Real-life Conversations Research Articles

Evolution of Autism Support and Understanding Via the World Wide Web

Internet technology has radically changed society, widely affecting communication and the availability of information. The digital age holds unique significance for autism spectrum disorder. In this article I explore the interface between autism and the World Wide Web by reviewing evolving virtual communities pioneered by individuals with autism, exploring the online growth of advocacy organizations, and considering the positive and negative consequences that arise from autism’s fledgling voices.

Discourse and dissonance: Making sense of socio-political change in Northern Ireland

Billig's Rhetorical Psychology proposes that thought and discourse are dialogic, in that an argument for one position is also an argument against other (competing) positions. Here, we use Billig's model of cognitive dissonance in order to understand a particular set of discursive strategies used in relation to a contentious political issue. We consider a discussion about police reform in Northern Ireland, where the participants are members of the nationalist/republican community (which has traditionally opposed the police). In this discussion, the participants use a variety of discursive, rhetorical moves to deny that change has, in fact, taken place. Following Billig's model, we propose that the speakers are bolstering their community position against the rhetorical challenge of conflicting information, within a particular interactional context. In particular, it might be noted that the presence of the researcher introduces an ‘external’ perspective which assumes that significant changes have occurred, and that this provides a primary source of interactional dissonance for the speakers. Ultimately, however, the original community position is reinforced and maintained. We have identified three main strategies by which the speakers achieve this: (1) explicit denial that change has taken place; (2) discursive reworking of ostensible changes such that these are dismissed; (3) partial acknowledgement of change, followed immediately by minimisation/rejection. Because Billig's model has seen little empirical operationalisation, our analysis also provides insights into the processes whereby dissonance is engendered and managed in real-life conversation. In particular, it highlights the social and culturally specific nature of dissonance and its management, as well as the ‘repressive’ function of language use. We conclude by discussing some of the theoretical and practical implications of our analysis.

A Study of web-based oral activities enhanced by Automatic Speech Recognition for EFL college learning

Recently, a promising topic in computer-assisted language learning is the application of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology for assisting learners to engage in meaningful speech interactions. Simulated real-life conversation supported by the application of ASR has been suggested as helpful for speaking. In this study, a web-based conversation environment called CandleTalk, which allows learners to seemingly talk with the computer, was developed to help EFL learners receive explicit speech acts training that leads to better oral competence. CandleTalk is equipped with an ASR engine that judges whether learners provide appropriate input. Six speech acts are presented as the foci of the materials with local cultural information incorporated as the content of the dialogues to enhance student motivation. The materials were put to use on 29 English major and 20 non-English major students in order to investigate their learning outcome and perception in an EFL context. Oral proficiency assessment using the format of the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) given before and after the use of CandleTalk and an evaluation questionnaire were two instruments used for data collection. The results of the study showed that the application of ASR was helpful for the college freshmen in the teaching of speech acts, particularly for the non-English major students. Most learners perceived positively toward the instruction supported with speech recognition.

Designing for Dialogue in Place of Teacher Talk and Student Silence

Research in classrooms reveals that the institution of school is not an empty slate, but rather is characterized by peculiar patterns of interaction which tend to be short exchanges directed by the teacher. Language teachers who wish children to learn language by participating in extended meaningful conversation, then, must consciously resist institutionally defined ‘teacher talk’. In this paper we examine a case of extended conversation in a dual-language kindergarten for clues as to how the teacher and children were able to negotiate alternative ways of engaging each other in a conversation. The purpose of the paper is to reveal both challenges and approaches for teachers to design real-life conversations in a traditional school where rigid ‘teacher talk’ dominates the classroom discourse.

Historical Dialogue Analysis (review)

Reviewed by: Historical dialogue analysis ed. by Andreas H. Jucker, Gerd Fritz, Franz Lebsanft Robert McColl Millar Historical dialogue analysis. Ed. by Andreas H. Jucker, Gerd Fritz, and Franz Lebsanft. (Pragmatics & beyond new series 66.) Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1999. Pp. 478. This collection of essays brings together disparate strands of theoretical and practical work in fields derived from discourse analysis and historical sociolinguistics as well as from the often discrete worlds of German language, French language, and English language scholarship on these matters. The problems—and opportunities—inherent in this combination are discussed with some vigor in the introductory essay by Jucker, Fritz, and Lebsanft. Fifteen essays of varying length dealing with a wide range of topics follow this. All but two of the essays are in English. This variety is productive since it demonstrates the very range of interests and approaches to which the editors refer. This eclecticism also means that there are few occasions where readers (no matter their specialization) will not find something of interest somewhere in the collection. Very briefly, the essays can be described thus. Marcel M. H. Bax discusses the balance between eristic and contractual motive in Dutch medieval romance and early modern drama. What often appear to be ritualistic interactions between knights may well have their roots in actual routines of battle. On the other hand, the ritual procedures employed in drama by the sinnekens, grotesque characters in morality plays, are not such truthful depictions of speech events. Thomas Gloning writes on the language use of religious controversies in the German-speaking world around 1600, demonstrating that there were debate-based patterns which these ‘arguments’ were obliged to follow. Many of these same concerns are also discussed by Johannes Schwitalla in his exposition of the use of dialogue in a particular controversy, again demonstrating the rules and conventions of this type of dialogue. This concept of the ritualized dialogue is continued in Manfred Beetz’s essay on the polite answer in pre-modern German conversation culture. Many of these ideas are also to be found in Hannes Kästner’s essay (in German) on courtly conversation in the early German lyrics, which demonstrates that the Minnesang may be employed to reconstruct what courtly speech between men and women was like and may also have been used as a model for how real-life conversations of this type might be constructed. Thomas Honegger’s essay on the dawn song as a ‘linguistic routine’ of parting has particular resonance—to the eyes of an English speaker—for a reading of Romeo and Juliet. Honegger demonstrates the antiquity of the pattern of exchange and constructs a typology for the interaction. On a more prosaic level, Richard J. Watts discusses the textbooks and phrasebooks produced by and for immigrants—often refugees—to England in the early Modern period. As might be expected, most of the teaching element in these books is contained in dialogues. Contrasting French-English and Spanish-English textbooks. Watts demonstrates that the latter were designed for people who would have to stay indefinitely in England while the former were predicated upon the idea of a relatively speedy return to the homeland. Irma Taavitsainen writes on dialogues in late medieval and early Modern English medical writing, demonstrating that elements of real speech and even satires on the medical profession are included along with the expected influence of earlier scholarly and pedagogic dialogue frameworks. An approach focused on relatively small amounts of text is demonstrated in Franz Lebsanft’s essay on a late medieval French bargain dialogue in Pathelin II. He shows that whilst bargain dialogues at any time period will share many similarities, the passages which he selects illustrate their development in a number of directions. Jonathan Culpeper and Merja Kytö, on the other hand, employ large amounts of material in their discussion of hedges in early Modern English dialogues, demonstrating that English (in particular in its written form) was becoming more oral in style over time. Producing similar conclusions, Anne Herlyn, in her essay on multiple dialogue introducers from a...

