A Pragmatic Approach to Fluency and Disfluency in Learner Language: Cofluencies as Aites of Sccountability, Sequentiality, and Multimodality

Description

This monograph presents analyses of filled and unfilled pauses, cut-offs, repair, discourse markers and other phenomena often referred to as disfluencies in the context of advanced language learners' PowerPoint presentations. It adopts a multimodal perspective to demonstrate the functions of these elements in interaction. Paired with gaze shifts, pointing gestures and posture shifts, they act as facilitators of joint visual orientation, mutual understanding, and accountable actions. Therefore, this volume suggests the name cofluency to reflect their potential functionality. Cofluencies are essential elements of multimodal chunks and multimodal patterns, and these are building blocks of a multimodal turn-taking mechanism for presentations. These concepts are illustrated and discussed based on excerpts from naturally occurring classroom data. Table of contents Acknowledgements 1 Introduction 2 Fluency and disfluency 3 Data and methodology 4 Multimodal patterns in learner presentations – an analysis of slide shifts 5 Um or uh and gaze shift as multimodal chunk 6 The coordination of slide shifts: Copresenter involvement 7 Discussion 8 Conclusion References Appendix: Transcription conventions Index