On Japanese Floor Management Strategies : A New Dimension of Backchannels

Listener responses, so-called backchannels, have long been ignored in communication studies. Some researchers have tried to reveal their functions in discourse, but they have not reached any agreement so far. The present study was conducted to find out what functions backchannels have as a device to manage the floor in discourse. Analysis was carried out on the basis of telephone talks between six Japanese and a native speaker of English. Results indicate that backchannels function as a device to destabilize the floor domination and to restabilize it.

公開日:2010年1月24日で登録したコンテンツは、国立情報学研究所において電子化したものです。