TB9 - Language and Communication

Question 1

Which signals did Duncan and Fiske (1985) identify as “turn-yielding cues”?

Answer 1

Rise/fall in pitch at the end of a clause
Drawl on the final syllable 
Termination of hand gestures
Stereotyped expressions ("you know")
Completion of a grammatical clause

Question 2

What did De Ruiter, Mitterer and Enfield (2006) find with regards to predicting the end of a speaker turn?

Answer 2

Accuracy was still high when pitch was flat, but accuracy decreased when syntax changed (different word order)

Question 3

What did Roger, Bull and Smith (1988) find with regards to interruptions?

Answer 3

Interruptions were usually either single or complex, and successful or unsuccessful.
Excessive interruptions usually result in conversational breakdowns.

Question 4

What did Menz and Al-Roubaie (2008) find with regards to doctors and interruptions?

Answer 4

Doctors use negative interruptions (disagreeing etc) significantly more than patients do. Patients are also significantly less likely to succeed in any attempted interruptions.

Question 5

What is equivocation?

Answer 5

This is the use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth.

Question 6

What is the Situational Theory of Communicative Conflict (STCC) theory behind equivocation?

Answer 6

Equivocation usually occurs in response to a communicative conflict. For example, when all responses to a question are negative, but a response is still required.

Question 7

What are the four dimensions needed for equivocation?

Answer 7

Sender
Content
Receiver
Context

Question 8

Which three kind of equivocal responses did Bavelas (1999) find?

Answer 8

Subtle changes in response
Hints
Deferred replies

Question 9

What did Fuertas (2012) find with regards to accents?

Answer 9

A standard accent would be rated as significantly higher in status, solidarity and dynamism.

Question 10

What did Giles (1973) find with regards to accent changes?

Answer 10

They can take one of two direction - either divergence or convergence (the latter can do either upwards or downwards)

Question 11

What is accent convergence?
What evidence is there for it?
Willemyns (1997)

Answer 11

When one changes their original accent.
Applicants were given interviewers with either broad (stronger, associated with working class) or cultivated (associated with prestige) accents.
It was found that applicant’s accents became significantly broader when faced with broader accented interviewers, which is a sign of convergence.

Question 12

What is accent divergence?
What evidence is there for it?
Bourhis and Giles (1997)

Answer 12

This is when one has a stronger version of their typical accent.
English accented people challenged Welsh people on a course to learn more of the language. Those that were there for job prospects softened their accent when replying, but those that were there for heritage and pride of the language displayed a broader Welsh accent than before, which is divergence

Question 13

Give an example of a person accommodating for another’s accent, and at what points it becomes considered unfavourably patronising.

Giles and Smith (1979)

Answer 13

A Canadian man described their education system to teachers from England was told to accommodate for the difference in 3 ways: speech rate, content and pronunciation.
Evaluations were most favourable when he accommodated for speech rate and either content or pronunciation, but it was considered patronising when he accommodated with all three.

Question 14

What are the 6 basic emotions identified through universal facial expressions?

Answer 14

Disgust
Anger
Surprise
Fear
Sadness
Happiness

Question 15

What are the qualities of the emotion of anger?

Answer 15

There is frowning by lowering eyebrows and drawing them together.
Lips will be pressed firmly together and sometimes teeth will be bared through the mouth being open.

Question 16

What are the qualities of the emotion of disgust?

Answer 16

Upper lip raised, lower lip

Question 17

What are the qualities of the emotion of surprise?

Answer 17

Eyebrows raised and eyes wide

Jaw drops open to draw air in quickly

Question 18

What are the qualities of the emotion of fear?

Answer 18

Eyebrows raised, inner corners draw together

Question 19

What are the qualities of the emotion of sadness?

Answer 19

Inner corners of eyebrows raised and draw together

Corners of the lips drawn down, lips may tremble

Question 20

What are the qualities of the emotion of happiness?

Answer 20

Corners of the lips drawn back and up, cheeks raised and wrinkles can be seen by the eyes

Question 21

What was found with regards to posture and romantic preference?

Answer 21

Confederates on a dating app with more welcoming, expansive postures were significantly more likely to receive a “yes” response than those with a closed off posture.

Question 22

What have studies of disability found in favour of the innate hypothesis of facial expressions?

Answer 22

People born deaf and blind still make the recognisable facial expressions in appropriate contexts.

Question 23

How has the facial action coding system shown evidence for innate facial expressions?

Answer 23

This system applies “action units” to facial movements.
It was found that all but one action visible in adults could also been seen in newborn infants.
However, this doesn’t mean the expressions are innately associated with specific emotions.

Question 24

What is the neuro-cultural model of facial expressions?

Answer 24

It is an argument against facial expressions being innate.

It argues that rules of emotional display change according to culture and vary according to gender and status.

Question 25

What does Ekman say about theories of facial expressions?

Answer 25

Both arguments can be true - there may be innate expressions and emotions but only some get displayed in various cultures/genders.
For example, a rule in one society could be that males do not cry.

Question 26

What are display rules and what can they be?

Answer 26

These are rules for which emotions can be displayed.
They can be 
Attenuation (Reduction)
Amplification
Concealment 
Substitution

Question 27

What are micro and subtle facial expressions?

Answer 27

Micro - A very brief expression, does not last for long.

Subtle - Fragments of an expression such as just the nose wrinkling or brow raising.

Question 28

What did Warren (2009) find with regards to human’s ability to detect deception?

Answer 28

People are asked to talk about their interests and hobbies, then lie or honestly describe a pleasant and unpleasant film..
Participants then watch a video of this and had to state whether they were being honest or dishonest.
Accuracy was 50% overall, but results also showed that participants were more accurate at detecting emotional-lies and less accurate at detecting non-emotional lying.

