Language and Communication Flashcards
What is conversation characteristically organised in terms of?
An orderly exchange of turns.
What situations affect turn-taking in conversations?
- Informal conversation
- Interviews
- Ceremonies and rituals
What 5 signals did Duncan & Fiske 1985 identify that signalled turn-yielding cues?
- Rise/fall in pitch at the end of course
- Drawl on final syllable
- Termination of hand gestures
- Stereotyped expressions e.g. ‘you know’
- Completion of a grammatical clause
What is a hand gesture?
An attempt-suppressing signal
What did De Ruiter, Mitterer and Enfield 2006 find about managing turns in conversation?
Speech content and syntax are most important - compared to intonation
What are silent interruptions?
Occur without simultaneous speech
What are listener responses?
Not all simultaneous speech is necessarily interruptive
What are the 2 main dimensions of interruptions?
- Single or complex
- Successful or unsuccessful
What are complex interruptions?
Invoving repeated attempts
What are successful interruptions?
The person interrupting gets to full say what they want to say
What do doctors usually believe about interruptions?
Patients will spend too long talking if not interrupted by the doctor
What is Equivocation?
The use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself.
What is Manterrupting?
Unnecessary interruption of a woman by a man.
Can result in a female’s frustration due to being ignored, silenced, or sidelined in personal or professional conversation.
Is manterrupting a form of resistance against women in politics?
- Women are 17.7% more likely to be interrupted than men
- Women interrupted men more often than vice versa
- So manterruptions are not systematic or frequent enough to be considered as resistance against women.
What are the main aspects of Equivocation Theory?
- Situational Theory of Communicative Conflict (STCC)
- Multidimensional - 4 dimensions
Explain Situational Theory of Communicative Conflict (STCC).
Equivocation occurs in response to a communicative conflict.
- All possible responses to a question may have negative consequences
- A response is still expected
- Equivocation is the result of the communicative situation
What are the 4 dimensions of Equivocation Theory?
- Sender (speaker’s own opinion?)
- Content (clarity?)
- Receiver (addressed to the other person in the situation?)
- Context (direct answer to the question?)
What kinds of equivocal resopnses are there/
- Subtle changes in response
- Deferred replies
- Hints
Define ‘face’
- Prestige, honour or reputation
- Other people thinking well of you
What is similarity-attraction theory?
Suggests that we like people who are like us.In relation to CAT (communication accommodation theory) to make people like us,m we try to make ourselves similar to then.
What is Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT)?
- Based on Similarity-Attraction Theory
- Reducing dissimilarities - may lead to a more favourable evaluation
- CAT evolved out of an earlier theory - Speech Accommodation Theory (SAT)
What is an accent?
- Refers to pronunciation
- Part of dialect
What is dialect?
Distinct manner of speech that differs in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar
What did Fuertes et al 2012 study compare standard and non-standard accents against?
- Status
- Solidarity
- Dynamism
What is status?
Person evaluating their intelligence, ambition, education, and social status
What is solidarity?
Where a person feels as though they trusted the speaker
What is Dynamism?
Whether the accent came across as high in activity and liveliness.
What directions may accents change?s
- Divergence (make their accents more dissimilar)
- Convergence
What types of convergence are there in accent change?
Upward convergence - trying to sound a little bit more cautious/posh
Downward convergence - reverting back to regional accents
Why may people diverge their accents?
- Integrative (to become more familiar with their heritage)
- Instrumental (for job prospects)
What measures are involved when we accommodate for accent convergence?
- Speech rate
- Content
- Pronunciation
How do we reach the optimal level of convergence?
- Most favourable when speaker converged on speech rate and EITHER content or pronunciation
- Less favourable when speaker converged on all 3 dimensions.
How can sending capacity of a body part be measures?
- Average transmission time (speed)
- Number of expressions
- Visibility
Facial expressions score highly on all 3.
What 6 basic emotions did Darwin identify?
- Disgust
- Anger
- Surprise
- Fear
- Sadness
- Happiness
Why do we have the disgust emotion?
To expel offensive matter from the mouth
How do we identify disgust?
- Upper lip raised
- Lower lip raised
- Nose wrinkled
- Lines below the lower eyelid
Why do we have the anger emotion?
Preparing to attack
How do we identify anger?
- Eyebrows lowered and drawn together (frowning)
- Vertical lines may appear between the eyebrows
- Lips pressed firmly together or mouth open and tensed as if shouting
Why do we have the surprise emotion?
State of readiness to deal with unexpected event
How do we identify surprise?
- Eyebrows raised to open eyes wide to facilitate sight
- Horizontal wrinkles across the forehead
- Jaw drops open to draw in air quickly
Why do we have the fear emotion?
Readiness to deal with frightening event.
How do we identify fear?
- Eyebrows raised, inner corners drawn together
- Horizontal wrinkles across forehead
- Upper eyelid raised
- Mouth open but lips drawn back
How do we identify sadness?
- Inner corners of eyebrow raised
- Skin below eyebrows may form a triangle
- Corners of lips drawn down
How do we identify happiness?
- Corners of the lips drawn back and up
- Mouth may be parted with teeth exposed
- Naso-labial folds
- Wrinkles by the eyes (Crow’s feet)
Why do happiness and sadness differ from the rest of the 4 emotions?
They are more communicative rather than functional
Why may crying be functional?
Crying signals distress to gain the attention of the caregiver
Why may smiling be functional?
Smiling may maintain the attention of the caregiver
Other than facial cues, what may convey emotions and attitudes?
Posture
What are the 2 types of postures?
Expansive
Contractive
What did Vacharkulksemsuk et al 2016 find about postures?
- Expansive postures increased the likelihood of a yes response in speed-dating
- Non-verbal affiliation (e.g. smiles, laughs, head nods) are not a significant predictor of speed-dating yes
What evidence is there for the innate hypothesis of facial expressions?
- Cross-cultural studies
- Studis of disability
- Studies of facial musculature
How do cross-cultural studies show evidence for the innate hypothesis of facial expressions?
- 6 emotions are labelled in the same way by members of literate and non-literate cultures
- Contempt may be identified as the 7th universal emotion.
How do studies of disability provide evidence for the innate hypothesis of facial expressions?
- Children born deaf and blind
- Found facial expressions of emotion appropriate to situational context
- But may be learned e.g. through behaviour shaping
How do studies of facial musculature provide evidence for the innate hypothesis of facial expressions?
- All but one of the muscle actions visible in the adult was identified in nerborn infants
- Capacity for facial expressions inborn
- But not necessarily associated with particular emotions
What is the Neuro-Cultural Model (NCM)?
Display rules vary according to culture:
- Attenuation
- Amplification
- Concealment
- Substitution
May also vary according to gender, status, and even individuals
e.g. in USA it is acceptable to show anger but in Japan, negative emotions are frowned upon.
What are the 2 systems of facial expressions?
- Voluntary facial movement
- Spontaneous facial expression
What are microexpressions?
Very brief expressions - may vary between 1/25th and 0.5 of a second.
What are subtle expressions?
Fragments of an expression
- Nose wrinkling
- Brow raising
What detection skills are required for deception detection?
- Perceiving subtle expressions
- Perceiving microexpressions
What is the role of encoders in Warren et al 2009?
People who are typically recruited to describe what they’re watching - they have to be either honest or dishonest
What is the role of decoders in Warren et al 2009?
They watch the videos of the encoders and decide whether they are being honest or dishonest.
What were the results of Warren et al 2009?
- Accuracy rate just 50%
- Emotional lie detection is better than chance (64%)
- Non-emotional lie detection is worse than chance (34%)
What are rhetorical devices?
- Features of the construction of speech that indicate when applause is appropriate
What are the 2 most effective rhetorical devices?
- Contrasts
- Lists
What are the 7 rhetorical devices?
- Contrasts
- Lists
- Puzzle-solution
- Headline-punchline
- Position taking
- Combination
- Pursuit
If 2/3 of applause in political speeches is associated with RDs, what can account for the remaining 1/3? (5)
- Synchrony
- Speech content
- Uninvited applause
- Delivery
- Culture
What does asynchronous mean?
The applause didn’t occur at a completion point?
What are the 2 main reasons for uninvited applause?
- Direct response to speech content
- Misreading of RDs
What are examples of explicit invitations of applause?
’ Let’s hear it for…’ or ‘Please put your hands together for…’
What conclusions did Bull & Wells 2002 find?
65% of all applause instances synchronous with speech, invited through RDs
Why do politicians equivocate?
- may be seen as an aspect of politician’s personalities
- a response to questions in political interviews (if posed a high proportion of CC questions)
What is positive face?
People thinking well of you
What is negative face?
