance during the preceding turn. This raises the question of how speakers manage to co-ordinate speech planning and listening with each other. Experimental work addressing this issue has mostly concerned the capacity demands and interference arising when speakers retrieve some content words while listening to others. However, many contributions to conversations are not content words, but backchannels, such as “hm”. Backchannels do not provide much conceptual content and are therefore easy to plan and respond to. To estimate how much they might facilitate speech planning in conversation, we determined their frequency in a Dutch and a German corpus of conversational speech. We found that 19% of the contributions in the Dutch corpus, and 16% of contributions in the German corpus were backchannels. In addition, many turns began with fillers or particles, most often translation equivalents of “yes” or “no,” which are likewise easy to plan. We proposed that to generate comprehensive models of using language in conversation psycholinguists should study not only the generation and processing of content words, as is commonly done, but also consider backchannels, fillers, and particles.

In everyday conversation, turns often follow each other immediately or overlap in time. It has been proposed that speakers achieve this tight temporal coordination between their turns by engaging in linguistic dual-tasking, i.e., by beginning to plan their utterance during the preceding turn. This raises the question of how speakers manage to co-ordinate speech planning and listening with each other. Experimental work addressing this issue has mostly concerned the capacity demands and interference arising when speakers retrieve some content words while listening to others. However, many contributions to conversations are not content words, but backchannels, such as "hm". Backchannels do not provide much conceptual content and are therefore easy to plan and respond to. To estimate how much they might facilitate speech planning in conversation, we determined their frequency in a Dutch and a German corpus of conversational speech. We found that 19% of the contributions in the Dutch corpus, and 16% of contributions in the German corpus were backchannels. In addition, many turns began with fillers or particles, most often translation equivalents of "yes" or "no," which are likewise easy to plan. We proposed that to generate comprehensive models of using language in conversation psycholinguists should study not only the generation and processing of content words, as is commonly done, but also consider backchannels, fillers, and particles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turn-taking is the prominent feature of dyadic conversation. It is termed as an interchanging of utterance sequences between two or more speakers. Many a time, this turn-taking does not take place smoothly as it involves simultaneous speech namely interruption and overlap. Interruption is an indispensable aspect of conversational behavior. Therefore, it cannot be relegated as a rude and disaffiliative act harming the flow of conversation. Like interruption, overlap too is the essential ingredient of interaction as it helps enhancing conversation at hand. In short, our interaction itself necessitates interruption and overlap. The present paper aims at defining interaction and overlap in the line of their function, types, and differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interruption, as a conversational strategy, can be employed to achieve different functions in conversation. This study deals with conversation analysis as a main method of the study. It aims at analyzing conversational interruptions and their interactive effects between the interviewer (IR) and the interviewee (IE) in different political statuses, and to identify different types of interactional response tokens practiced by the IR and IE within the political context. The problem of the study is that interruption may have different forms. In this case, investigating interruption types is necessary to know how interruption usually occurs and the purposes behind it. This study used a quantitative and a qualitative method to describe the phenomena under study. The data of study are selected from videos of Two episodes of BBC Hard Talk (a British programme) and Bil Harf Al- Wahid (an Iraqi programme) with prominent political figures. Utterances are the unit of analysis in this study. The model adopted in this study is an eclectic one consisting of: Ferguson classification of interruption types (1977), Murataʼs theory of interruption functions (1994) and Gardinerʼs classification of backchannels (2001). To validate the aims of the study, some hypotheses are suggested: 1. Interruption phenomenon is associated with the interviewer who has the main role in controlling the whole interview. 