Research has shown that there are many benefits to families who communicate and have meals together. Families who sit together for meals are more likely to: eat more nutritiously, have teens that are less likely to be involved in risky behavior, and have children with better language skills and academic scores (The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, 2010). The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a "Meal Wheel" to promote parent and child conversation during meals among families with a history of child abuse and neglect. The Meal Wheel was a wooden Lazy Susan that had interchangeable picture frames containing conversation topics. Four families living in southern Illinois participated in the study as part of their parent training services received by Project 12-Ways. Two families received standard Project 12-Ways Meal Training which consisted of explaining, modeling, and prompting steps involved in completing the Meal Routine. The "Meal Wheel" was used with all four families during meal and limited instructions were given for completing steps within the meal routine. The results indicated increases in both parent and child positive verbals and decreases in negative affect and verbals for all 4 families who participated. The limitations of the study and its implications for families, especially families with a history of child abuse and neglect, are discussed.

Conversation Theory is a theory of interaction. From interaction (the theory asserts) arises all individuals and all concepts. Interaction, if it is to allow for evolution, must perforce contain conflict, and, if concepts and individuals are to endure, resolution of conflict. Conversation Theory as developed by Pask led to the protologic called Lp which describes the interaction of conceptual entities. Lp contains injunctions as to how entities can and may interact, including how they may conflict and how their conflict may be resolved. Unlike existing software implementations based on Conversation Theory, Lp in its pure form is a logic of process as well as coherence and distinction. The hypothesis is that a low-level simulation of Lp, that of an internal and microscopic level in which topics are influenced by "forces" that are exerted by the topology of the conceptual space, would, in its activation as a dynamic process of appropriate dimension, produce as a result (and hence be a confirmation of) the macroscopically-observed behaviour of the system manifest as conflict and resolution of conflict. Without this confirmation, the relationships between Conversation Theory and Lp remain only proposed; with it, their mutual consistencies and validity as a model of cognition, are affirmed. The background of Conversation Theory and Lp necessary to support the thesis is presented a long with a comparison of other software approaches to related problems. A description of THOUGHTSTICKER, a current embodiment of Lp at the macro level, provides a detailed sense of the Lp operations. Then a computer program (developed to provide a proof by demonstration of the thesis) is described, in which a microscopic simulation of Lp processes confirms the macroscopic behaviour predicted by Conversation Theory. Conversation Theory thereby gains support f or its use as a valid observer's language for every-day experience owing to this confirmation and its protologic as a basis for psychological phenomena in the interaction of conceptual entities of mind.

This three-article dissertation study examines one-on-one conversations between Japanese students of English and American English-speaking instructors in a semi-institutional setting. These students, who were in the U.S. for one month on a short-term study abroad program, engaged in weekly conversations with instructors as part of an ESL center's Student Help Hours Program. The SHH is a conversation program held in the student lounge, and it is designed to make trained native speakers available to answer questions about homework and hold discussions on language, culture, and various other topics. Specifically, this study combines the frameworks of Conversation Analysis (CA) and scaffolding theory in conjunction with student surveys to shed light on students' strategies to negotiate for meaning (NfM), instructors’ focus on form (FonF), and overall perceptions of program efficacy. The aim of the first article is to understand how low-intermediate to intermediate level Japanese students use confirmation checks, clarification requests, and comprehension checks, known as 3C, to successfully initiate repair on semantic, phonetic, and morphosyntactic trouble sources in conversation. A critical aspect of this analysis is the paralinguistic features students use to first identify the existence of trouble and the role of nonverbal behavior and gaze as they impact repair initiation. The second article explores how NS instructors of American English use self- and other-modification in addition to initiation, response, feedback/evaluation (IRF/E) to scaffold students on gaps and holes in their understanding of English. While three-turn sequences such as IRF/E and other predetermined instructional sequences have been criticized as inauthentic (Hall, 1995; Ohta, 1995; Kasper, 2001), my research shows higher incidences of reduced forms used in the context of semi-casual conversation. Two-turn, initiation-response (IR-only) sequences as well as self- and other-modifications of vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar were used as more subtle instructional techniques. These data reflect persisting orientations to institutional roles as participants engage in discussions of repair, but they also show the relevance of IR and IRF/E techniques to SLA via modified output. The third article uses a combination of student responses on exit surveys and conversational excerpts to evaluate the efficacy of the SHH program. It reveals mainly positive conceptions of the program and makes recommendations for improvements. The findings of this research provide a complete picture of the complex relationship between student, instructor, and institution. It has implications for second language acquisition (SLA), pedagogy, and program administration.

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Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Sciences du langage : Lyon 2 : 2002. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr. Index.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Linguistics & Psychology, Department of Linguistics, 2006. / Bibliography: p. 319-326.

L'objet de ce travail de thèse est la description linguistique de la modalité interrogative en conversation spontanée et en synchronie. Il s'agit d'abord de relever et d'évaluer tous les indices morphosyntaxiques qui permettent de faire état de l'information transmise. Puis, l'objectif est de mesurer l'implication dialogique du locuteur. On considère, à l'instar de [Damourette, 1911], qu'un énoncé interrogatif n'est complet que lorsqu'une réponse est apportée. Un locuteur formule sa question en fonction d'une image de réponse qu'il a présente à l'esprit et qui véhicule l'informalion-réponse tout autant qu'un contexte interactif et argumentatif. On peut émettre l'hypothèse que l'intentionnalité d'un locuteur se mesure en se fondant sur la réponse qu'il escompte, c'est-à-dire sur celle qu'il considère être non seulement la plus plausible au sein de sa représentation du monde, mais aussi la plus adéquate à la situation énonciative et dialogique. À partir de cette hypothèse, l'analyse a permis, de procéder à une description modélisée de l'interrogation en fonction de trois axes complémentaires. Cette description modélisée de l'interrogation a ensuite fait l'objet d'une confrontation à des données attestées de deux natures. Un premier corpus de Système de Questions/Réponses a permis de tester la modélisation tandis qu'un second corpus de SMS a permis de valider les modifications apportées. Cette ultime version du modèle a autorisé une description de l'interrogation en conversation spontanée dans la totalité des pratiques langagières observées. / The purpose of this thesis is the linguistic description of the interrogative modality in spontaneous conversation and in synchrony. First, the aim vvas to identify and evaluate all morphosyntactic clues that report the information transmitted. Then, the objective is to measure the dialogic involvement of the speaker. We consider, like [Damourette, 1911 ], an interrogative sentence is only complete when a response is made. A speaker formulates his question based on the image of a response in his mind, vvhich carries the information-response as well as an interactive and argumentative context. One can speculate that the intentionality of a speaker is measured based on the response he expects ; that is to say on that he considers not only the most plausible within its representation of the vvorld, but also the most appropriate to the dialogic utterance. According to this assumption, the analysis allowed to proceed to a modeled description, which based on three complementary dimensions. After a modeled descriplion, a confrontation with evidence of two kinds has been proposed. A first corpus derived from a Questions/Answers System vvas used to test the modeling while a second SMS corpus was used to validate the changes. This latest version of the model has allowed a description of the interrogation, in spontaneous conversation and in all observed utterances.