It's all about the interaction: listener responses as a discourse-organisational variable

Language is humanity’s key tool for communication. This entails the fact that it generally occurs in interaction between two or more individuals. However, we do not yet have a theory of language variation and change that integrates our understanding of the interactional nature of language with the variationist analysis. This is especially challenging for variables above the level of the phoneme, but also applies to phonological variables that are impacted by the interactional context they stand in. This thesis focuses on Listener Responses, a variable above the level of the phoneme, and presents a theory and methodology of sociolinguistic variation that allows us to develop (1) interactionally sensitive de1nitions of discourselevel variables, the envelope of variation, and to quantify them in an accountable manner, (2) coding schemes which situate the function-based variants in the interactional structure and thus allow for an analysis of structural constraints on variation, and (3) a way of applying inferential statistics to variation based on structural as well as social variables. With respect to phonological variables, this thesis shows how the level of (inter)action relates to the actual realisations we observe. This is done based on the example of Listener Responses as a discourseorganisational variable, and gender as a social variable. Listener Responses are de1ned as all the things Listener can do without taking over the 2oor. Their frequency is thus quanti1ed relative to the number of words in the longer stretch of talk produced by the main Speaker. In the data at hand here, cross-gender accommodation is observed, with female Listeners decreasing their response frequency when listening to men, and male Listeners increasing theirs when listening to women. Next, a taxonomy of Listener Response actions is developed based on existing interactional literature and a close structural and interactional analysis of the data. Seven Action Types are proposed, and used as a coding scheme in the next two analysis chapters. The third analysis chapter shows variation in the frequency of the individual Action Types based on Speaker and Listener gender. There is an important structural constraint on variation located at the level of interactional structure: those Action Types that are strongly predicated by what the main Speaker does in the segment preceding the response are more strongly in2uenced by the main Speaker, while the Listener has a greater impact on those that are not constrained by the preceding segment. Both the 1rst and this analysis chapter draw on zero-in2ated poisson regression analysis as a useful tool for the analysis of variation in frequency. The 1nal analysis chapter looks at the relationship between the different action types and the actual linguistic realisation of the utterance, thus linking the discourse-level to the phonetic and prosodic level. It demonstrates that the linguistic realisation of any Listener Response is tailored to the talk that has preceded it on all levels of linguistic structure, and that prosodic and lexical shape need to be considered together, particularly for lexical items that can be used to do different actions. Overall, this thesis contributes to sociolinguistic theory and methodology by presenting a way of integrating interactional and variationist analyses from the de1nition of the variable, the envelope of variation, an overall frequency operationalisation, describing and de1ning the variants, to exploring the link between interactional function and linguistic realisation. It can be extended to other variables, both linguistic and social

Towards an Empirically-based Model of Age-graded Behaviour: Trac(ing) linguistic malleability across the entire adult life-span

Previous panel research has provided individual evidence for aspects of the U-shaped pattern, but these studies typically rely on sampling the same speaker at two points in time, usually in close proximity. As a result, our knowledge about the patterning of age-graded variables across the entire adult life-span is limited. What is needed, thus, is a data-set that captures ongoing linguistic malleability in the individual speaker across all “life experiences that give age meaning” (Eckert 1997:167). Our study is the first to add real time evidence across the lifespan as a whole on an age-graded variable. We present the results of a novel dynamic data-set that allows us to model speakers’ linguistic choices between ages 19 and 78. We illustrate the age-graded patterns in our data and draw attention to the complex, socially niched ways in which speakers react to age-specific expectations

English among Haitians in Toronto: Phonetic variation in an expanding community

International audienc

Low carbohydrate diet and improved glycaemic control in a patient with type one diabetes

We present the case of an adult female with type 1 diabetes, whose HbA1c was trending at 58 mmol/mol (7.5%) for the past 3 years. In August 2016, she reduced her total daily carbohydrate intake to 30–50 g and adjusted her other macronutrients to compensate for the calorific deficit. Her HbA1c fell to 34 mmol/mol (5.3%) by January 2017 and average daily blood glucose readings decreased significantly from 10.4 to 6.1 mmol/L. Moreover, she observed a marked reduction of average daily glucose variability. Notably, there were no significant episodes of hypo- or hyperglycaemia and her lipid profile remained static. Subjectively, she described an improvement in her quality of life and the dietary transition was extremely well tolerated. We discuss these findings in detail and the potential clinical benefits for patients with type 1 diabetes that can be gained by following a low carbohydrate diet