Conversational Discourse Research Articles

Critical Discourse Analysis of Judicial Conversations in Vietnam: A Case Study

This article analyzed the interrogation conversation between the jury members and the defendant in a criminal trial in Vietnam. The examined corpus consisted of four conversations with a capacity of about 43 minutes during the interrogation at a criminal trial in Vietnam. Content description and discourse analysis are used as methods from a qualitative approach to explore how power was exercised, maintained, and legitimized in Vietnamese legal conversational discourses. The research results showed that there were seven ways of expression conducted by the jury to produce power in conversation. Specifically, they were the obligation to use polite words/phrases in the defendant's responses, the obligation of the defendants to answer the juris in a question-answer pair, the phenomenon of interruption, the right to change the subject of the conversation, the Trial Panel’s request to take action of the defendants, the questions not for informational purposes, the phenomenon of omitting the subject during questioning.

Shifting Communicative Roles through Subcode Switching and Blending in Works of Zadie Smith

This study is part of the discourse on code-switching in conversational discourse. The aim of this article is to describe frequent instances of subcode switching and mixing in a multicultural environment, as well as to determine their involvement in communicative role exchanges within the literary texts of a contemporary English writer. The object of description is examples of (sub)code switching and mixing in the literary texts of Zadie Smith. The research employs linguistic analysis methods alongside observation, comparison, and interpretation techniques to highlight the significance of role exchange in the context of subcode switching and mixing. The novelty of this study lies in its examination of role exchange in a multicultural setting. The author emphasizes the pace of role exchange as a crucial indicator of interaction dynamics in heterogeneous cultural environments. The relevance of this research stems from the importance of understanding complex communicative frameworks that involve participants, social parameters, intentions, and speech communication situations. Definitions of subcode mixing and subcode switching are provided, with a clear distinction between code and subcode concepts.

Global coherence in structured and unstructured discourse types in neurotypical adults

BackgroundResearch on global coherence in neurotypical aging has predominantly focused on different methods of elicitation and their impact on age. The use of structured versus unstructured discourse tasks can have varying effects on global coherence. Comparative studies investigating this effect within Tamil language-speaking populations are scarce. This study seeks to address this gap by examining global coherence in structured and unstructured tasks among speakers of Tamil language.AimThis study aimed to identify any significant differences in the global coherence of discourse, as measured through structured (picture description) and unstructured (conversation) tasks, in middle-aged and older neurotypical individuals across ages and genders.MethodThirty Tamil-speaking individuals participated in the study, which included 15 middle-aged adults (aged 44–59 years) and 15 older adults (aged 60–80 years), with an equal number of males and females. Discourse samples were audio recorded using structured (picture description) and unstructured (conversational discourse) tasks. The picture description task included describing a single picture (of a birthday scene) and a sequential picture stimulus (depicting an argument event). The conversational task consisted of two topics of conversation (family and work) with the investigator. Each discourse task lasted for at least a minute. The recorded samples were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using a 4-point Global Coherence Rating Scale.ResultsParticipants exhibited significant differences, with the unstructured discourse task having a significantly higher global coherence rating (p ≤ 0.05) than both structured discourse tasks. The varying cognitive demands, functional purposes, and contextual factors across various discourse elicitation tasks could be attributed to these differences. No significant differences were observed in the coherence ratings between middle-aged and older adults or between genders.ConclusionThe method used to elicit discourse and the type of discourse need to be considered when exploring global coherence measures. The current study has important methodological implications for the coherence analysis of the Tamil-speaking population in both structured and unstructured tasks.

Effect of Chatbot-Assisted Learning on Students’ Learning Motivation and Its Pedagogical Approaches

Abstract- The use of chatbots in the learning process has been increasingly investigated and applied. While many studies have discussed the chatbot's ability to motivate students' interest in learning, few have examined whether students' perception of learning affects the effectiveness of chatbots and the pedagogical approach taken by chatbots as conversational agents during the learning process. There is a need for new analysis to capture the effects of Chatbot-Assisted Learning (Chatbot-AL) and student-chatbot conversations. In an eight-week semester, 48 first-year undergraduate students participated in a chatbot-assisted learning environment integrated into an engineering course. Data were collected through questionnaires on students' learning motivation and discourse in chatbot conversations. Statistical non-parametric analysis and Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) were used to explore the research questions. The results showed that students with high learning perception had better learning motivation using chatbot-AL than students with low learning perception. Additionally, most of the questions asked by students were aimed at receiving emotional support through casual conversation with the chatbot. Finally, the implications, limitations, and conclusions were discussed.