Question 29

Which rhetorical devices did Heritage and Greatbatch (1986) identify?
What did they find with regards to applause?

Answer 29

Puzzle-solution
Headline-punchline
Position Taking
Combination
Pursuit

Two thirds of applause was triggered by seven rhetorical devices - but that leaves a third up to something else.

Question 30

What did Bull and Wells (2002) find with regards to Atkinson’s take on synchrony?

Answer 30

Analysed 15 speeches and found only two thirds of applause occurs in the same was that Atkinson described, so concluded that he overestimated synchrony.

Question 31

What did Bull (2000) find with regards to content?

Answer 31

All examples of applause where no rhetorical device was found could be seen to occur alongside statements of policy (content).

Question 32

What did Bull and Wells (2002) find with regards to invited vs uninvited applause?

Answer 32

Although 86% of applause was invited, 14% was uninvited.

This occurs for two main reasons - a response to speech content or a misreading of rhetorical devices.

Question 33

What did Bull and Wells (2002) find with regards to delivery?

Answer 33

Delivery indicated whether or not the rhetorical device is to be taken as an applause indication.

Question 34

What did Bull and Feldman (2011) find with regards to applause in Japanese speeches?

Answer 34

Japanese invitations to applause are much more explicit (“Now I invite you to join me for applause”)

Question 35

What did Bull (2003) argue with regards to political equivocation?

Answer 35

There were 12 categories, and 35 ways, to not reply to a question.

Question 36

What is communicative conflict?

Answer 36

A politician or interview subject maybe asked a difficult question where there is no easy winning answer. These questions are often threat to face (threat to pride)

Question 37

What did Bill(1996) conclude with regards to threats to face?

What were the three categories of face threats?

Answer 37

That threats to face were a prime cause of communicative conflict in political interviews.

Personal Face
Party (they represent) Face
Significant Other’s Face

Question 38

What did Bull (2003) find with regards to audience questions vs interviewer questions?

Answer 38

Politicians are more likely to answer a voter directly than an interviewer.

Question 39

What are the types of interrogative syntax questions that can be asked?

Answer 39

Yes/No Questions - Will there be a tax increase?
Alternative/Disjunctive - Two options presented, but there might sometimes be the ability to pick another option
Interrogative Word - The use of why, who, when where, which and how.

Question 40

What are the types of non-interrogative syntax questions that can be asked?

Answer 40

Declarative - A statement with rising intonation (Usually yes or no)
Moodless- Typically include a statement with no verb
Indirect - Asked through another person

Question 41

What is judgement accuracy?

Answer 41

How well one can judge others’ moods and emotions

Question 42

What has been found with regard to gender differences in judgement accuracy?

Answer 42

Hall first found that 23 out 24 studies showed women were better, but further analysis revealed no overall effect of gender in the majority of cases.

Question 43

What is expression accuracy?

Answer 43

How well can one communicate their own feelings - being accurate does not necessarily mean a social advantage.

Question 44

What has been found with regard to gender differences in expression accuracy?

Answer 44

Although some studies have been found to show a significant difference in favour of women, the majority of studies do not show an overall significant effect of gender.

Question 45

What are types of non-verbal communication, and what has been found with regards to gender difference in them?

Answer 45

Smiling
A meta-analysis suggested women smile more, occurring most in the 18-23 group. The gender difference was the strongest in Caucasian, and still significant for African-Americans but not for Asians.

Gaze
Whenever a significant difference was found, it was females that gazed more. Female gazing correlated with judgement accuracy.

Question 46

What are some explanations for gender difference in normal and non-verbal communication?

Answer 46

Social Power
Women have less social power so are more tuned into reading non-verbal behaviour.

Socialisation
Women are taught to be more accommodating to other people and so must understand what others want to communicate and make their own communication more easy to understand.

Question 47

What are Hedges?

Answer 47

Mitigating deivces which lessen the impact of a statement. For example, “kind of” “sort of” “you know”.

Question 48

What did Holmes (1985) find with regards to genders and the use of Hedges?

Answer 48

Women use “you know” to convey certainty, and “I think” as more of a booster term. Whilst men use “you know” to convey uncertainty and “I think” to cushion what they ar saying

Question 49

What were Holmes’ (1985) 4 principal functions of tag questions?

Answer 49

To convey uncertainty
To facilitate conversation
To be confrontational
To soften the force of criticism

Question 50

What has been found about conversation interreptions?

Answer 50

Men typically interrupt more during during opposite-sex conversation.
A meta analysis found that the interruptions were usually intrusive.

Question 51

What is thought about interpretation of communication between genders?

Answer 51

It is suggested that men and women learn different rules for interpreting language as they grow up, which can lead to miscommunication.
Listening responses in females get interpreted as agreement in males. Therefore, when males show less listening responses women assume they aren’t listening when they might not just agree with everything that is being said.
When asked to rate listener responses and questions in a separate conversation, men rated them as controlling whilst women rated them as other-orientated.

Question 52

What is microanalysis of communication?

Answer 52

A way of analysing both verbal and non-verbal communication. It studies social interaction via analysing video and audio recordings.

Question 53

What did Del Vento (2006) find with regards to how Doctors deliver news to patients?

Answer 53

Doctors use implicit language at a significantly higher rate when delivering bad news, as well as using alternative terms for the diagnosis and emphasising uncertainty.

Question 54

What did Endres and Laidlaw (2009) find with regards to communication skills and judging microexpressions?

Answer 54

Students who were better at communication benefited more from training in judging micro-expressions. Before training there is no difference.

Question 55

What did Warren (2009) find with regards to emotional vs unemotional lie detection?

Answer 55

The ability to detect emotional lies was positively correlated with the noting of emotional facial expressions. Training helped.