Analysis of Conversational Interaction in the Listening Discourse of Test for English Majors-8

Conversational interaction analysis is a method of analyzing the content and structure of the words spoken by both parties in a conversation. The listening discourse of TEM-8 has not only the basic characteristics of daily conversation discourse, but also its special features as a selective examination. This paper applies a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, encompassing the perspectives of the construction and transformation of turn, the sequential organization of the conversation, and the repair of conversation, to carry out conversational interaction analysis on listening discourse materials of the TEM-8 in 2011, 2015 and 2019. The results revealed that candidates need to grasp the topic, match questions with answers, capture details, and pay attention to the role change, tone and repair of the conversation, as well as strengthen listening training, so that they can do well in TEM-8 exams.

Withholding consent

This paper examines public meetings in the Netherlands where experts and officials interact with local residents on the human health effects of livestock farming. Using Conversation Analysis, we reveal a ‘weapon of the weak’: a practice by which the residents resist experts’ head start in information meetings. It is shown how residents draw on the given question-answer format to challenge experts and pursue an admission of, for example, methodological shortcomings. We show how the residents’ first question functions as a ‘foot-in-the-door’, providing them with a strong basis for skepticism. By systematically challenging the expert responses, the residents exploit the interaction’s sequential organization, with the effect that the goal becomes them being convinced rather than being informed. Consequently, the withholding of consent becomes the residents’ ‘weapon’. Finally, we argue that in an age where expertise is increasingly contested, it is crucial to understand how, and to what end, this contestation may occur.

‘What? Olaf is the taxi driver?’

While children’s remarkable ability to co-construct spontaneous fantasy narratives in pretend play interaction has been noted, sequential organization embedded in the collaborative construction of narratives have received little research attention. Drawing on an ethnomethodological and conversation analysis perspective, the current study examines the sequential organization of pretend play narratives co-constructed in children’s play interaction. Close sequential analysis based on 30 hours of audio and video recordings reveals an array of resources and interactional practices used to construct and maintain the spontaneous narratives. Sequential analysis allows to observe sense-making procedures embedded in the way participating children respond to and develop the storyline. The paper concludes with a reflection on how real-world knowledge informs and regulates the co-constructional process of fantasy narratives.

“How was your day?”

Based on longitudinal conversation data between a father and child collected over the period of eighteen months, this study examines “today narrative” where the father asks the child “how was your day” when they meet after being apart during the day. The routine provides a recurrent sequential structure, which is both located within and itself occasions further talk. Examining the talk between this father and child longitudinally reveals how the initial sequential structure, where the child lists activities in short run-on sentences, goes through transformation and elaboration. Indices for development include the emergence of three-part structure in the child’s list construction, more details incorporated in the list, story prefaces, and the emergence of assessment response (or personal voice). The overall sequential organization of the routine moves from heavy reliance on the father’s questions to more volunteered talk by the child. This paper considers the generalizability of longitudinal conversation analytic data.

Framing in interactive academic talk

Framing involves how language users conceptualize what is happening in interaction for situated interpretation of roles, purposes, expectations, and sequences of action, thus show significant conceptual relevance to the analysis of routinized institutional communication. Having established a working definition of framing based on an intensive review of previous research, this study investigates university students’ and tutors’ framing behaviors in interactive small group talk. Two types of framing-in-interaction, -alternate framing of a single situation and co-framing within/beyond speaker role boundary-, are identified, examined, and characterized from a conversation-analytic perspective. The findings suggest that alternate framings co-occur with traceable interactional devices for sequential organization when the single situation at talk takes on divergent meaning potentials to be accessed. Co-framings happen when at least one (group) of participants is highly goal-oriented, showing conditional relevance to the prior courses of action and more explicit negotiation of epistemic stances. Framing, therefore, can be arguably taken as a global organization resource to characterize contextualization in institutional communication.

