The use of smile in backchannel interactions in Australian English

Our ongoing research of backchannel (BC) behaviour is based on the multimodal analysis of a six-hour corpus of video-recorded dyadic conversations, consisting of speaker story tellings, that have been transcribed for speech and gesture (including nodding, eye gaze movement, facial expression, and other head and/or body movement). We have identified various differences in BC behaviour in English spoken by Australians (AusE) and English spoken by Japanese (JE) (Ike, 2016; Ike & Mulder, 2016, 2018, to appear).

In this paper, we focus on the role of smile in interaction, analysing four AusE-AusE conversations from the corpus. Our multimodal analysis indicates that while eye gaze, nodding and vocal responses play primary roles in BC behaviour in AusE, posture and facial expressions, especially smile, also play important roles. By first identifying the location of smile and second analysing the functions of smile, we provide a close examination of its use not only as a BC cue and a BC element, but also within BC sequences—that is, BC instances involving more than one exchange of BCs. Finally, we compare the use of smile in backchannel interactions in AusE with our findings for JE (Removed for review d). It is shown that smile may appear at different locations with different functions, and, most significantly, that the interactional work performed by smile in BC sequences is markedly different in the two varieties.

This paper extends our understanding of BC behaviour not only in terms of the use of smile in AusE but also how it compares with that of JE. Ultimately, awareness of such differences has the potential to enable interactional participants in cross-cultural settings to better negotiate with and accommodate to each other.

References

Ike, S. (2016). The Interactional Basis of Backchannel Behaviour in Japanese English. Journal of Sugiyama Jogakuen University: Humanities, 47, 129-138.

Ike, S. and Mulder, J. (2016). Conceptualising Backchannel Bahaviour in Japanese English and Australian English. Proceedings of the 18th Annual Conference of Pragmatics Society of Japan. Nagoya.

Ike, S. and Mulder, J. (2018). Rapport-oriented vs. Stance-oriented Backchannel Sequences in ELF Interactions. Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference of Pragmatics Society of Japan. Kyoto.

Ike, S. and Mulder, J. (to appear). Please smile when you nod: The use of smile in backchannel sequences. Paper to be presented at the 21^st Annual Conference of Pragmatics Society of Japan. 1-2 December 2018. Tokyo.