Poetry and formulaic language

Corpora show that people are less original in using language than is generally believed. We routinely employ an immense repertoire of semi-preconstructed phrases, though we also adapt them: creative extensions and adaptations of institutionalized locutions sometimes occur more frequently than the ordinary form. Corpora also reveal that fiction uses verbal idioms rarely found in other forms of writing or in conversation, which suggests that novelists draw on their own experience of stereotyped fictional dialogue more than on real-life conversation. Oral epic poetry, from Homer to Beowulf, was, of course, also formulaic, but the received view is that written poetry should be quite the opposite: it should consist of new combinations of words. While it is easy to find poetry that does contain fixed expressions and poetic transformations of them, such as the ‘conversational’ (and occasionally prosaic) poetry of Wordsworth, Frost, Auden and McDiarmid, it is harder to argue that the poetry of Shakespeare, Donne, Shelley, Keats, Hopkins, Stevens or Ashbery is made up of formulaic language. Conversely, however, it can be shown that canonical poetry is the source of hundreds of phrases in our active verbal lexicons.

Creating low-noise environments in communication rooms

As a research, development and consulting institute the IBP has frequently been confronted with external (intruding from outside) and internal (self-generated inside) noise in communication areas of one kind or another. As a fundamental discovery it has become obvious that the frequency range far below that covered by building and room acoustic standards is of the utmost importance for the sound generation and speech intelligibility process. A powerful new tool for tackling low-frequency problems was invented in the form of slender compound panel absorbers (CPA) to be mounted on (or integrated in) walls or ceilings as an efficient means to damp the dominant eigenfrequencies of the room itself. Since literature on the rather obscure phenomena observable below 125 or 100 Hz in real-life conversations was found to be very scarce, a large variety of acoustically unsatisfactory enclosures was investigated beyond the standard frequency limits and subsequently cured with some really convincing improvements experienced in acoustic comfort and sound quality. This paper was written as an advise and warning for acoustic consultants (not scientists) dealing with the often torturing acoustics in preferably hard-walled office, conference, foyer, restaurant or class rooms (not studios). The still growing problem of low-frequency room responses does not allow waiting for more academic studies and recognized extensions and adjustments of the valid measuring standards and regulations. Responsible acousticians should at least be aware that conventional single-number ratings for sound power, transmission and absorption are not of much help when dealing with this omnipresent problem which seems to have passed unnoticed even by experts in this field.

Simulating conversations in oral-proficiency assessment: a conversation analysis of role plays and non-scripted interviews in language exams

Several recent studies have investigated the nature of interaction in oral proficiency exams and have concluded that the interview format obscures differences in the conversational competence of the candidates. The present paper examines what opportunities test takers have to display their knowledge of managing conversations in the L2 in two types of tasks: non-scripted interviews and guided role-play activities. The data for the study consists of 30 interviews and 30 role-play activities between near-native examiners and intermediate learners used in language exams in Hungary. The interviews and role-plays have been analysed for the number of topics introduced and ratified by the examiner and the candidate respectively, as well as for the number of interruptions, openings and closings produced by the examiner and the candidate. The findings show that the conversational interaction is more symmetrical in the guided role-play activity with the candidates introducing and ratifying approximately the same number of topics as the examiners. In addition, the examinees have the opportunity to interrupt and hold the floor more effectively during the role-play activity and can demonstrate their knowledge of how to open and close a conversation. These findings suggest that guided role-play activities used in the study exhibit several characteristics of real-life conversations and therefore can be used for assessing the candidates’ conversational competence.

Relevance theory and verbal interruptions: Assessing discourse status

The Calvin and Hobbes comic strip illustrates that conversations are not contests, although participants may gain and lose discourse status. This paper first examines the nature of interventions, concluding that most of them are not perceived to be interruptive by participants in real-life conversations. In other words, since conversations generally function in cooperative ways, interventions are usually seen to contribute to the interaction. However, the less relevant the intervention is assessed to be in terms of Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory, the more likely the participants will evaluate it as interruptive. According to the discourse status model outlined in the article, the intervener will increase status if the contribution is high on a scale of relevance and will lose discourse status if the intervention is judged to be not so relevant and is therefore perceived to to be interruptive.