Improvisation and Communicative Agency: Contribution of an Improvisational Model to the Analysis of Communicative Agency

Introduction: Persons with congenital deafblindness mainly communicate using the bodily tactile modality. Their expressive communication is often formulated by an authentic language that gives the persons with congenital deafblindness low readability towards the rest of the world. This can be an obstacle for the development of their communicative agency. In the present study it is investigated whether a theoretical approach to improvisation can contribute to the development of communicative agency in a person with congenital deafblindness with low readability and authentic language in a dialogical perspective. Method: The study employs a qualitative design conducted as a dialogical single case study. Even though this research is based only on one recording of a communicative encounter between a person with deafblindness and her communication partner, it is assumed that the study can be used as a representative case study for people with low readability and authentic language. A video of communication between a person with CDB and a sighted/hearing communication partner is transcribed and the transcription is analysed in three stages through 1) Conversational analysis (CA), 2) Improvisation analysis and 3) Subjectivity/intersubjectivity analysis. Results: The Conversation analysis proved useful to identify complex turn-taking patterns in the communication. Through the improvisation model it was possible to define the degree of subjectivity/intersubjectivity in every utterance by each participant, as well as how each act was met by the other. With the improvisation model discriminations could be made between the different modalities, as vocal speech and bodily tactile acts. Regarding communicative agency, the model was useful to analyze degrees of self-expression as well as the balance of subjectivity and intersubjectivity between the participants. Conclusion and discussion: The model of improvisation contributed to specify subjectivity/intersubjectivity and multimodality in communication, though it did not contribute to the analysis of turn-taking. The model contributed to the development of communicative agency by pointing to the open-ended outcome for each utterance as the most important factor for developing and sustaining communicative agency. Limitations: The main limitation of this study was that the analyses were performed on only one video-clip with one dyad. Due to time constraints, a consensus check could not be carried out. Recommendations for future research is that, since this is a very innovative method in the deafblind field, replications of the study should be performed on more dyads, different dialogues and more video clips. Recommendation for practice: The combination of conversation analysis and improvisation analyses can very well be used with focus groups of care professionals in clinical practice under supervision of a trained expert in this method of communication analyses.

THE LECTURER-STUDENT CONVERSATIONAL STRUCTURE IN PRAGMATICS LEARNING INTERACTION

This study aims to describe the structure of the lecturer-student conversation in the interaction of Pragmatics Class. This type of research is descriptive qualitative. The technique of data collection is done by recording and note-taking techniques. The data analysis technique is carried out by heuristic techniques. The results of the study show that the interaction of the lecturer and the students in Pragmatics Class have conversational structures: 1) turn taking of speech that occurs because of the opportunity to speak, 2) pauses (long and short) that occur due to the absence of feedback in the form of speech and speakers feel hesitant in conveying the message. 3) Overlaps that occur due to speech or the use of the same lingual element, 4) backchannels that occur because there is understanding and acceptance or approval of the speech, and 5) adjunct pairs that occur because of greetings, questions, and requests. This indicates that the process of the lecturer-students interaction runs well. The students feel enthusiastic for responding the lecturer’s questions.

FUNCTIONAL DELAYED ECHOLALIA: INSIGHTS FROM A MOVIE

This study focuses on the analysis of functional delayed echolalia towards an autistic individual in Life, Animated documentary. The obtained data were derived from Owen Suskind's utterances and words in the aforementioned documentary, which the researchers manipulated and structured to fall into two categories of functional delayed echolalia. The study used qualitative descriptive method in analyzing the functional delayed echolalia of Owen Suskind using interactive and non-interactive functional categories of delayed echolalia theory proposed by Vicker (1999). The findings show that there are 8 (eight) out of 9 (nine) types of interactive delayed echolalia were discovered namely Turn taking, Verbal, Completion, Providing information, Labelling, Protest, Request, Calling and Affirmation. Meanwhile, the non- interactive delayed echolalia consists of three types namely non-focused, situation association, and rehearsal. The findings of this study are expected to give a positive impact on both readers who are dealing with children with autism who have echolalia. It will provide information on their language development in order to later determine the ideal method to handle them with care.

Co-Speech Movement in Conversational Turn-Taking

This study investigates co-speech movements as a function of the conversational turn exchange type, the type of speech material at a turn exchange, and the interlocutor’s role as speaker or listener. A novel interactive protocol that mixes conversation and (non-read) nursery rhymes works to elicit many speech turns and co-speech movements within dyadic speech interaction. To evaluate a large amount of data, we use the density of co-speech movement as a quantitative measure. Results indicate that both turn exchange type and participant role are associated with variation in movement density for head and brow co-speech movement. Brow and head movement becomes denser as speakers approach overlapping speech exchanges, indicating that speakers increase their movement density as an interruptive exchange is approached. Similarly, head movement generally increases after such overlapping exchanges. Lastly, listeners display a higher rate of co-speech movement than speakers, both at speech turns and remote from them. Brow and head movements generally behave similarly across speech material types, conversational roles, and turn exchange types. On the whole, the study demonstrates that the quantitative co-speech movement density measure advanced here is useful in the study of co-speech movement and turn-taking.

Turn-taking in collaborative storytelling

This conversation-analytic paper investigates the multimodal design and interactional functions of the connective et puis après (‘and then after that’) in a French-language corpus of video-recorded collaborative storytellings. Two similar, yet different, sequential positions are investigated: the juncture between subsequent story episodes and the space between extended side sequences and the return to the story-in-progress. Such juncture positions constitute recognizable moments at which both members of the telling party, i. e., the current teller and the co-teller, must determine the topic of the next story episode as well as its delivery. Thus, juncture positions provide a perspicuous setting for the analysis of how tellership is negotiated and how topic progression is achieved. The connective et puis après appears to be a resource for current tellers to establish spaces for coparticipation at juncture positions, closing prior talk and projecting continuation. The multimodal analysis shows that both its prosodic design and co-occurring changes of the embodied participation framework contribute to opening interactive turn spaces and to making telling-specific next actions relevant.