265 research outputs found

    Miscommunication in the institutional context of the broadcast news interview : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

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    This study examined the pattern and relative success of linguistic interaction in the Broadcast News Interview (BNI). BNI is modelled as a genre of institutional communication. The psychological and functional characteristics of the BNI were examined from the viewpoint of how communicative conventions that normally regulate interview performance may, at times, impede effective communication. The BNI is intended to transfer information from an expert witness to an interested, though relatively uninformed audience. The interviewer is supposed to act as both conduit and catalyst. Pragmatic properties of the interlocutors' speech as they orient themselves towards the context of the conversation was analysed in order to reveal the manner in which prior assumptions or beliefs may lead to faulty inferences. The notion of miscommunication is used to describe and explain the faults associated with processes of representing the illocutionary force of an utterance, rather than deficiencies in pronunciation or auditory sensation and perception. Opting for a qualitative analysis, an attempt was made to ground explanations in relevant theoretical models of interpersonal communication and communication failure. Results indicate that the conventions that distinguish the BNI from more mundane types of interaction impede successful communication. The study highlights that participants who wish to attain their communicative goal must be more aware of the functional procedures of the BNI and anticipate impediments to successful communication

    Stress and accent in language production and understanding

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    A Cross-cultural Study of the Speech Act of Refusing in English and German

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    Language students must learn to communicate effectively in cross-cultural settings, avoiding unwitting violations of culturally determined norms of behavior. This study compares German learners of English (GEs) with native speakers of English (AEs) and German (GGs), studying pragmatic transfer associated with the face-threatening speech act of refusal. Data elicitation involved a written role-play questionnaire composed of twelve refusal situations, including four refusal stimulus types (requests, invitations, offers, and suggestions) and interlocutors of higher, lower, and equal status. Response strategies were identified and classified, and the three groups were compared in terms of frequency and content of strategies chosen. Overall, the findings suggest that the AEs strove for friction-free interactions, while the German subjects tended to be candid. The AEs opted for inoffensive, routinized responses, emphasizing face-protection, and eschewing expressions of unwillingness. The AEs generally provided only vague excuses, relying extensively on positive forms aimed at preserving rapport. Social distance affected AE levels of politeness. By contrast, GG response patterns were situation-specific. Toward unjustified requests or unwelcome suggestions, the GGs exhibited directness, outspokenness with critical remarks, and willingness to risk confrontation, regardless of relative status. In more neutral situations, status and social distance influenced levels of politeness. The GEs appeared to assess situational factors in much the same way as the GGs; however, GE responses were consistently more tempered. Both groups of Germans were more open with expressions of unwillingness than the AEs. They tended to provide solid justification for refusals, while maintaining a more aloof stance. When there was no cause for irritation, the GEs recognized the need for greater tactfulness in English (probably responding according to explicit teaching). When aggravated, however, they lapsed into pragmatic patterns of their native language, following their gut reactions. Sometimes GE efforts to exceed German native speaker levels of politeness led to hyper-correction (i.e., going beyond the AEs\u27 degree of politeness).Occasionally, the GEs transferred German native speaker strategies for increasing politeness. In situations of potential conflict, the GEs might startle native speakers with unexpected candor, the shock exacerbated by cultural proximity and the GEs\u27 near approach of native speaker norms on other levels

    Updating gender as a sociolinguistic variable

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    Conversational code-switching among Japanese-English bilinguals who have Japanese background

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    The aim of this study is to investigate the code-switching of native speakers of Japanese in an English-speaking context. The languages involved in code-switching therefore are English and Japanese. This is an instance of communication in the participants\u27 first language, in a setting where the speakers\u27 second language is dominant. The research focused on a sample of twelve Japanese people. These participants were born in Japan, and their parents\u27 native language is Japanese. Even though the length of time each has spent in residence in an English-speaking country varies, the minimum is two years. Further, all have previously studied English, for at least six years, during the high school period in Japan, and are regular users of English. These participants were separated into six pairs of two age groups. The first was 20-30 years, the second was 40-60 years. Their informal conversation was recorded and transcribed for analysis. Moreover, a sociolinguistic interview was carried out in order to uncover the participants\u27 intentions or strategies, (based primarily on their own interpretations), with regard to code-switching. Despite a large number of loan words in the Japanese language (most deriving from English), and the prestigious status which the English language holds, Japanese people within Japanese society, tend to hold a negative attitude towards code-switching in conversational circumstances. In this study, however, code-switching was found to be a significant choice in the speakers\u27 linguistic repertoire (in the English-speaking context) for informal interactions with their friends. Although there was some degree of constraints on the speakers\u27 linguistic choices, primarily attributable to a particular topic and attitudes towards code-switching, the speakers demonstrated their ability to make a linguistic choice according to their intentions/strategies. Moreover, this study attempted to expose the linguistic features of English/Japanese code-switching. The type of code-switching which was most frequently used amongst the participants was intrasentential code-switching (which occurs within the same sentence). Specifically, singly occurring intrasentential code-switching was the most common amongst the speakers. It was found that the Japanese language played a dominant role in producing this type of code-switching. On the other hand, well-formed English phrases were also produced in intrasentential code-switching when there is a semantic/ pragmatic mismatch between the two languages

