Journal article

Feedback in Japanese and Australian first encounters

J Ohashi

Journal of Pragmatics | ELSEVIER | Published : 2021

Abstract

The study investigates how imbalanced information flow is managed and evaluated by the conversational participants in first encounter interactions. From the perspective of balancing obligations (Ohashi, 2008, 2010, 2013), one-way information flow is considered a disturbance to equilibrium. In a data set of ten paired first encounter talks (five collected in Tokyo and the other five in Melbourne), there are instances of small stories where one of the conversational participants temporarily dominates information flow. In each small story unit, the hearer interjects backchannels to align the teller's story telling frame. It can also be explained from the lens of balancing obligations that the h..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

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Funding Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a Seeding grant from the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne in 2014. I would like to thank my research assistant Hannah Gould for her initial assistance in compiling the interviews in Melbourne and Daniel Ednie-Lockett for proofreading. I also benefited from the invaluable advice and wisdom of an anonymous reviewers, and from the advice given to me by D ~aniel Z. K~ad~ar and Juliane House when I was involved in another project. Finally, I would like to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to all the participants for their generosity and cooperation.