2. Both English and Arabic TV programmes exhibit different types and functions of interruptions because of the controversy inside the interview. 3. There is a difference between English and Arabic political programmes with regard to the backchannels and their classifications. The main conclusions the study arrived at are: (1) In both programmes ″BBC Hard Talk″ and ″Biel Harf Al-Wahid ″, most instances of interruption are associated with the interviewer (IR) who has the main role in controlling the whole discussion, and this achieves the first hypothesis. (2) In the Iraqi programme ″Bil Harf Al-Wahid″ all types of interruption occur in most of the episodes. On the contrary, in ″BBC Hard Talk″ program in which not all types of interruption occur. (3) In ″BBC Hard Talk″ programme, head nods are more frequent non vocal backchannels used by the interviewer. They are employed more than the vocal backchannel while, in ″Bil Harf Al-Wahid″ programme, the interviewer uses variant types of vocal backchannel. The expression mm is the most frequent one followed by zen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human–human interaction consists of various nonverbal behaviors that are often emotion-related. To establish rapport, it is essential that the listener respond to reactive emotion in a way that makes sense given the speaker's emotional state. However, human–robot interactions generally fail in this regard because most spoken dialogue systems play only a question-answer role. Aiming for natural conversation, we examine an emotion processing module that consists of a user emotion recognition function and a reactive emotion expression function for a spoken dialogue system to improve human–robot interaction. For the emotion recognition function, we propose a method that combines valence from prosody and sentiment from text by decision-level fusion, which considerably improves the performance. Moreover, this method reduces fatal recognition errors, thereby improving the user experience. For the reactive emotion expression function, the system's emotion is divided into emotion category and emotion level, which are predicted using the parameters estimated by the recognition function on the basis of distributions inferred from human–human dialogue data. As a result, the emotion processing module can recognize the user's emotion from his/her speech, and expresses a reactive emotion that matches. Evaluation with ten participants demonstrated that the system enhanced by this module is effective to conduct natural conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the use of backchannels, real-time online conversations taking place simultaneously with spoken discussions (the front channel), as one approach to meaning-making through discussion. Using transcripts of front and backchannel discussions, we examine how undergraduate preservice teachers utilize backchannels to talk about class-assigned texts. Although previous research has suggested that backchannels can create distractions, our study found that participants within the backchannel groups were able to create meaning through their interactions. We used five types of talk (analytic, personal, intertextual, transparent, and performative) to aid in our analysis. While we found evidence of all types of talk in the transcripts, analytical talk dominated the conversations, suggesting that backchannels can indeed encourage close readings of texts. In addition, we found that the nature of the online environment created a sixth category of talk. This type of talk, which we called negotiation, allowed participants in the backchannel to define and react to the digital space they interacted within. Findings point to increased engagement in class discussion and the potential of backchannels as a way to effectively integrate technology into instruction.

Este trabalho aborda as transformações ocorridas no ambiente científico com o advento da web social, em especial na modalidade de Comunicação Científica realizada através de eventos – conferências e congressos, que passam a ter seus conteúdos replicados e compartilhados em tempo real em mídias sociais. Essas conversações online paralelas ao evento caracteriza um novo canal informal da Comunicação Científica, o backchannel. O fenômeno é apresentado através do estudo de caso da atividade online por meio do Twitter em torno da 4ª Conferência Luso-Brasileira sobre Acesso Aberto (CONFOA), realizada em São Paulo em outubro de 2013. A análise dos resultados do monitoramento da hashtag #CONFOA2013 mostra que o Twitter atua como um backchannel eficiente, contribuindo na disseminação e replicação de conteúdos de eventos científicos, ampliando sua visibilidade e seu alcance.

