spoken language terminology

Question 1

back channelling

Answer 1

non verbal utterances to show attention and agreement (mmm, yeah, ok)

Question 2

discourse marker

Answer 2

signals a shift in conversation and topic areas (ok, right then, so)

Question 3

fillers

Answer 3

non verbal sounds that act as pauses either naturally or gives them thinking time (er, umm)

Question 4

adjacency pair

Answer 4

two utterances by different speakers which have a natural link, complete an idea together

Question 5

non fluency features

Answer 5

non verbal occurrences (pauses, hesitations, repetition)

Question 6

false starts

Answer 6

when a speaker begins to speak, pauses, then recommences

Question 7

repairs

Answer 7

when a speaker returns to correct a previously stated phrase (I went to the cinema on Wednesday, HANG ON, I went on Thursday)

Question 8

deixis

Answer 8

pointing out words in a dimension (here, there)

Question 9

tag question

Answer 9

added to the end of a sentence, a sign of uncertainty (wasn’t it?)

Question 10

Ellison

Answer 10

omission of words (I’ve)

Question 11

vague expression

Answer 11

non committal expressions (anything, something)

Question 12

hedges

Answer 12

avoid directness (kind of, sort of, maybe)

Question 13

paralinguistic features

Answer 13

non verbal (body language, facial expressions)

Question 14

context dependent

Answer 14

aspects of text whose meaning depends on an understanding of circumstances

Question 15

4 Grice’s maxims

Answer 15

quantity: use an appropriate amount of detail
quality: speak the truth
relevance: keep what is being discussed relevant to the topic
manner: avoid vagueness