An overview of the question-response system in American English conversation

This article, part of a 10 language comparative project on question–response sequences, discusses these sequences in American English conversation. The data are video-taped spontaneous naturally occurring conversations involving two to five adults. Relying on these data I document the basic distributional patterns of types of questions asked (polar, Q-word or alternative as well as sub-types), types of social actions implemented by these questions (e.g., repair initiations, requests for confirmation, offers or requests for information), and types of responses (e.g., repetitional answers or yes/no tokens). I show that declarative questions are used more commonly in conversation than would be suspected by traditional grammars of English and questions are used for a wider range of functions than grammars would suggest. Finally, this article offers distributional support for the idea that responses that are better “fitted” with the question are preferred

Introduction: Multimodal interaction

That human social interaction involves the intertwined cooperation of different modalities is uncontroversial. Researchers in several allied fields have, however, only recently begun to document the precise ways in which talk, gesture, gaze, and aspects of the material surround are brought together to form coherent courses of action. The papers in this volume are attempts to develop this line of inquiry. Although the authors draw on a range of analytic, theoretical, and methodological traditions (conversation analysis, ethnography, distributed cognition, and workplace studies), all are concerned to explore and illuminate the inherently multimodal character of social interaction. Recent studies, including those collected in this volume, suggest that different modalities work together not only to elaborate the semantic content of talk but also to constitute coherent courses of action. In this introduction we present evidence for this position. We begin by reviewing some select literature focusing primarily on communicative functions and interactive organizations of specific modalities before turning to consider the integration of distinct modalities in interaction

Stock market uncertainty and the relation between stock and bond returns

The authors examine how the co-movement between daily stock and Treasury bond returns varies with stock market uncertainty. They use the lagged implied volatility from equity index options to provide an objective, observable, and dynamic measure of stock market uncertainty. The authors find that stock and bond returns tend to move substantially together during periods of lower stock market uncertainty. However, stock and bond returns tend to exhibit little relation or even a negative relation during periods of high stock market uncertainty. The authors’ findings have implications for understanding joint cross-market price formation. Further, their findings imply that diversification benefits increase for portfolios of stocks and bonds during periods of high stock market uncertainty.Stock market ; Stocks ; Bonds

Evidence on the Economics of Equity Return Volatility Clustering

The underlying economic sources of volatility clustering in asset returns remain a puzzle in financial economics. Using daily equity returns, we study variation in the volatility relation between the conditional variance of individual firm returns and yesterday's market return shock. We find a number of regularities in this market-to-firm volatility relation. (1) It decreases following macroeconomic news announcements; (2) it does not change systematically during the high-news months when firms announce quarterly earnings; and (3) it increases substantially with our measures of dispersion-in-beliefs across traders about the market's common-factor signal. Our evidence suggests that volatility-clustering is a natural result of a price formation process with heterogeneous beliefs across traders, and that volatility clustering is not attributable to an autocorrelated news-generation process around public information such as macroeconomic news releases or firms' earnings releases. We find consistent results in our sample of large-capitalization firms in Japan and the U.K., which suggests a generality of our results and bolsters our economic interpretation.

Phenomenology and Performance: Technology | Architecture + Design Through Music

“Phenomenology” is a design philosophy that was first used to criticize the modern movement and as an urge to return to “place-based” architecture. Juhani Pallasmaa further expanded the ideas by introducing the phenomenological aspects of kinesthetic and multi-sensory perception of the human body into this architecture theory. “Performance Based” design, with the help of computational tools, is a design paradigm within architecture that has emerged in the 21st Century by using building performance as a guiding design principle for the design of cities and buildings. Current interest in building performance as a design paradigm is largely due to the emergence of sustainability as a defining socio-economic issue and the recent developments in technology and cultural theory. “Phenomenology” and “Performance Based Design, students were asked to develop an interpretive building component (structure, skin, space) inspired by the relationships found between music and architecture. Music has distinct phenomenological qualities that can be thought of in conjunction with the spatial experiences of architecture. Music also has distinct computational or technical qualities that can be thought of in conjunction with building performance and the tectonics of architecture. Music and architecture have many things in common and have many divergent means for creation. Rhythm is the underlying pattern and found in the beats / repetition of music as well as the structural elements of architecture. Texture is heard in layering different instrument voices and seen in the composition of building materials. Harmony is achieved through note combinations within a musical work or in architecture through the successful relationship of individual spaces becoming one cohesive space. Dynamics in music and architecture deal with quality and emphasis both needing hierarchy and identity as well as feeling. Musicians experience music in very deep ways, e.g. subtle moments in songs / tunes that some people might not notice. Architects similarly feel and experience space in deeper ways than most non-architects. When architects move through space, it becomes a phenomenological journey of tectonic discovery. The ideas and artifacts were presented in conjunction with the playing of the music initially chosen. As with many art forms, their subjective appreciation and evaluation was quite varied depending on the listener and observer and their personal sensitivities and biases. As a design critic and musician who plays Celtic music, final evaluation was prefaced by the design conversation that led up to the final submission as well as my own phenomenological and performative understanding of the music. Because of these mutual behaviors, music and architecture share a relationship generated by subtle experiences (phenomenology) and underlying computational codes (performance). In that shared relationship lie the creative potential for mutual understanding and discovery

[Review] Stories from the Street: A Theology of Homelessness. David Nixon

David Nixon in his book Stories from the Street: A Theology of Homelessness places stories of people who are homeless in dialogue with Christian scriptures, Church tradition, and particular theologies to construct a “theology of homelessness” (7). Drawing on liberation theology, Nixon argues that stories told by poor people can offer a deeper sense of the meaning of God and relationship, can reinvigorate the Christian story, and can in fact, change the world. Nixon shares a number of life histories of homeless people and teases out biographical and emotional themes from their stories in relation to spirituality. He also recounts results of reading Scripture in community with people who are homeless

Parent resistance to physicians' treatment recommendations: One resource for initiating a negotiation of the treatment decision

This article examines pediatrician-parent interaction in the context of acute pediatric encounters for children with upper respiratory infections. Parents and physicians orient to treatment recommendations as normatively requiring parent acceptance for physicians to close the activity. Through acceptance, withholding of acceptance, or active resistance, parents have resources with which to negotiate for a treatment outcome that is in line with their own wants. This article offers evidence that even in acute care, shared decision making not only occurs but, through normative constraints, is mandated for parents and physicians to reach accord in the treatment decision

The First Competitive Video Gaming Anti-Doping Policy and Its Deficiencies Under European Union Law

This Comment identifies the deficiencies of the ESL anti-doping regime and proposes solutions for compliance with international law. In addition to achieving compliance, the proposed solutions analyzed are selected to serve the values of eSports stakeholders, as well as the philosophical valuesof sports competition as a whole. Section II will identify those stakeholdersand values. Section III will identify and attempt to solve potential noncompliancewith EU treaty-based law under the European Convention on Human Rights and resolutions of the Council of Europe. Section IV will identify and propose solutions transposed from traditional sports anti-doping policies that address discrepancies with EU law and serve the identified policy objectives that are unique to eSports