Interactional competence has been variously defined as turn-taking ability, paralinguistic features of communication such as eye contact, gesture, and gesticulation, and listener responses. In existing assessment systems such as the oral proficiency interview (OPI), interactional competence is only rarely explicitly factored into the holistic task-based rating system. The present article explores the potential relevance of a facet of interactional competence, listener response, in contrastive interviewers conducted structurally distinct languages, Japanese and English. The analytic focus through micro-analysis of the interview interaction aims to consider evidence of how the candidate's listener responses audible through backchannels might be consistently identified as distinct from existing rating criteria such as fluency, accuracy, and coherence, and whether listener responses as interactional competence might be distinct from, or subsumable under, these facets of speaker proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twitter usage (“tweeting”) at academic conferences is quickly gaining prevalence. This fast-growing practice is an example of the complexity of academic discourse communities and how digital interactions aid scholars in building meaningful working relationships. Graduate students, in their position as “peripheral participants” in their academic disciplines (Lave & Wenger, 1991), have a unique perspective on the process of building their academic identities and relationships that will last a career. This qualitative interview study examines the perspectives of five Ph.D. students at universities across the United States who used Twitter at the academic conference Computers and Writing in May 2015. Building on previous studies on digital communication among academics (Hyland, 2012; Leon & Pigg, 2011; Li & Greenhow, 2015), this study reveals the behind-the-scenes perspectives of graduate students who used Twitter at this academic conference. Findings include a look into the intentionality these graduate students bring to their conference tweeting, explanations of their efforts to connect with others and build name- and face-recognition in the academic discourse community, and other useful insights into graduate students’ conference tweeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher preparation programs have historically experienced logistical and epistemological struggles in implementing earlier clinical experiences, despite the value placed on reflective practice in early clinical experiences. To address this issue, the author, a university faculty member, partnered with a Professional Development School (PDS) to design a new PDS practice before the clinical experience. The new practice grounds itself in the Cognitive Apprenticeship Model (CAM) and backchannel technology in order to emphasize the implementation of this teaching theory into practice. The practice uses a field-based social studies methods course to co-observe in-service teachers. Students observe with their classmates and their methods instructor, who serves as a teaching coach to the pre-service teachers. The coach uses backchannel chat technology (group text discussions) to orient, in real-time, the pre-service teachers' attention to the in-service teachers' pedagogical choices. This encourages pre-service teachers to embark in metacognition, reflective practice, and a real-time conversation surrounding clinical practices. After the observation period, the in-service teachers attend the methods course with the pre-service teachers and engage in the class discussion to further explicate their practice. This innovative use of technology, observation, and cooperation between the Institute of Higher Education (IHE) and the PDS facilitates scaffolded experiences of clinical practice through authentic learning in the PDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ways to solve the passivation layer undercut in via hole were described in detail. By tuning the pretreatment before the passivation layer deposition, the passivation layer undercut in via hole was solved efficiently without any other side effects. Different from changing dry etching process parameters, we increasing the adhesion of the interface between metal layer and passivation layer to overcome undercut issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Backchannel technology can be used to allow students in large lecture courses to communicate with each other and the instructor during the delivery of lecture content and class discussions. It can also be utilized by instructors to capture, summarize, and integrate student questions, ideas, and needs into course content both immediately and throughout the course. The authors integrated backchannel software in one of two sections of a course, leaving the other section as a control; combined, the two sections contained a total number of 871 students. Data was gathered comparing both groups using online surveys and semester grades; results showed that the section using backchannel software had higher class satisfaction and perception of engagement, used their mobile devices more for accessing class content, felt more comfortable participating in class discussions, and had a higher grade average than the section that did not. The authors also explore their own experiences of finding, integrating, and maintaining backchannel technology. La technologie d’arrière-plan peut permettre aux étudiants de grands cours magistraux de communiquer les uns avec les autres et avec l’instructeur durant le cours et les discussions en classe. Les instructeurs peuvent aussi l’utiliser pour saisir, résumer et intégrer les questions, idées et besoins des étudiants dans le contenu du cours, et ce, immédiatement et pendant toute la durée du cours. Les auteurs ont intégré un logiciel d’arrière-plan dans l’une des deux sections d’un cours, faisant de l’autre section son groupe témoin. Ensemble, les deux sections comprenaient 871 étudiants. Des données ont été recueillies pour comparer les deux groupes à l’aide de sondages en ligne et des notes du trimestre. Les résultats ont démontré que la section utilisant le logiciel d’arrière-plan avait une plus grande satisfaction et une meilleure perception de l’engagement, que ses étudiants se servaient de leurs appareils mobiles pour accéder à davantage de contenus, se sentaient plus à l’aise de prendre part aux discussions en classe et avaient une moyenne plus élevée que ceux du groupe qui n’avait pas accès au logiciel. Les auteurs explorent également leurs propres expériences pour trouver, intégrer et entretenir la technologie d’arrière-plan.

