Everyday Conversation Research Articles

Silences on the edge of dreams

While Cage’s 4’33 opens an audience’s ears to how much we silence sounds, we also miss much of what silences convey. It seems Cage’s piece could be entirely about listening. Silence is where we listen from. In what ways can we consider silence in music therapy work? The article revisits PhD research examining the detailed occurrence and management of silences during free improvised musical duets and silences in everyday conversation. This research made use of both musical microanalysis and conversation analysis, identifying similarities and also important differences between verbal and musical exchanges. These findings are still relevant today and provide a solid base from which to consider music therapy improvisatory silences. Applied music and psychoanalytic theory are included, as a way to view and review music psychotherapy work in the area of silence, with two clinical vignettes illustrating the application of these theoretical threads. It is shown that fundamental to an appreciation of silence in therapeutic work is the acknowledgement of a deep, layered listening presence.

Reimagining Well-Being Research in HRD

In recent years, a significant interest on the relevance of well-being has spurred dialog at every level -- from mundane everyday conversations about how we are feeling, to broader discussions related to the well-being of our communities and society. Joining a conversation about well-being is not difficult as we can talk to each other about our experiences. Recognizing commonalities in well-being experiences brings us together and gives shared purpose and meaning. For example, within the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD), we must continue to focus on the well-being of our members, stakeholders, and broad audiences we serve. Clearly, the efforts we undertake as HRD practitioners and researchers can only enhance the relevance and importance of well-being research and practice. Below, I share key academic conversations concerning well-being, and how HRD can promote greater exchange of ideas, and enhance our collective knowledge both in research and practice.

“I have to translate the colors”: Description and implications of a genuine case of phoneme color synaesthesia

The aim of this paper was to assess the genuineness of a case of phoneme color synesthesia (VA) by evaluating the influence of several psycholinguistic levels with different stimuli (isolated vowels, nonsense syllables, and words). Results demonstrate the robustness of the synesthesia no matter what the type of stimuli. To explore how this form of synesthesia manifested itself in everyday conversation, interviews were also conducted. VA reported that, in the context of conversation, phonemes still evoked colors that she had to translate in order to access the meaning. She also reported that her mental representations were multisensorial and that the verbal dimension was almost non-existent. We address several implications of this phoneme color synesthesia: the atypical speech perception that it implies, the cognitive cost of this stable system, and its relation to a specific cognitive functioning.

Being, becoming, belonging: Negotiating temporality, memory and identity in life story conversations with care-experienced children and young people

This article uses Feminist New Materialist theoretical perspectives on time and temporality to critically explore the social work practice of life story work, designed to help children who are or have been in public care, or are adopted, assemble a coherent narrative of their care journey, adverse experiences and identity. Interview data presented here was produced with 17 participants (foster carers, adoptive parents and social work professionals in care or adoption teams) who were part of a project which sought to understand how aspects of life story work could be transformed into everyday care conversations between children and the adults who care for them (see www.difficultconversations.info ). Our analysis highlights the way participants understood and constructed temporal elements of children’s experiences and identities: their pasts, presents and futures, in the context of having conversations about care with them. Through the discussion, we indicate a need to loosen the configuration of children’s life stories and identities as ‘pre-care’ and ‘post-care’, and instead move toward an acceptance of children’s multiple selves and multiple important others as existing across time.

Sex differences in the temporal dynamics of autistic children’s natural conversations