    Conversations—and negotiated interaction—in text and voice chat rooms

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    Despite the expanded use of the Internet for language learning and practice, little attention if any has been given to the quality of interaction among English L2 speakers in conversational text or voice chat rooms. This study explored the patterns of repair moves in synchronous non-native speaker (NNS) text chat rooms in comparison to voice chat rooms on the Internet. The following questions were posed: (a) Which types of repair moves occur in text and voice chats; and (b) what are the differences, if any, between the repair moves in text chats and voice chats when time is held constant? Repair moves made by anonymous NNSs in 10, 5-minute, synchronous chat room sessions (5 text-chat sessions, 5 voice-chat sessions) were counted and analyzed using chi-square with alpha set at .05. Significant differences were found between the higher number of total repair moves made in voice chats and the smaller number in text chats. Qualitative data analysis showed that repair work in voice chats was often pronunciation-related. The study includes discussion that may affect teachers' and learners' considerations of the value of NNS chat room interaction for second language development

    How non-native speakers make do with words when doing things with words : an analysis of communication strategies in storytelling by Mandarin-speaking learners of English

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    This study employs a conversation analysis (CA) approach, which is concerned with the analysis of closely transcribed examples of actual talk recorded in naturally occurring settings. The study aims to describe and analyse sequences of actions generated by Native Speakers( NS) and Non-Native Speaker( NNS) in the course of telling a story. Emergent communication problems during the talk-in-interaction were engaged with and resolved through the application of communication strategies (CS). The storyteller and her/his co-participants utilized CS in an attempt not only to overcome communication difficulties so as to reach mutual understanding, but also to co-ordinate their actions with each other, or to enhance sufficient participant engagement in order to accomplish communication goals. In addition, the range of CS used by NS and NNS during ongoing discourses are identified, illustrated, and analysed. The differences and similarities in the way NS and NNS approach interactional tasks are examined. In addition, CS descriptions from the literature and this study are compared. CS categories and functions in the present study are shown to be more diverse and broader in shape. The conceptualisation of CS proposed in this study is thus richer than that proposed in the previous CS literature. The empirical investigation undertaken in this study shows that CS function not only as problem-solving devices or meaning-negotiation strategies, but also as meaning-creating and communication-enhancing strategies

    ENGLISH AND INDONESIAN GREETINGS AS ADJACENCY PAIRS: A PRAGMATIC STUDY

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    A speaker customarily opens the conversation by saying greeting to his or her interlocutor. At a glance, greetings maybe not a complicated activity but for the most part, they are highly conventionalized and follow patterned routines. Despite it, the pattern or sequence of greetings along with its type is dynamic and developed. The research aimed to describe the kinds of verbal and non-verbal greetings customarily shown in every exchange, to reveal the sequence of English and Indonesian greetings as adjacency pairs in social exchange. The data consists of English collected from "Twelve Years a Slave" while Indonesian data are obtained from observation, record, and field notes. Both of the data are analyzed by using descriptive qualitative method. The result of this research indicates that there are four types of Indonesian sequential greetings uncovered by Firth's theory, characterized by interjection-question, question-body language, interjection-invitation, and invitation. Each is used in a single utterance for each pair. Second, English data indicate the sequences of greetings uttered by first pair and second are symmetrical, body language preceding question, and body language, on the other hand, Indonesian greeting sequence, the researcher finds an asymmetrical pattern, question preceding question, body language, and visual response. Miscellaneous greeting sequences also appeared in both such as affirmation and facial expression, question and affirmation, affirmation and invitation, invitation and affirmation, and also question and direct answer

    Locating controversia in collaboration in the composition classroom

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    Language loss in bilingual speakers with Alzheimer's disease

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    PhD ThesisThis study investigated the changes in language and cognition in five bilingual speakers with Alzheimer's Disease over a period of twelve months. The pattern and rate of loss in English was compared to that of Afrikaans. The bilingual behaviour of language mixing was also investigated, as was the interaction between deteriorating cognitive skills and language functions. Data was collected at three time points (0 - 6 - 12 months) employing a battery of neuropsychological and language tests, and conversation analysis. It was predicted that where both languages were automatised to a similar extent, a similar pattern, severity and rate of loss would be evident across languages. This hypothesis was supported by results. It was also predicted that in cases where one language was less automatised than the other, the less automatised language (i.e. the language learnt later in life (L2) anchor the less proficient language) would be more severely impaired and would deteriorate at a faster rate than the fully automatised language (Li). Results revealed that while L2 was more impaired than Li for some speakers, for others, languages were similarly impaired/spared. These discrepancies were attributed to the fact that tests were not sensitive to inter-language differences near floor or ceiling. Results did not strongly support the second prediction that L2 would deteriorate at a faster rate. Ambiguous findings could be artefacts of the time window of examination, insensitive assessment tasks, and the heterogeneous nature of the population. With regards to language mixing behaviour, code switching mainly affected L2 interactions even though the extent of switching varied across speakers. The amount of language mixing increased for two participants over the year. With regards to a possible interaction between language and cognition, complex language tasks appeared to be more compromised by deteriorating neuropsychological support than less complex tasks, but the extent of this interaction varied across languages and across speakers. Finally, the overall profile of results suggested that a language learnt later in life will never become fully automatised, even if high levels of L2 proficiency had been attained in adulthood.Overseas Research Students Awar
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