Copyright of Media4u Magazine is the property of Ing. Jan Chromy, Ph.D. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Twitter, the micro-blogging social media tool, has established a critical role in facilitating social engagement. Its low technical and economic barriers to uptake provide a readily accessible forum for public engagement with events such as televised political debates, and in this context provides a ‘backchannel’ to mainstream media, allowing users to comment on and engage in debates. Most recently during the 2014 Scottish Referendum, Twitter was used extensively by both ‘Better Together’ (pro-Unionist) and ‘Yes’ (pro-independence) campaigners. The aim of this research was to develop an understanding of the linked content present in tweets sent during three televised debates on the issue of Scottish Independence. Analysis of the linked content shows a broad subject proximity to the topics under discussion during the debates, but highlights the lack of specificity in relation to the peaks and troughs of Twitter traffic during the debates. The paper also highlights the use made of links to a variety of resources such as the mainstream media as well as more informal sources including user-generated image and video content to support political viewpoints, and argues that, while the use of such content is beneficial in terms of unifying perspectives, supporter activism and the gratification of the social need for connectivity, it does not act to convert political opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploratory studies have started to demonstrate the potential value of digital backchannels for enhancing interaction in university lectures. The present study was conducted in a third year engineering course and involved the use of specialised backchannel software with the following features: students could anonymously post questions, vote on questions, give the lecturer feedback regarding the pace of the lecture or simply alert the lecturer that they were ‘lost’. The study used a mixed-method data analysis design that, in addition to data automatically logged through the backchannel, included the use of observations, surveys, lecturer interviews and student focus groups. It was found that students used all features of the backchannel, with especial use of the ‘like’ feature, not currently available in most commercial backchannel packages. The backchannel increased the number of questions asked in class, and also resulted in a broader range of students participating in such interactions. There was limited evidence of the backchannel proving a distraction; on the contrary some students said that it helped them to focus more in class. From the lecturers' perspective the backchannel did require some modification of their lecturing style but they felt that the additional feedback that they achieved was valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Events create a new kind of setting for the computer-mediated chat, characterized by physically co-located participants. We set out to investigate the features of chat messages in this particular kind of environment, assessing the amount of threading, defined in terms of message content contributing to one topic, and conversation, based on patterns in informational and emotional functions of subsequent messages. We observe that our cases are characterized with a high level of threading, even while the application did not technically support it. Furthermore, we observe patterns that demonstrate these threads were conversations, based on the types of responses in each thread. Based on our findings, we propose that technical tools for public event-based chats can support conversations and suggest that better tools for this should be developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developments in technology, including the use of synchronous telecollaborative tools, promise to address the challenge of providing opportunities for interaction in the foreign language classroom. The present study investigates how learners and native speakers (NS) of English co-construct small talk in the opening phase of a voice-based Skype telecollaboration. Specifically, learner and NS self-oriented and other-oriented topic shifts, topic replies and verbal listenership behaviour are analysed. The focus is on the English interactions of two learner-NS dyads, each made up of a German NS and an Irish English NS. One dyad includes a learner who exhibits a high level of interactional competence while in the other dyad the learner shows no active participation. Specifically, she reveals a low use of topic shifts, a high use of equivocal short-form topic replies, few long-form replies and a very limited use of backchannels/backchannel forms, leaving the interactional burden on the Irish English NS. The analysis illuminates small talk construction in the voice-based telecollaborative context and highlights the possibilities it offers for developing interactive competencies. It also sheds light on the roles played by NS and learners in topic management and adds to our understanding of individual differences in small talk construction in the foreign language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce Iterative Perceptual Learning (IPL), a novel approach to learn computational models for social behavior synthesis from corpora of human-human interactions. IPL combines perceptual evaluation with iterative model refinement. Human observers rate the appropriateness of synthesized behaviors in the context of a conversation. These ratings are used to refine the machine learning models that predict the social signal timings. As the ratings correspond to those moments in the conversation where the production of a specific behavior is inappropriate, we regard features extracted at these moments as negative samples for the training of a classifier. This is an advantage over the traditional corpus-based approach to extract negative samples at random non-positive moments. We perform a comparison between IPL and the traditional corpus-based approach on the timing of backchannels for a listener in speaker-listener dialogs. While both