BackgroundAutistic girls are underdiagnosed compared to autistic boys, even when they experience similar clinical impact. Research suggests that girls present with distinct symptom profiles across a variety of domains, such as language, which may contribute to their underdiagnosis. In this study, we examine sex differences in the temporal dynamics of natural conversations between naïve adult confederates and school-aged children with or without autism, with the goal of improving our understanding of conversational behavior in autistic girls and ultimately improving identification.MethodsForty-five school-aged children with autism (29 boys and 16 girls) and 47 non-autistic/neurotypical (NT) children (23 boys and 24 girls) engaged in a 5-min “get-to-know-you” conversation with a young adult confederate that was unaware of children’s diagnostic status. Groups were matched on IQ estimates. Recordings were time-aligned and orthographically transcribed by trained annotators. Several speech and pause measures were calculated. Groups were compared using analysis of covariance models, controlling for age.ResultsAutistic girls used significantly more words than autistic boys, and produced longer speech segments than all other groups. Autistic boys spoke more slowly than NT children, whereas autistic girls did not differ from NT children in total word counts or speaking rate. Autistic boys interrupted confederates’ speech less often and produced longer between-turn pauses (i.e., responded more slowly when it was their turn) compared to other children. Within-turn pause duration did not differ by group.LimitationsOur sample included verbally fluent children and adolescents aged 6–15 years, so our study results may not replicate in samples of younger children, adults, and individuals who are not verbally fluent. The results of this relatively small study, while compelling, should be interpreted with caution and replicated in a larger sample.ConclusionThis study investigated the temporal dynamics of everyday conversations and demonstrated that autistic girls and boys have distinct natural language profiles. Specifying differences in verbal communication lays the groundwork for the development of sensitive screening and diagnostic tools to more accurately identify autistic girls, and could inform future personalized interventions that improve short- and long-term social communication outcomes for all autistic children.

Timing in Conversation.

Turn-taking in everyday conversation is fast, with median latencies in corpora of conversational speech often reported to be under 300 ms. This seems like magic, given that experimental research on speech planning has shown that speakers need much more time to plan and produce even the shortest of utterances. This paper reviews how language scientists have combined linguistic analyses of conversations and experimental work to understand the skill of swift turn-taking and proposes a tentative solution to the riddle of fast turn-taking.

On First Reading Thomas Dixon Jr. in 2021: What Racist Fiction from Reconstruction Can Teach Us About Building Multiracial Democracy Today

On First Reading Thomas Dixon Jr. in 2021: What Racist Fiction from Reconstruction Can Teach Us About Building Multiracial Democracy Today

Encoding and decoding hidden meanings in face-to-face communication: Understanding the role of verbal and nonverbal behaviors in indirect replies.

In everyday conversation, we often use indirect replies to save face of our interlocutor (e.g., "Your paper does have room for improvement"). Six experiments were conducted to examine the role of verbal and nonverbal behaviors in the production and comprehension of indirect replies. In Experiments 1a and 1b, participants engaged in question-answer exchanges designed to elicit four types of replies (i.e., direct, indirect, lie, and neutral). Results showed that uncertainty terms, discourse markers and head tilt were most uniquely associated with the production of indirect replies. In Experiments 2a, 2b, 3a and 3b, participants categorized the types of replies in video clips of real participants in Experiments 1a and 1b. Results showed that nonverbal behaviors enhanced the performance and boosted the confidence in the identification of indirect replies. Furthermore, uncertainty terms, discourse markers and head tilt were also the most reliable cues for identifying indirect replies. Finally, the extent to which people relied on verbal and nonverbal cues to identify an indirect reply was context dependent. The more informative the verbal/nonverbal information was, the fewer nonverbal/verbal cues that contributed to the identification of indirect replies. Our results demonstrated that people integrate verbal and nonverbal information to enhance their understanding of the intended meaning in indirect replies. Findings from the current research provide an initial step toward developing a comprehensive and unified model of the production and comprehension of indirect replies, which takes both verbal and nonverbal behaviors into account. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The Effect of Familiarity on Conversation Turns in Dyadic Conversation Among Chinese Older Adults

This study explored the effect of mutual familiarity of interlocutors on quantitative contributions of conversation turns in dyadic conversation among Mandarin Chinese-speaking older adults. A quantitative quasi-experimental study was conducted. A total of 42 healthy older adults aged 65 years or over were recruited. Percentages of contributed conversation turns for each interlocutor were computed as frequency of interlocutor conversation turns divided by total frequency of dyad conversation turns multiplied by 100. Quantitative asymmetries were differences of percentages of contributed conversation turns. A total of 60 ten-minute dyadic conversation sessions were conducted, including 30 mutually familiar-older-adult sessions (FOAS) and 30 mutually unfamiliar-older-adult sessions (UOAS). Quantitatively asymmetrical contributions of conversation turns occurred in both FOAS and UOAS, and quantitative contributions of conversation turns in FOAS were significantly more asymmetrical than those in UOAS. There were three limitations to the current study, including limited representations of everyday conversation contexts (e.g., at home); no consideration of the types of conversation modes; and no consideration of sensitivity to conversation as one of the inclusion criteria for research participants. Quantitatively asymmetrical contributions of conversation turns occurred in both mutually FOAS and UOAS dyads among Mandarin Chinese-speaking older adults. Moreover, quantitative contributions of conversation turns in mutually FOAS dyads were significantly more asymmetrical than those in mutually UOAS dyads. Sufficient knowledge of changes in conversation turns in dyadic conversation among healthy older adults might reduce misperceptions of older adults suffering from neurological disease.

