WHEN THE TOKENS TALK: IRF AND THE POSITION OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TOKENS IN TEACHER-STUDENT TALK-IN-INTERACTION
Journal Title: Novitas-ROYAL (Research on Youth and Language) - Year 2015, Vol 9, Issue 1
Abstract
In classroom settings, students` competence is regularly evaluated through a default practice named Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) or Initiation-Response-Evaluation (IRE). In the feedback or evaluation turn, the teacher normally uses acknowledgement tokens (such as uhm, yeah, okay). These tokens perform an active role of maintaining listenership as well as helping the speakers to buy the necessary time to prepare the right answers or expressions, especially in ‘response’ (R) turns. The aim of this paper is to study how the ‘acknowledgement tokens’ are placed within the framework of teacher-nominated IRF sequences and to explore the recognizable pattern of ‘okay’ responses within an IRF framework. The findings suggest an interesting distribution of these tokens, especially with the classifications of ‘strong acknowledgement tokens’ (such as: yeah or okay) and ‘passive recipiency tokens’ (such as: uhm, uhhm, or hmm). Moreover, the findings suggest that the usage of ‘ok’ responses invites further talk as well as an imminent closure. The findings of this study could be used to create a learner-friendly and inclusive classroom.
Authors and Affiliations
Rizwan ul HUQ, Alia Amir
“KUKI GA YOMENAI”: SITUATED FACE-THREATENING ACT WITHIN JAPANESE SOCIAL INTERACTION
VIETNAMESE FEMALE SPOUSES’ LANGUAGE USE PATTERNS IN SELF INITIATED ADMONISHMENT SEQUENCES IN BILINGUAL TAIWANESE FAMILIES
This paper aims to identify how Taiwanese and Mandarin (the two dominant languages in Taiwan) are used as interactional resources by Vietnamese female spouses in bilingual Taiwanese families. Three Vietnamese-Taiwanese t...
A FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH HUMANITIES AND BIOCHEMISTRY WRITING WITH RESPECT TO TEACHING UNIVERSITY COMPOSITION
This paper uses Systemic Functional Linguistics to examine how writing differs in both English departments and Biochemistry departments in realization at the lexico-grammatical level; and thus, how the differing writing...
UNDERSTANDING THE REASONS BEHIND CHOOSING TO TEACH ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
This study reports on findings from an investigation into the reasons for year 1 students from the English Language Teaching Department at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey, for choosing teaching as a field of st...
ENGLISH EDUCATION AT UNIVERSITY LEVEL: WHO IS AT THE CENTRE OF THE LEARNING PROCESS?