Having the ability to do what you want (preserving your future freedom of action)
What types of face-threats are distinguished during political interviews?
- Personal face
- Face of the party they represent
- Face of significant others
What can the concept of face be used to explain?
- Why CCs occur in political interviews
- Prevalence of equivocation by politicians
- Why politicians DO answer questions
What are the 2 types of question?
Interrogative syntax
Non-interrogative syntax
What types of interrogative syntax questions are there? (3)
- Yes/no - polar
- Alternative/dysjunctive
- Wh-/Interrogative word
What type of non-interrogative syntax questions are there? (3)
- Declaritive
- Moodless
- Indirect
What is judgement accuracy?
The ability to judge a person’s mood or emotions
What is expression accuracy?
How easily a person’s emotions can be judged/assessed by all of us - how clearly you show your feels and effects
What gender differences are there with expression accuracy?
- Women typically encode more clearly
What is a communication channel?
- a means of non-verbal communication e.g. gaze, posture, facial expression
What channel differences are there?
- smiling
- gaze
What channel differences are found for smiling?
- Women smile more
- Most pronounced for 18-23y/o
- Some cultural variation in these gender differences
What channel differences are found for gaze?
- Females gaze at others more
- Consistent with female advantage on tests of judgement accuracy
What explanations are there for channel gender differences?
- Social power
- Socialisation e.g. women are socialised to be more accommodating to other people
How does social power affect channel communication perception?
If you’ve got less social power, it is therefore more important to be able to read the non-verbal behaviour of other people.
If you’re in high power, you might not care about other people’s emotions and feelings.
What is ‘Women’s language’?
A language of powerlessness including features like tactfulness, politeness, hesitance, and a lack of authority.
What features are discussed in ‘Women’s language’?
- Hedges (mitigating devices which lessen the impact of an utterance)
- Tag questions (e.g. doesn’t it? isn’t it?)
What is the role od hedges in women’s language?
Indicate uncertainty
What is the role of tag questions?
Targets the end of our declaritive statements which make it a question
What are the 2 different meanings of ‘you know’?
- Certainty and conviction
- Doubt and uncertainty
What gender differences are there for the use of ‘you know’ at the end of a sentence?
Women use it to convey certainty
Men use it to convey uncertainty
What 2 meanings can ‘I think’ have?
- Deliberative form (booster)
- Tentative form (hedge)
What gender differences are there for the use of ‘I think’?
Women use it as a booster
Men use it as a hedge
What are the 4 principle functions of tag questions?
- Convey uncertainty
- Facilitate conversation
- Confrontational
- Soften the force of criticism
What gender differences are there for the use of tag questions and their functions?
Uncertainty tags are used more by men where facilitative tags are used more by women.
What is the two-cultures approach?
The idea that both male and females communicate through a different set of rules, norms, and language patterns.
How do men interprate women’s listener responses?
The male thinks that she agrees when she’s actually just indicating that she’s listening, and so females think that fewer listener responses from males means that he’s not listening when really he just doesn’t agree with everything that’s being said.
What are the gender differences of interpreting questions?
Men see questions are information for request whereas females use it as part of the informational process.
What are the gender differences of the use of verbal aggression?
Females tend to dislike verbal aggression because they think it is personally direct and negative and can be quite disruptive.
For males, it is just a form of conversation in typically all male groups.
What evaluation points are there for the Two-Cultures Approach?
- Empirical evidence
- Polarization
- The myth of Mars and Venus
What is the polarization between genders?
Variability within genders can be every bit as big as the differences between genders.
What is the Myth of Mars and Venus?
Underestimates differences witgin genders because differences may reflect different social roles, rather than differences between men and women.
To what extent are gender stereotypes applied to political candidates?
Brooks 2013 - results potentially support women candidates seeking political office.
What did Del Vento et al 2009 find about interpersonal communication?
Physicians used implicit language at a significantly higher rate when delvering bad news and tended to use alternative terms for the diagnosis to underemphasize certainty
What did Endres & Laidlaw 2009 find about interpersonal communication?
After METT training, students in high-quartile communication skills showed significant improvement in recognition of microexpressions but the students in the lowest quartile showed no improvement
What did Warren, Schertler, & Bull 2009 find about interpersonal communication?
Mean performance on the Deception Detection Test was 50% indicating chance performance.
Emotional lie detection was significantly above chance and unemotional below.