DIFFERENT INTERACTIVE FUNCTIONS OF RESPONSE TOKEN “khě” IN ORDINARY PASHTO CONVERSATION

Listeners’ participation and active listenership are expressed by using minimal response tokens by listeners. Listeners use different types of response tokens to participate in conversation and to help continue the smooth flow of conversation. This study explores various interactive functions of “khě” (ok) in everyday Pashto conversation by the native speakers of the language. This paper argues that “khě” is a multifunctional token which serves different functions in everyday Pashto conversation. In addition to being used as an acknowledgment token, it marks pre-shift and closure in a conversation. It is also used to make request and express surprise and threat. These functions depend upon the occurrence of response token “khě” in a sequential environment and prosody. Keywords: Pashto conversation, Response tokens, TCUs, Interactive functions, Sequential environment, Prosody

DIFFERENT INTERACTIVE FUNCTIONS OF RESPONSE TOKEN “khě” IN ORDINARY PASHTO CONVERSATION

Listeners’ participation and active listenership are expressed by using minimal response tokens by listeners. Listeners use different types of response tokens to participate in conversation and to help continue the smooth flow of conversation. This study explores various interactive functions of “khě” (ok) in everyday Pashto conversation by the native speakers of the language. This paper argues that “khě” is a multifunctional token which serves different functions in everyday Pashto conversation. In addition to being used as an acknowledgment token, it marks pre-shift and closure in a conversation. It is also used to make request and express surprise and threat. These functions depend upon the occurrence of response token “khě” in a sequential environment and prosody. Keywords: Pashto conversation, Response tokens, TCUs, Interactive functions, Sequential environment, Prosody

The Nature of Desert Claims: Rethinking What It Means to Get One's Due

Many philosophical books about desert start with the same observation: desert-talk is prevalent in our everyday conversations, but desert plays second fiddle in the philosophical literature. To this regularity, Kevin Kinghorn's new book about deserts is no exception. He notes in the introduction that ‘it remains a surprise to me that not more philosophers have explored why it is that people think desert does so much normative work—as well as exploring the meaning and nature of desert’ (p. 2). Kinghorn's aim in this book is to remedy the gap between people's intuitions about desert and the philosophical literature by offering a new, general account of desert that explains the common ‘concern’ that ‘people have in mind when making desert claims’ (p. 2). Given the variety of contexts in which desert claims are made, this is an admirably ambitious project that results in one of the most significant contributions to the desert literature in recent years.

Healthy food talk as action in everyday mealtime conversations of families with a low socioeconomic position

To date, little is known regarding if and how healthy eating is discussed, and how the concept of healthy eating is used in everyday interactions of families with a low socioeconomic position (SEP). This is an underrepresented study population in which many health benefits can be gained. By deploying an interactional approach to healthy eating, this study explored how healthy eating is constructed and oriented to during evening mealtimes in families with a low SEP. The data corpus comprised video recordings of 79 mealtimes from ten families with a low SEP. Healthy eating was rarely oriented to explicitly, as shown by the identification of only sixteen cases in which family members referred to (un)healthy eating. Using discursive psychology and conversation analysis, the examination of these cases showed that, how and with what function health claims were produced and designed as either identity-centered health claims or food-centered health assessments. By deploying identity-centered health claims parents constructed a desired prospective identity for their children to manage their eating behavior, whereas by deploying food-centered health assessments speakers accounted for their own behavior, particularly eating or providing food. The findings give a unique insight into how healthy eating is oriented to and constructed in the everyday life of families with a low SEP. In addition, the findings extend the discursive psychological body of literature on healthy eating talk during family mealtimes, and add to the knowledge base on discursive practices deployed to get children to eat.