ДА или НЕ в разговорната реч (Или за отрицанието и потвърждението в разговорната реч и за функциите на частиците ДА и НЕ)

The purpose of the article is to present some specifics of affirmation and negation found in the spoken language. Special attention was paid both to the competition between yes and no, and to the competition between these particles and other parts of speech – interjections, particles and pronominal adverbs. Emphasis was also placed on the pragmatic function of these particles, without at the same time neglecting their modal meaning. Conclusions were drawn as to which of the two particles has greater functionalsemantic diversity in conversational discourse.

The Conversational Discourse Unit: Identification and Its Role in Conversational Turn-taking Management

This study investigates how discourse segmentation and turn-taking interact. Mapping syntactic, prosodic and pragmatic units, five types of conversational discourse units (CDU) were identified. Based on this segmentation, associations were examined between the syntactic, prosodic and pragmatic boundaries and turn-taking, as well as the transition speed after each type of CDU. Results show: 1) The relationships between the three linguistic boundaries and the occurrence of turn-taking were significant, and the association was the strongest for the pragmatic boundaries; it was weaker for prosodic boundaries and the weakest for the syntactic boundaries. 2) The type of CDU influenced the transition speed, with the pragmatic-syntax-bound CDU being fastest. The study highlights the importance of meaning-connection and earlier emergence of the utterance gist in timing turn-taking.

Identifying Linguistic and Speech Acts Variations of the Buginese Tribe Through Socio-Pragmatic Analysis in Establishing Daily Discourse Interactions

Buginese is a local language in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, which is spoken in almost 60% of Sulawesi Island. This study aimed to explore the selection of linguistic variations and language acts as a linguistic model used by ethnic Buginese in establishing discourses of everyday socio-pragmatic interactions. It relied on a qualitative design to obtain the linguistic corpus that occurs empirically and naturally in communication interactions. This study used the snowball method by combining ethnographic strategies. The instrument used the Speaking Involvement Technique, in which the researchers were directly involved in people’s interactions by paying attention to communicating situations, recording data, and conducting interviews for data validation purposes. All data or corpus of linguistic variations and speech acts collected were analyzed by the speaking strategy componential technique strategy developed by Dell Hymes. This study successfully discovers a model for identifying the Buginese ethnicity's linguistic variations and speech acts to build a discourse of communication interactions. The expressions of selection of linguistic variations and speech acts are dominantly based on polite sentence constructions and formulations, and ethically according to the local culture of Buginese ethnicity, namely the culture of siri. The results of this study can affect the enrichment of scientific information, which functions and acts as a meaningful reference in the field of linguistic studies, especially examining speech act variation in the expression of conversational discourse, in addition to being a foundation in the development of local content material and multicultural understanding.

Directive acts as part of a quotation in Modern Japanese speech

In this paper, we consider directive acts as part of a quotation in Modern Japanese speech. Using the texts of electronic diaries as a kind of written expression of conversational discourse, we studied the ways of transmitting directive acts as part of a quotation, as well as to analyzed how the choice of a certain form of expression of directive acts as part of a quotation may indicate the direct or indirect nature of the citation. After giving a preliminary theoretical picture, we turn mainly to the direct (morphologized) imperative forms of the Japanese language. These forms are enough to show the complexity of the directive category in the "polite" language of the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun. In any case, the analysis of morphologized forms inevitably moved to the syntactic-discursive level. The peculiarity of the approach is in the analysis of several texts by one author to determine the language techniques characteristic of this author, which is used, among other things, as an argument in favor of direct or indirect citation, since Japanese (as well as for a number of other languages) is characterized by a rather complex, subtle distinction between direct and indirect ways of transmitting someone else’s speech. The material convinces us that only a complete analysis of both the quotation itself and the context (for example, texts by the same author) allows us to get a more accurate picture of the phenomenon of the distinction between direct and indirect citation. Among other things, the conducted research has the theoretical significance in terms of thinking about the phenomenon of quoting in language in general. It is clear that this phenomenon (especially in the light of modern information-polymodal, postmodern and other trends, in particular trends in the psychologization of discourse) should be understood more difficult, as new research in this field proves, and as our paper shows