models perform similarly in terms of precision and recall scores, there is a tendency that the backchannels generated with IPL are rated as more appropriate. We additionally investigate the effect of the amount of available training data and the variation of training data on the outcome of the models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study analyzes discourse style differences between western and Japanese interlocutors in a group consensus-building task discussion. Four discussants (American male, Japanese male, German female and Japanese female) first created a ranking of 5 life values and then participated in a group discussion to arrive at a common group ranking. Qualitative analyses revealed (1) that the Japanese male used a strikingly greater number of backchannels and nodding compared to the other three participants; and (2) that the total number of words uttered by the Japanese female was strikingly less than the other participants. Qualitative analyses further indicated that the Japanese male utilized backchannels to fulfill a variety of functions (e.g., to express listenership, opinions, and turn-management) and the Japanese female used polite or humbling expressions regarding her own English ability (i.e., "I can't speak English well"). Analyses of post-discussion evaluations revealed that the Japanese female was evaluated lower than the other participants, a finding which suggests that limited participation (and not the use of frequent backchannels) negatively impacts the psychological orientation of interlocutors in intercultural communication. The significance of this finding is discussed in relation to the predictions of previous research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article offers a theoretical framework for ‘digital underlife’: the distal and potentially transgressive discursive activities proliferated by emerging technologies. Digital underlife is an adaptation of sociologist Erving Goffman''s concept of underlife, which figured centrally in Robert Brooke''s well-known study of writing activity in 1988. As emerging digital technologies fray the communicative bounds of traditional sites for teaching and learning, such as the classroom and the conference hall, we are confronted anew with a complex array of possibilities for giving and getting attention. Drawing on the work of Charles Moran and Richard Lanham, this article calls for a more receptive disposition toward the productive dimensions of digital underlife. The article promotes a stance that imagines productive digital underlife to be intrinsic to curricula that combine digital writing activity and rhetorical education, rather than short-selling digital underlife as mere distraction, as an impediment to learning, or worse, attempting to banish it altogether. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper investigates a sample of ‘backchannels’, a kind of response item, in the Cobuild Corpus. Its object is to chart the occurrence of backchannels in modern English speech, and especially to find out if they can indicate how much of a language sequence is needed for a listener to understand the intended message. The sequences into which backchannels are inserted and their insertion points are therefore classified, and the fairly numerous sequences where backchannels “interrupt” a linguistic unit are singled out for special study. A general conclusion is that in the cases where there is no explicit information about the part of the message following the inserted backchannel, the message will nevertheless mostly be understood even at the backchannel insertion point. A comparison between male and female speakers shows that women use backchannels more than men and that, unlike men, they prefer unemphatic backchannels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The oral proficiency interview (OPI) is often used in the domain of business English as a criterion for access to overseas assignments and job promotions. Little, however, is known about variation in interaction style across interviewers, which motivates in this study a contrastive analysis of two oral proficiency interviews used for gatekeeping purposes. The two interviews were conducted with the same candidate three months apart, and provide a rare glimpse of contrastive interviewer strategies with a single candidate. The analysis examines evidence that the candidate backslid from an earlier successful interview to a categorically lower level of performance in the second interview. Analyses of the candidate''s differential establishment of footing in the interview, misalignments to the tone of the interviewer, and differential tendencies of the two interviewers to accommodate to the candidate are featured. Interviewer differences in proclivity to backchannel indicate how facilitative accommodation in scaffolding the interaction may influence the initial rating. The micro-analyses of interview discourse suggest that differences in interviewer style potentially lead to divergent outcomes in the two interviews. In spite of considerable variation in the interaction styles of the two interviewers, consistency in the outcomes of five repeated second ratings of the candidate''s performance suggest a rating system robust against even large differences in interviewer style. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Current methodologies in corpus linguistics have revolutionised the way in which we study language, allowing us to make accurate and retrievable observations and analyses using a range of written and spoken data from naturally occurring contexts. Yet, while current corpora allow us to explore multimillion word databases, they fail to represent language and communication beyond the word. This is problematic as social interactions are in fact multimodal, combining both verbal and non-verbal elements. This article reports on preliminary developments in this area carried out as part of an interdisciplinary project based at the University of Nottingham, funded by the UK-based Economic and Social Sciences Research Council, which is exploring how we can utilise new textualities in order to develop the scope of what a corpus can reveal and provide the tools for exploring discourse in specific contexts of communication. The specific linguistic focus of this project is the exploration of the roles and nature of gesture-in-talk, with a specific focus on codifying and analysing backchannels. To manage the scale of the research challenge we explore a particular sub-set of gesture: head nods. The article discusses the development of multimodal corpora, using video data recorded from conversational exchanges that are to be streamed with the verbal data. We provide an exploration of the requirements that such a 'multimodal' corpus should look to fulfil, in order to lead to better descriptions of language and better applications of such descriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Japanese backchannel signals (aizuchi) can be divided into two types, utterance-internal and utterance-final. While sentence-final aizuchi are comparable to English backchannel signals like “I see” or “really”, the utterance-internal aizuchi signal only continuation and understanding (“I listen”), but never agreement or empathy. Aizuchi exchange consists of a complementary pair of the aizuchi invitation by the speaker and the actual aizuchi delivered by the listener. Our present study focuses on the acquisition of aizuchi in a boy aged 1;5 to 3;1. We observed a developmental delay between utterance-final aizuchi, and utterance-internal aizuchi, which appeared about 6 months later than the utterance-final aizuchi. Also the invitations for utterance-final aizuchi appeared earlier than the invitations for utterance-internal aizuchi. We also observed an overuse of aizuchi invitations, while the number of aizuchi delivered was comparatively low. This overuse can be explained by the pragmatic value of aizuchi invitations which can be ideal for negotiating support for one''s turn and gaining time in order to organize thoughts into a well-formed sentence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Reactive tokens are conversational resources by which a listener co-constructs a speaker's turn at talk. The resources that are available include the forms of the reactive tokens themselves, their duration, and their placement by the listener in the current speaker's turn. The present paper is a contrastive study of the use of these resources by Americans in English, and by Koreans in their native language and in English, and in it we show the ecological relationship between the resources that a language provides and their use in constructing active listenership. Although previous research on English has found listeners use reactive tokens to pass up the opportunity for a full turn at talk, we show that, in Korean, reactive tokens are often elicited by the current speaker and the listener is obligated to provide them. We present evidence that Korean bilinguals transfer some conversational resources from their native language when they take part in conversation in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Backchannel responses appear to be a universal behavior, but specific backchannel behaviors are particular to language and culture. As such, they offer themselves to test central assumptions of Communication Accommodation Theory, in particular, assumptions relating to the processes of convergence and divergence. Researchers have identified linguistic and cultural differences in regard to the frequency, type, and placement of backchannel responses. This study examines differences in American English and German backchannel behavior and investigates backchannel behavior in interactions between monolingual and bilingual Germans. Study 1 documents significant differences in the frequency and placement of backchannel responses among monolingual German speakers and monolingual American English speakers. Results show that Germans produce fewer backchannel responses and place these responses less frequently in overlapping positions than American speakers do. Study 2 finds that native Germans who have become equally proficient in American English, when they speak to other native Germans in German, produce a higher number of backchannel responses and more often in overlapping positions than do monolingual Germans. This pragmatic transfer, for which some evidence exists in cross-linguistic studies, contradicts basic assumptions of Communication Accommodation Theory. Implications of these findings for Communication Accommodation Theory, future research on backchannel responses, and pragmalinguistic research are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We introduce the concept of a Visual Backchannel as a novel way of following and exploring online conversations aboutlarge-scale events. Microblogging communities, such as Twitter, are increasingly used as digital backchannels for timely exchange ofbrief comments and impressions during political speeches, sport competitions, natural disasters, and other large events. Currently,shared updates are typically displayed in the form of a simple list, making it difficult to get an overview of the fast-paced discussions asit happens in the moment and how it evolves over time. In contrast, our Visual Backchannel design provides an evolving, interactive,and multi-faceted visual overview of large-scale ongoing conversations on Twitter. To visualize a continuously updating informationstream, we include visual saliency for what is happening now and what has just happened, set in the context of the evolving conversation.As part of a fully web-based coordinated-view system we introduce Topic Streams, a temporally adjustable stacked graphvisualizing topics over time, a People Spiral representing participants and their activity, and an Image Cloud encoding the popularityof event photos by size. Together with a post listing, these mutually linked views support cross-filtering along topics, participants, andtime ranges. We discuss our design considerations, in particular with respect to evolving visualizations of dynamically changing data.Initial feedback indicates significant interest and suggests several unanticipated uses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]