COVID-19 Scientific Literacy in Medical and Nursing Students.

The pandemic brought a whole newfound collection of words into our everyday language, some of which had been terms that were infrequently used outside academic and medical settings. However, as familiar as this new pandemic vocabulary has become, there are still several terms that often get mixed in everyday conversations, media communications, and even in the medical field. Some of these terms are often mistaken, which may lead to issues in the understanding of important concepts. Science communication, as a facet of scientific literacy, intends to educate people in an easy-to-understand manner, and this communication is even more important in health care, when a literate patient's medical decisions depend frequently on this process. In this article, we explore the use and misuse of some of the most common terms utilized during the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic by nursing and medical students, i.e., future health care professionals, in the hospital environment. This single-center hospital-based cross-sectional study, performed throughout September 2022, included 30 medical and nursing students. All participants completed a self-administered 15-item anonymous questionnaire at a single time point. Nine multiple-choice questions evaluated knowledge, diagnosis, disease manifestations, and vaccines related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus. Six questions provided demographics and quality assessment information. The analysis of the answers indicated that for at least 75% of the population surveyed, COVID-19 literacy was better for terms related to technology and actions (3/5 questions answered correctly) than for terms related to the disease (1/4 questions answered correctly). The overall median score for questions 1 to 9 was 4.5 of 9 points in total. Based on the results, the language used in the questionnaire was considered easy to understand, with an easy to medium level of complexity, and the perceived time required to complete the questionnaire was less than 5 min. In conclusion, our results showed that efforts need to be made in continuous professional education to increase the knowledge in COVID-19 literacy in the health care environment for medical and nursing students. Larger studies are recommended to identify and to fulfill the challenges that COVID-19 brought to medical and nursing education.

Dialectal Comparison between Muaro Takung and Maloro Sub-Dialect: The Lexical Variation

Language evolves over time and varies depending on location and social context. The lexical variation in speaking is influenced by several factors, including age, education level, and linguistic competence. This research is about lexical variation. The goal of this study is to distinguish the lexical differences between Muaro Takung and Maloro sub-dialects and to count the percentage of lexical differences between those two sub-dialect . So it can be concluded that Muaro Takung and Maloro are dialects, sub-dialects, or just speak differences. The data of this reseach was 258 words taken from 205 swadesh list and 53 from basic vocabularies used in everyday conversations. The data was collected from ten informants with specific categories. Furthermore, this research used dialectometric formula to count the percentage of the lexical differences between Muaro Takung and Maloro sub-dialect. From the data, the researcher found the lexical differences between Muaro Takung sub-dialect and Maloro sub-dialect and categorized it into seven types, noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, determiner, subordinate conjunction and preposition. The calculation of the percentage of lexical differences shows Muaro Takung is 25,9% and Maloro is 35,3%.

Framing and related concepts in interactional sociolinguistics

This essay provides an overview of the study of framing in discourse as conducated in the field of interactional sociolinguistics. We review key theorizing on frames and related concepts such as footing, positioning, and speech activity that provides the foundation for this research. We note two basic understandings of frame in our field: interactive frames relate to situational definitions of what is going on in an interaction; knowledge schemas account for participants’ expectations regarding people, objects, and so on. We give examples of how interactional sociolinguists have applied framing to illuminate moment-by-moment constructions of meanings, identities, and relationships across a range of contexts, as well as the role of knowledge and memory in these processes. With examples from studies of cross-cultural communication, everyday conversations among family and friends, and interaction in medical and digital discourse contexts, we emphasize how frames are transformed and laminated (or layered). While social movements have not been a central focus of interactional sociolinguistics research, we note that concern for social justice has been of foundational concern from the inception of this field, and note a number of studies that have demonstrated how micro-level moments of social activism and change are discursively constructed. These studies attest to the relevance of interactional sociolinguistic analysis of framing to researchers interested in social movements.