Instructing embodied knowledge: multimodal approaches to interactive practices for knowledge constitution

In the introduction to the special issue on ‘Instructing embodied knowledge’, we present a general orientation into this growing field of research, providing the relevant background for the individual contributions. The starting point for the endeavor is the basic observation that practical knowledge or ‘knowing-how’ is typically of a procedural, implicit and embodied nature rather than explicit-conceptual. Given this specific nature, we highlight the fact that for transmitting this type of knowledge, instructors make use of specific multimodal practices that are adjusted to these characteristics. The notion of instructional practice furthermore emphasizes that instructing embodied knowledge is a highly collaborative process between learners and their instructors. In order to provide a broad take on the phenomenon, we review both social-interactional as well as cognitive approaches to embodied knowledge and discuss how the procedural and intercorporeal nature of this knowledge may challenge different views. Independent of the specific approach that is chosen, any account of the construction/instruction of embodied knowledge should emphasize that it is essentially (i) a social activity, (ii) involving the deployment of different semiotic resources, and (iii) using different techniques and devices, such as descriptions, directives and demonstrations. Based on a review of the literature and on the papers in the special issue, we identify a set of key questions that may help to shape the agenda for future studies in the field. The questions relate to the temporal-sequential organization of instructions, the continuum between demonstrations and performances, and the relationship between perceptual access, sensation and the acquisition of embodied knowledge.

When the Body Belies the Words: Embodied Agency With darf/kann ich? (“May/Can I?”) in German

Research on multimodal interaction has shown that simultaneity of embodied behavior and talk is constitutive for social action. In this study, we demonstrate different temporal relationships between verbal and embodied actions. We focus on uses of German darf/kann ich? (“may/can I?”) in which speakers initiate, or even complete the embodied action that is addressed by the turn before the recipient's response. We argue that through such embodied conduct, the speaker bodily enacts high agency, which is at odds with the low deontic stance they express through their darf/kann ich?-TCUs. In doing so, speakers presuppose that the intersubjective permissibility of the action is highly probable or even certain. Moreover, we demonstrate how the speaker's embodied action, joint perceptual salience of referents, and the projectability of the action addressed with darf/kann ich? allow for a lean syntactic design of darf/kann ich?-TCUs (i.e., pronominalization, object omission, and main verb omission). Our findings underscore the reflexive relationship between lean syntax, sequential organization and multimodal conduct.

The Patterns of Sequential Organization of a Person with Asperger Syndrome: A Conversation Analysis

This study documents the patterns of conversational sequential organization, i.e., turn construction unit (TCU), of a person (pseudonym Samy, age 27) with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS). The language data was audio recorded from two naturally occurring conversations (30 and 40 minutes long two different encounters) between the participant and the first author of this paper. Later, the data was transcribed and analyzed by using the tools of conversation analysis (CA). The results revealed the occurrences of unusual prosody, unusual pauses, invalid turns and word-finding difficulties, in the participant’s TCUs. The findings of this research contribute to our knowledge on the interactional patterns of people with AS. It also draws attention to the efficacy of the CA method in investigating conversational structures of atypical people. The findings eventually prepare a dialogue for incorporating conversation analytical methods into clinical approaches to study the persons with AS.

Improving Performance of a Multi-Bit Arithmetic Logic Unit

In modern microprocessors to reduce the time resources the arithmetic-logic units (ALU) with an increased organization of arithmetic carry, characterized by high speed, compared to ALU with sequential organization of the arithmetic carry, are commonly used. However, while increasing the bit number of the input operands, the operating time of ALU of ALU with the accelerated arithmetic carry increases linearly depending on the number of bits. Therefore, the development of ALU, providing higher performance than the existing known solutions, is an actual task. In this work the analysis of ALU with sequential and accelerated organization of the arithmetic carry has been performed. To increase the speed of the operation, a multi-bit ALU has been developed. The simulation of ALU circuits has been executed in Altera Quartus –II CAD environment. The comparison has been performed by the number of logical elements and the maximum delay as a result of modeling the ALU circuits for 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 bits. A scheme for checking the results has been implemented to confirm the reliability of developed ALU. As a result, it has been found that when performing operations with the 64-bit operands, the developed ALU reduces the maximum delay by 53 % compared to ALU with sequential arithmetic carry and by 35.5 % compared to ALU with the accelerated arithmetic carry, respectively.