Transposition, not translation: Recuperating attentionality on Pantelleria, Sicily

AbstractThis article examines how elderly rural Sicilians recall the meanings of words rendered obsolete by infrastructural, technological, and economic changes that occurred in their lifetime. I examine conversations from my 2016 and 2019 fieldwork on Pantelleria, Sicily, characterized by what I term recuperated attentionality, speaking from erstwhile attentional circumstances. To unpack the meanings of words, elderly islanders employ transposition, contextualizing their attentional guidance from a moment of reference anchored in the remembered past, orienting to an obsolete way of being in the world. Socio‐biographical discontinuity means that acquaintance and familiarity with the denotata of these words is asymmetrical, once accessed by participating in island life, issuing and responding to directives, attending to tasks, and so on, but now accessed principally by memory. I examine conversational discourse in which transposition is used to unpack word meanings, which clashes with elicitation norms that request translational equivalents for words.

Analyzing Language in the Picnic Scene Picture and in Conversation: The Type of Discourse Sample We Choose Influences Findings in People With Aphasia.

People with aphasia express that improved conversational discourse is a primary rehabilitation goal. Discourse is usually assessed using monologue, such as a picture description task, but research shows that language in monologue varies from language in everyday conversation. Consequently, we investigated the relationship of language in unstructured conversation and in the picnic scene picture because it is a part of the most often used aphasia battery (Western Aphasia Battery-Revised) and thus is frequently used to inform therapy. Second, because previous research suggests people with severe aphasia may not demonstrate language production variability between types of monologue-level discourse, we evaluated the relationship of severity and the difference in scores between conversation and the picnic scene task. Thirty-four people with mild-to-severe aphasia described the picnic scene and provided a conversation sample. We measured language production and communicative success using seven measures with established psychometrics in conversation/monologue. We conducted correlations to answer the research questions. Correlations were moderate and weaker for the measures in the two conditions. A strong negative relationship was demonstrated between aphasia severity and global coherence. All other relationships were moderate and weaker for the remaining measures when correlated with aphasia severity (also negative). Results are consistent with other studies indicating that language varies in different types of discourse. We conclude that for accurate, meaningful assessment, discourse sampling needs to include the specific type of discourse the individual wishes to address in therapy, because discourse samples and their findings are not interchangeable.

Formulaicity and formulaic expressions in Japanese: an introduction

AbstractFormulaic expressions pervade everyday language. While this has caught the attention of pedagogically oriented researchers due to its benefit in foreign language instruction, the centrality of formulaic expressions in actual language use, along with their emerging nature and plasticity, has only been marginally recognized and thus remains largely unexplored, especially in languages other than English. We propose to fill this gap by highlighting the cognitive and interactional basis of formulaicity in Japanese. We place full weight on formulaic language in actual use, which includes conversational discourse and social networking services such as Twitter posts. Each contribution highlights how formulaic expressions are based on and shaped by usage in context and how they are deployed in unfolding discourse.

Choosing Discourse Types That Align With Person-Centered Goals in Aphasia Rehabilitation: A Clinical Tutorial