Measuring the timeline of retroactive sentence repair

Individuals with hearing loss are more likely to miss a word during speech perception, but can use context to retroactively repair the missing word. When sentences need to be repaired, listening effort remains elevated even after the entire sentence is heard; suggesting the repair process continues beyond the stimulus presentation. Importantly, if a listener is stuck processing a previous sentence, they may miss an upcoming utterance, making everyday conversation difficult. By measuring the amount of time that is needed to repair a missing word, we will better understand if processing would interfere with the perception of a subsequent sentence. Individuals with normal hearing and hearing loss heard sentences that did or did not require retroactive repair while performing a secondary case-judgement task. Listeners decided whether a visually presented letter was upper- or lower-case either during the sentence, 0.5 s after, or 2 s after the sentence. Preliminary results indicate that reaction times were faster for intact sentences and decrease (improve) as more time has passed (as the missing word has been resolved) for both sentence types. Our results suggest that the timeline of the repair process can be understood using behavioral measures that complement intelligibility scores.

Analyzing Variations of Everyday Japanese Conversations Based on Semantic Labels of Functional Expressions

To achieve effective dialogue processing, the kinds of daily conversations people have must be clarified. Unfortunately, the characteristics of everyday conversations remain insufficiently investigated. In recent years, the Corpus of Everyday Japanese Conversation (CEJC) was developed, which is a large-scale corpus constructed by recording everyday Japanese conversations. In this article, we investigate the linguistic variations of everyday conversations in a multitude of situations using CEJC. We conducted factor analysis of it using the semantic categories of functional expressions that represent such subjective information as modality, thoughts, and communicative intention in addition to various tenses and facts. Our analysis identified seven factors that characterize everyday conversations and suggests that they are expressed by a combination of a dialogue’s purpose (e.g., “Explanation” and “Suggestion”) and its manners (e.g., “Politeness” and “Involvement”). We also analyzed the BTSJ–Japanese natural conversation corpus with transcripts and recordings and the Nagoya University conversational corpus and confirmed the generalizability of these factors.

The competence in little words

AbstractL2 frameworks, such as the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, describe expected linguistic abilities at different levels of L2 development. These frameworks, and the assessment rubrics they inform, only peripherally address how L2 speakersrespondto informings in interaction. Through responses interactants show their understanding of, and stance toward, a previous informing. In question-answer sequences in which a participant requests new information, the response to the answer may additionally reveal the questioning participant’s orientation to the answer in terms of its fit with the question. Responses to informings are thus a site of important interactional work. In our paper, we draw on the notion of ‘Interactional Competence’ and propose a conversation-analytic approach to assessing L2 speakers’ responses to elicited informings in German in question-answer sequences. We analyze L2 speakers’ use of tokens (e.g.,oh, okay, wirklich) in sequentially third position in dyadic, video-mediated everyday conversations with L1 speakers, as, in the turns following the third-position token, participants make visible their understanding of the token. We thereby attempt to describe how competent an L2 speaker’s use of a third-position token is. We end our paper by using our findings to make recommendations for language assessment frameworks and rubrics.

Exploring Bilinguals’ Behaviour and attitudes at Tabuk university towards code-switching and mixing of Arabic and English in everyday conversations

The key purpose of this work is to investigate the topics of code-switching and mixing, as well as the factors influencing code-switching and mixing. In turn, this will enable the various language forms used in daily communications between students to be identified. The sample used in this study consisted of ten English Language students from the female section of Tabuk university). Information was gathered using two different research tools, namely interviews and personal observations made by the researcher during conversations and interactions with her students. The interviews involved questioning the students about why they used code-switching and mixing. The data took the form of statements, phrases, and words used by students in everyday communication that feature code mixing and switching. The findings indicated that there is a higher degree of openness to code-switching and mixing and that opinions regarding code-switching and mixing between English and Arabic are generally positive. Moreover, the results demonstrate that there are three types of code mixing, namely the code-mixing of words, the code-mixing of phrases and the code-mixing of sentences. Furthermore, the findings of this research indicated that there were many factors that motivated students to engage in code-switching and mixing. Most factors were related to speaking two languages, showing one’s ability to be prestigious, integrating into the modernized world and the effects of globalization. Nonetheless, a number of other motivational factors were also identified, such as a desire to stand out from others, the desire to express themselves clearly (especially for those with pronunciation problems) and the belief that certain content is more appropriately expressed in one language (e.g., either English or Arabic). Other reasons included appearing more knowledgeable, demonstrating one’s cultural identity, excluding some people from conversations, demonstrating modernisation, developing a sense of social belonging and saving time.