Cover not available

Article published In: Corpus Approaches to Business Communication
Edited by Mathew Gillings and Susanne Kopf
[International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 29:3] 2024
► pp. 389–416

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Indicating engagement in online workplace meetings

The role of backchannelling head nods

ORCiD logo with link | Cardiff University
 | Mary Immaculate College
 | Cardiff University
 | Mary Immaculate College
 | Mary Immaculate College
 | University of Nottingham
 | University College Dublin
 | University of Aberdeen
 | University of Limerick
 | University College Dublin
Published online: 3 September 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.24060.kni
Abstract
Amid COVID-19 and the so-called “digital pivot”, online virtual communication is at the heart of our professional and private lives. As we move into a post-COVID context, the affordances of the digital turn have shown that we can operate professionally online but there is a need for better understanding of communication in the online workplace. This paper contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of indicators of engagement in multi-party communication online, as evidenced by a corpus-based multi-modal study. It showcases the importance of building naturally-occurring spoken corpora that go beyond written transcription and include annotation of non-verbal behaviour. The work focuses on the incidence, frequency, position, and function of spoken and head nod backchannels, exploring coordination and co-occurrence of these features in online talk. Findings point to a changing profile of how engagement is displayed in online workplace meetings, which appears to be linked to the functionality of platforms.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Backchannels in communication
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data: A sub-corpus of starts and ends
    • 3.2Transcription
    • 3.3Coding
    • 3.4Analytical approach
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Form and frequencies of backchannelling
      • 4.1.1Overall occurrences across the sub-corpus
      • 4.1.2Forms
      • 4.1.3Form co-occurrences across sub-corpus
    • 4.2Backchannel functions
      • 4.2.1Frequency and distribution across the sub-corpus
      • 4.2.2Form by function
    • 4.3Continuers (CON)
    • 4.4Convergence tokens (CNV)
    • 4.5Engagement response tokens (ER)
    • 4.6Information receipt tokens (IR)
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (45)
References
Aijmer, K. (2018). Corpus pragmatics: From form to function. In A. H. Jucker, K. P. Schneider, & W. Bublitz (Eds.), Methods in pragmatics (pp. 555–586). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Allwood, J., Cerrato, L., Jokinen, K., Navarretta, C., & Paggio, P. (2007a). The MUMIN coding scheme for the annotation of feedback, turn management and sequencing phenomena. Language Resources and Evaluation, 41(3–4), 273–287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Allwood, J., Kopp, S., Grammer, K., Ahlsén, E., Oberzaucher, E., & Koppensteiner, M. (2007b). The analysis of embodied communicative feedback in multimodal corpora: A prerequisite for behavior simulation. Language Resources and Evaluation, 41(3–4), 255–272. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brunner, L. J. (1979). Smiles can be back channels. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(5), 728–734. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brunner, M-L. (2021). Understanding intercultural communication: Negotiating meaning and identities in English as a Lingua Franca Skype conversations. Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brunner, M-L., & Diemer, S. (2018). Okay … so … nice to meet you? {smiles} Openings in ELF Skype conversations. In M. de los Ángeles Gómez González & J. L. Mackenzie (Eds.), The construction of discourse as verbal interaction (pp. 171–197). Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carter, R., & McCarthy, M. J. (2004). Talking, creating: Interactional language, creativity, and context. Applied Linguistics, 25(1), 62–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clayman, S., & Heritage, J. (2002). The news interview: Journalists and public figures on the air. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dittman, A. T., & Llewellyn, L. G. (1968). Relationships between vocalizations and head nods as listener responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(1), 79–84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duncan, S., & Niederehe, G. (1974). On signalling that it’s your turn to speak. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10(3), 234–247. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Farr, F. (2003). Engaged listenership in spoken academic discourse: The case of student–tutor meetings. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2(1), 67–85. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Farr, F., Murphy, B., & O’Keeffe, A. (2004). The Limerick Corpus of Irish English: Design, description and application. Teanga: The Irish Yearbook of Applied Linguistics, 211: 5–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fellegy, A. M. (1995). Patterns and functions of minimal response. American Speech, 70(2), 186–199. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fernández Polo, F. J. (2021). Backchannels in video-mediated ELF conversations: A case study. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 10(1), 113–140. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fries, C. C. (1952). The structure of English. Harcourt, Brace and Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gardner, R. (1998). Between speaking and listening: The vocalisation of understanding. Applied Linguistics, 19(2), 204–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2007). The Right connections: Acknowledging epistemic progression in talk. Language in Society, 36(3), 319–341. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hadar, U., Steiner, T. J., & Clifford Rose, F. (1985). Head movement during listening turns in conversation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 9(4), 214–228. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, J. (1984). A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 299–345). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heylen, D., Bevacqua, E., Tellier, M., & Pelachaud, C. (2007). Searching for prototypical facial feedback signals. In C. Pelachaud, J-C. Martin, E. André, G. Chollet, K. Karpouzis, & D. Pelé (Eds.), Lecture notes in computer science: Vol. 4722. Intelligent virtual agents. IVA 2007 (pp. 147–153). Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ishi, C. T., Liu, C., Ishiguro, H., & Hagita, N. (2010). Head motions during dialogue speech and nod timing control in humanoid robots. In P. Hinds, H. Ishiguro, K. Takayuki, & P. Kahn (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th ACM/IEEE international conference on human-robot interaction (HRI ’10) (pp. 293–300). IEEE Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jokinen, K. (2011). Turn taking, utterance density, and gaze patterns as cues to conversational activity. In D. Heylen, P. Paggio, & M. Kipp (Eds.), Proceedings of the ICMI 2011 workshop on multimodal corpora for machine learning: Taking stock and road mapping the future (pp. 1–6). Multimodal Corpora.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jucker, A. H., & Landert, D. (2015). Historical pragmatics and early speech recordings: Diachronic developments in turn-taking and narrative structure in radio talk shows. Journal of Pragmatics, 791, 22–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Knight, D. (2011). Multimodality and active listenership: A corpus approach. Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Knight, D., & Adolphs, S. (2008). Multi-modal corpus pragmatics: The case of active listenership. In J. Romero-Trillo (Ed.), Pragmatics and corpus linguistics: A mutualistic entente (pp. 175–190). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Knight, D., Evans, D., Carter, R., & Adolphs, S. (2009). HeadTalk, HandTalk and the corpus: Towards a framework for multi-modal, multi-media corpus development. Corpora, 4(1), 1–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Love, R. (2020). Overcoming challenges in corpus construction. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Malisz, Z., Włodarczak, M., Buschmeier, H., Skubisz, J., Kopp, S., & Wagner, P. (2016). The ALICO corpus: Analysing the active listener. Language Resources and Evaluation, 50(2), 411–442. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marlow, E., & Wilson, P. O. C. (2012). The breakdown of hierarchy: Communicating in the evolving workplace. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maynard, S. K. (1997). Analyzing interactional management in native/non-native English conversation: A case of listener response. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 35(1), 37–60.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCarthy, M. J. (2002). Good listenership made plain: British and American non-minimal response tokens in everyday conversation. In R. Reppen, S. Fitzmaurice, & D. Biber (Eds.), Using corpora to explore linguistic variation (pp. 49–71). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2003). Talking back: “Small” interactional response tokens in everyday conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 36(1), 33–63. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McNeill, D. (2000). Gesture in thought. In D. McNeill (Ed.), Language and gesture (pp. 139–140). Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mott, H., & Petrie, H. (1995). Workplace interactions: Women’s linguistic behaviour. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 14(3), 324–336. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Keeffe, A. (2006). Investigating media discourse. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2018). Corpus-based function-to-form approaches. In A. H. Jucker, K. P. Schneider, & W. Bublitz (Eds.), Methods in pragmatics (pp. 587–618). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Keeffe, A., & Adolphs, S. (2008). Using a corpus to look at variational pragmatics: Response tokens in British and Irish discourse. In K. P. Schneider & A. Barron (Eds.), Variational pragmatics (pp. 69–98). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oreström, B. (1983). Turn-taking in English conversation. LiberFörlag Ltd.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paggio, P., & Navarretta, C. (2017). The Danish NOMCO corpus: Multimodal interaction in first acquaintance conversations. Language Resources and Evaluation, 51(2), 463–494. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tottie, G. (1991). Conversational style in British and American English: The case of backchannels. In K. Aijmer & B. Altenberg (Eds.), English corpus linguistics (pp. 254–271). Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wagner, P., Malisz, Z., & Kopp, S. (2014). Gesture and speech in interaction: An overview. Speech Communication, 571, 209–232. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilcox, S. (2004). Language from gesture. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27(4), 525–526. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yngve, V. H. (1970). On getting a word in edgewise. In R. I. Binnick (Ed.), Papers from the sixth regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 567–578). University of Chicago.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Dong, Jihua & Mingyue Zhang
2026. Stance beyond words: How TED speakers construct stance through multimodal semiotic resources. English for Specific Purposes 81 ► pp. 150 ff. DOI logo
Peraldi, Sandrine, Chris Fitzgerald, Geraldine Mark, Justin McNamara, Dawn Knight & Anne O’Keeffe
2025. Doing meetings online. Register Studies DOI logo
Rühlemann, Christoph & Alexander Ptak
2023. Reaching beneath the tip of the iceberg: A guide to the Freiburg Multimodal Interaction Corpus. Open Linguistics 9:1 DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2025. Corpus Linguistics for Language Learning Research [Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, 12], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue