The purpose of the present study is to investigate similarities and differences in the listening behaviors of native speakers and learners of Japanese, focusing on the production of aizuchi and head nods. The term aizuchi is often interchangeably used with the word backchannel, and these are characterized as the listener's use of short utterances such as oh or uh huh in English or hai, un, or aa in Japanese. In this study, aizuchi is defined as a short verbal utterance that is produced in response to the primary speaker's speech in Japanese. A total of 14 NS--NS or 14 NS--NNS dyads were formed to elicit native speakers' and learners' aizuchi and head nods. With the exception of a few participants in their late twenties, most of the participants were female native speakers and learners of Japanese who were of college age. The learners of Japanese were native speakers of American English who had been labeled as intermediate/high-intermediate level learners of Japanese. Each interaction included a semi-free conversation and a narrative story-telling task, both of which were recorded and transcribed for analysis. The findings indicate that the differences in the use of aizuchi and head nods produced by native speakers and learners lie not mainly in their frequency, but in the types and functions. The results show that when the frequency of aizuchi and head nods was measured with a time-based scale, which was the frequency per 60 seconds, differences were found in the frequency of head nods and total frequency of aizuchi and head nods. However, no significant difference was found in the frequency of aizuchi and head nods based on the amount of speech the speakers produced. Aizuchi were categorized into 16 groups to investigate differences in their types. The results show that the learners were using less aa-group, hee-group, iya-group aizuchi but more soo-group aizuchi compared to the native speakers. The number of different aizuchi each participant used was also measured to examine the variety of aizuchi, and it was found that both the native speakers and the learners were producing a similar number of different aizuchi. Head nods were analyzed based on nodding count, and it was revealed that more multiple head nods were observed in the learner's behaviors. The functions of aizuchi and head nods were categorized into seven groups, and the distribution of the functions was analyzed. The results indicate that learners tend to use more aizuchi to express their understanding and reaction to their interlocutors' response solicitation, while the use of aizuchi that do not show their attitude was more frequent with native speakers. The distribution of the functions of head nods was similar between the two groups. By further examining the types and the function of aizuchi and head nods, the study sheds light on which types of aizuchi learners may be lacking or overusing. Pedagogical implications are drawn from the results.

Sixteen figures, all lined up together, speaking quietly.

No description available.

When attempting to communicate with another person, the success or failure that a communicator perceives, he or she interprets as understanding or misunderstanding. Research has shown that "perceived understanding" or the "feeling of being understood" is important in self-concept development. However, for some time researchers have focused on the listener's needs and the speaker's needs have been given less attention. Yet, the listener's role in meeting the speaker's needs, particularly in providing feedback to the speaker, is of utmost importance if the speaker is to have the "feeling of being understood." This research examined the concept of the "feeling of being listened to," as it relates to the "feeling of being understood." Eye contact, vocalics, and head nods were examined as listener behaviors that affect "perceived listening." Alone, in a private room, each subject viewed a randomly-assigned videotape, imagining him- or herself as the speaker, thus, taking the speaker's perspective. The videotape showed the listener, who responded to the speaker with none, one, or all three nonverbal behaviors being tested. Immediately after viewing the videotape, subjects completed two instruments that identified the probability of eye contact, vocalics, and head nods, as pre-conditions of "perceived listening" and "perceived listening" as a pre-condition of "perceived understanding." Tests of the first four hypotheses about the relationship between nonverbal behaviors and perceived listening were non-significant. The test of the fifth hypothesis about the correlation between perceived listening and perceived understanding was significant, but there was some indication that these two concepts may be redundant. A post-hoc analysis of the relationship between nonverbal behaviors and perceived understanding yielded nonsignificant results, supporting the concern that perceived listening and perceived understanding may be redundant concepts.

The purpose of this study was to compare and contrast within and between participant performance on three different measures of listening effort: a dual-task paradigm, pupillometry, and skin conductance; participants also subjectively rated the difficulty of their experience. A repeated measures design was used to address the reliability and validity of each measure. 20 participants were recruited and attended two sessions; the second occurred a minimum of one week after the first. Participants listened to sentences presented in stationary noise at four different signal-to-noise ratios: quiet, 0, -3, and -5 dB SNR. The variables of interest were: change in peak-to-peak pupil diameter, change in reaction time from baseline, skin conductance response amplitude, and skin conductance response quantity. The results indicated that as SNR decreased, speech perception performance decreased and subjective listening effort increased. Participants accurately and consistently rated the more difficult conditions as requiring more listening effort. The change in reaction time from baseline, peak-to-peak pupil diameter, and skin conductance response quantity increased as SNR decreased; skin conductance response amplitude did not vary as task difficulty increased, but skin conductance response amplitude was larger for incorrect responses than it was for correct responses. There was a significant practice effect observed for the reaction time data. The dual-task paradigm and pupillometry measures had the greatest reliability and validity. This study demonstrated that listening effort can successfully be quantified both subjectively and objectively by using a variety of tasks. Future studies may be able to use these measures to further assess listening effort in the clinic and in the real-world.

This dissertation was a continuation of study on a theory of a learning window for the perception of expressive qualities in music and speech. The proposed theory suggested that a practice window must overlap a learning window before it closes around the age of 10. This dissertation sought to determine whether children older than the proposed learning window continued to improve in speech and musical discrimination skill, or leveled off in this ability. It also examined the impact of gender and private lesson experience on discrimination ability. Instrumental music students (n = 292) attending a public magnet school for visual and performing arts in North Carolina between the ages of 11 and 18 participated in the study. Each student was administered a forty-item listening test containing 20 speech items and 20 instrumental music items. Each test item consisted of three short speech or musical phrases. All three phrases in each item were the same written words or notated music, but one phrase was different in interpretation or expression from the other two phrases. Two of the phrases were intended by the performers to be the same in interpretation or expression and one was intended to be different in interpretation or expression. Subjects were asked to determine which of the three phases in each item was different in interpretation or expression from the other two. Results of the study suggested that students with prior private lesson experience scored significantly higher than those students that had never taken private lessons. This study seemed to reinforce the proposed learning window for speech and music interpretation in that interpretation ability did appear to level off.

Abstract not available

The thesis records a study of difference - the difference between reading and hearing biblical texts. It shows that the types of interpretation people make when reading such texts often differ from those they make when they are hearing the same texts read aloud. The extent of the difference is demonstrated in ten studies where theories relating to reading and hearing are applied to the Greek text of Mark 6:30-8:27a. The biblical texts used in the studies vary in the size, as do the themes and issues investigated. Despite this diversity the results are consistent across all ten studies. Almost all the assessments made in these studies are verified by independent data, such as the published opinions of biblical scholars and literary analyses of the Greek text. As elucidated in the thesis; the results attained, the method utilised and the theories employed are relevant for assessing the types of interpretation people are likely to make when reading and listening to other biblical stories. Because the research encompasses a literary issue and concerns the processes that are used in communication, the approach adopted is a literary one and the methodology incorporates media criticism and audience criticism. Other techniques, such as narrative criticism, rhetorical criticism, and reader response criticism are utilised extensively in the various analyses and assessments. The ten studies are preceded in the thesis by data as to the processes people use in reading texts and in listening to non-reciprocal speech. Such data includes information relating to experiments and studies into the communicative processes that have been carried out over the past fifty years. There is also data as to the theories that have been developed by scholars based on the results of such experiments and studies. These are the theories that are used in this thesis. There are also several analyses in the thesis which collectively demonstrate that texts used in Church liturgies should be those that have been specifically translated to meet the needs of listeners. This is a very important issue, because, even in very literate communities, there are still more Christians who listen to biblical texts being read than those who read such texts for themselves.

There is a great need for competent teaching of Business English in tertiary institutions in Vietnam. At the Hanoi Foreign Trade College (HFTC) alone, about 150 students per year seek training to equip them to work in export and import organizations, banks for foreign trade and customs departments. In teaching such students, one problem is the provision of interesting and relevant materials. This study addresses the question of selection of materials and techniques for teaching business English listening skills. This Field Study Report consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 describes the purposes and aims of study, the background to this study, dealing with students, the teaching and the curriculum. Chapter 2 looks at the general theory about listening and in particular listening in business. The chapter also describes listening requirements for business graduates from the HFTC. Chapter 3 discusses criteria for selection of textbooks for language teaching in general and for teaching listening skills in business English in particular. Chapter 4 surveys the teaching of business English in two institutes of Technical and Further Education in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The final chapter makes suggestions for priorities to improve the teaching of business English. This Field Study Report should be regarded as an exploratory attempt in choosing classroom techniques and materials for teaching listening skills to students of commerce at the Hanoi Foreign Trade College.

In Vietnam today there is an urgent demand for well-designed tests of listening comprehension. Little attention has been given to this problem. This field study is intended to provide guidance on the design of listening comprehension tests and in particular for intermediate level students at the Hanoi Foreign Language College (HFLC). The Field Study Report consists of six chapters. Chapter One gives a brief introduction which covers the problem, aims, subjects (testees) and the background of the Field Study Report. Chapter Two deals with the purposes of testing in some detail, setting this in the framework of the teaching-testing link, teachers and testing, and students and testing. Test characteristics are considered and the problem of sampling for test content is addressed. Chapter Three concerns test items for listening comprehension. The chapter begins with a short description of listening comprehension and is followed by a survey of theorists on listening comprehension together with the test items for listening that they suggest. Some commonly-used standardised tests and their listening items are discussed. The chapter ends with a checklist of selected listening items suitable for students at HFLC in Vietnam. Chapter Four discusses the designing and trialling of test items for listening comprehension, such as multiple choice, completion of a taped talk, matching pictures with statements etc. The chapter presents the results of the trialling of sample items and also deals with correlations between the sample tests used. Chapter Five deals with test design and development in general. It clarifies the bases for test design and provides a checklist of steps in the development of tests. In addition, the chapter includes a resources inventory for listening test items. Chapter Six presents the conclusions of the Field Study Report.