Purpose: People with aphasia and their families want rehabilitation services that improve real-world communication. Thus, clinicians and researchers have increased focus on discourse-level interventions and outcome measures, most often using monologue tasks to assess discourse production and guide treatment planning. However, communication in everyday life usually involves participating in conversational discourse. This mismatch raises concern because the literature indicates that different types of discourse possess different linguistic and interactional characteristics and that the communication skills of people with aphasia vary across different types of discourse. In order to provide appropriate, client-centered services, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) need resources that outline the linguistic and interactional characteristics of each type of discourse. Few user-friendly materials of this sort exist. This tutorial aims to equip clinicians with essential foundational knowledge regarding features of narrative, procedural, and expository monologue, as well as conversation, to aid in the design of discourse-level interventions specific to each individual's discourse needs. Method: This tutorial provides an overview of the research regarding the structure and function of commonly assessed and treated forms of discourse, along with findings regarding the varied and unpredictable communicative performance of people with aphasia across the different types of discourse. We then provide practical applied clinical examples to illustrate the literature findings. Conclusion: Given the differences between types of discourse, when SLPs include discourse in a client's treatment program, the types of discourse activities the client wants to address should align very closely with the types of discourse assessed and treated in the clinic room.

Intersectionality of Race and Question-Asking in Women After Right Hemisphere Brain Damage.

Atypical pragmatic language can impede quality health care access. Right hemisphere brain damage (RHD) results in changes in pragmatic language use; however, little is known about whether there are racial/ethnic influences. Recent research indicated differences in question-asking when RHD survivors were compared with healthy controls, prompting the current examination of question production in women by race/ethnicity and the presence of RHD. Participants were eight Black and eight White women who sustained a single right hemisphere stroke at least 6 months prior to data collection (2016-2020), and eight Black and eight White control participants from the Right Hemisphere Damage Bank (https://rhd.talkbank.org). Videos of informal, first-encounter conversational discourse tasks were transcribed and coded. Analyses were conducted for frequency of questions and question type. Race/ethnicity had a statistically significant effect on the total number of questions and number of content and polar questions. The mean total of questions, number of content questions, and mean number of polar questions for Black participants was significantly less than White participants. There was less variability in question type for Black participants than White participants, and a tendency for Black participants to ask fewer questions regardless of RHD or control status. Acquisition of health information and ensuing health care might be less fruitful for Black women communicating with someone who may not know to conduct comprehension checks and be proactive in provision of information. To be culturally responsive to Black patients with communication disorders, providers might apply this awareness of reduced question-asking to their strategies to improve patient-provider communication. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21809475.

ТРАЙБАЛИЗМ В КАМЕРУНСКОМ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОМ ДИСКУРСЕ

This article is devoted to the study of tribalism, which manifests itself in the speech of political actors. Typical communicative acts are considered here, which are realized in the speeches of Cameroonian politicians, who use the strategy of discrediting the opponent to represent group isolation, which is characterized by internal clan isolation and exclusivity. To carry out linguistic analysis, linguo-cognitive and semantic research methods were used, with the help of which the ways that ideology and tribal power are constantly used both in everyday conversational discourse and in political communication, as well as in the media, were identified. This gives the possibility to consider the communicative portrait of the Cameroonian politician. The study founds that speakers often do not realize that the words they use really influence and affect the thoughts, actions, morale and emotional state and feelings of the listener, and hence his behavior. It was investigated and observed how the principle of cooperation is implemented, how often it is ignored, whether politicians neglect the rules and ethics of maintaining good social relations, which is manifested in the language of an ethno-cultural community. The study establishes that tribalism manifests itself in verbal aggression, has devastating consequences as well as being part of the impact at the linguistic level on individuals and on the nation as a whole. It is concluded that much depends on the difficult language situation that has developed in Cameroon, when some leaders speak English, others speak French, and there are no politicians who speak their native language at all.

Conversation CONVERSATION STYLE: ANALYZING TALK AMONG ‘’KICK ANDY'S TALK SHOW WITH THE FIVE TOWER STATE NOVEL'S AUTHOR’’ Abstrack The conversation analysis contained in the Talk Show Kick Andy video contains four topics, including the topic of conversation, the str

Abstrack
 The conversation analysis contained in the Talk Show Kick Andy video contains four topics, including the topic of conversation, the structure of the conversation, the transfer of conversation, and the coherence of conversational discourse. On the topic of conversation, three topics were found, namely general topics, ongoing topics and real topics. Furthermore, in the conversation structure, the topic of conversation is found at the beginning of the conversation, the core of the conversation, and the end of the conversation. The conversational speech transfer contains two types of conversational speech transfer. The first is speech switching with an arranged turn, the second is a speech transfer with an automatic turn. The last conversation analysis is the coherence of conversational discourse. Cohesion is shown in the cohesion and coherence in the content of the conversation.
 Keywords: conversation analysis, topic of conversation, change the conversation.

The Interplay of Laughter and Communicative Purpose in Conversational Discourse: A Corpus-Based Study of British English

The Interplay of Laughter and Communicative Purpose in Conversational Discourse: A Corpus-Based Study of British English

Echoing Retorts in Hárbarðsljóð and Lokasenna

Echoing Retorts in <i>Hárbarðsljóð</i> and <i>Lokasenna</i>

Therapeutic discourse in teacher professional discourse: on multidimensionality and elasticity of psychology-based reasoning

ABSTRACT Educational discourses have embraced therapeutic discourse, a psychology-based system of assumptions about the self, its boundaries, development and social relations. While scholars have debated the virtues of this therapeutic turn, there has been little empirical study of therapeutic discourse in teacher pedagogical discourse. This article, using theoretical frameworks of teacher learning and the sociology of therapeutic discourse and employing linguistic ethnographic methods, features close analysis of therapeutic discourse in teacher workplace conversations. The focal case, in which a teacher consults with her colleagues regarding a non-compliant student, features four episodes of therapeutic reasoning (ETRs) in which various therapeutic logics are employed. Analysis uncovered three central manifestations of therapeutic discourse especially pertinent to education: the role of emotions; perceptions of the self; and temporality. Attending to these manifestations in each ETR reveals conditions under which they may enhance or impede potential for teacher learning and pedagogic action. When therapeutic modes of reasoning are deployed by teachers to discuss their problems of practice, they are found to be multifaceted, elastic, and to bear potential for agentive teacher action under certain conditions. This article calls for a more nuanced, temporally-sensitive perspective on therapeutic discourse in education, and addresses implications for theory and practice.

Speakers’ subjective evaluation of adversity

AbstractAdversative passives like Mandarin Chinesebei-passives are known to convey adversity, but what “adversity” means specifically for speakers ofbei-in conversational discourse remains unknown. Whereas previous studies examine adversity within thebei-clause, this study uses the lens concept to investigate speakers’ subjective evaluations of the event attested by the larger context beyond thebei-clause. Using a subjectivity coding scheme and the discourse adjacent alternation method, I analyzed 4,203 values of event valence of 1,401bei-utterances and 65 alternations in spontaneous talk show conversations. Results show that: (1) The same event that a speaker evaluates as “adverse” usingbei- is sometimes evaluated as “non-adverse” using non-beistructures. (2) The samebei+verb phrase that previous studies may deem “adverse” can be evaluated as “adverse” or “positive” by actual speakers. (3) 84.5% (1,184/1,401) of the time,bei-passive in conversation expresses speakers’ evaluation that a causative event is adverse for the affectee, regardless of what reality is. (4) Adversity means undesirable, disadvantageous, morally or socially wrong, empathy-deserving, and/or sympathy-deserving for speakers ofbei-. The findings indicate that the adversity thatbei-conveys is not an objective description of reality but a subjective evaluation independent of reality–the Adversity lens. This study sheds light on subjectivity and specific manifestations of adversity in conversational discourse.

Conversation, discourse and linguistic analysis in dental communication: valuable but under-used approaches

According to Dental Protection, 'good dentists are good communicators, it's that simple!' Unfortunately, dental communication is an under-researched field, so it is not yet clear exactly what good communication in this context entails. The dominant method of researching dental communication to date has followed a 'process approach' where the focus has been on evaluating the communicative competence of the clinician using a checklist of communicative functions; for example, 'the clinician explains the condition'. Conversation analysis, discourse analysis and linguistic analysis are discursive approaches that bring precision by analysing the actual language/discourses being used by patients and providers in interactions. These discursive approaches can be used to capture exactly how, for example, patient engagement is maintained in routine dental consultations, patient reassurance is achieved during invasive procedures and which communication strategies are the most likely to result in enhanced treatment outcomes in paediatric dentistry. In addition to shedding new light on the unique nature of dental communication, discursive approaches provide targeted new tools for developing needs-based training packages for dental professionals.