Telephone interactions
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Eric Friginal
Abstract
This chapter presents the functional features of linguistic dimensions from three telephone-based interactions: (1) customer service transactions (Call Center corpus), (2) telephone conversations between friends and family members (Call Home corpus), and (3) spontaneous telephone exchanges between participants discussing topics identified by fixed prompts (Switchboard corpus). These three telephone-based corpora are then compared with data from face-to-face English conversation (American English Conversation corpus). Linguistic comparisons across these registers followed a corpus-based, multidimensional analytical approach developed by Biber (1988) using established dimensions of customer service talk from Friginal (2008). Results suggest that variation in these spoken interactions is largely influenced by the nature of conversational tasks and the use of the telephone as a medium in communicating ideas, opinions, or instructions. Keywords: Multidimensional analysis; spoken corpora; telephone interactions
Abstract
This chapter presents the functional features of linguistic dimensions from three telephone-based interactions: (1) customer service transactions (Call Center corpus), (2) telephone conversations between friends and family members (Call Home corpus), and (3) spontaneous telephone exchanges between participants discussing topics identified by fixed prompts (Switchboard corpus). These three telephone-based corpora are then compared with data from face-to-face English conversation (American English Conversation corpus). Linguistic comparisons across these registers followed a corpus-based, multidimensional analytical approach developed by Biber (1988) using established dimensions of customer service talk from Friginal (2008). Results suggest that variation in these spoken interactions is largely influenced by the nature of conversational tasks and the use of the telephone as a medium in communicating ideas, opinions, or instructions. Keywords: Multidimensional analysis; spoken corpora; telephone interactions
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of Contributors vii
- Foreword ix
-
Introduction
- Douglas Biber and the Flagstaff School of corpus-based research xv
- A corpus-based analysis of linguistic variation in teacher and student presentations in university settings 1
- Telephone interactions 25
- On the complexity of academic writing 49
- Telling by omission 79
- Corpora, context, and language teachers 99
- The challenge of constructing a reliable word list: An exploratory corpus-based analysis of lexical variability in introductory Psychology textbooks 123
- Corpus linguistics and New Englishes 147
- Investigating textual borrowing in academic discourse 177
- Situating lexical bundles in the formulaic language spectrum 197
- Index 217
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of Contributors vii
- Foreword ix
-
Introduction
- Douglas Biber and the Flagstaff School of corpus-based research xv
- A corpus-based analysis of linguistic variation in teacher and student presentations in university settings 1
- Telephone interactions 25
- On the complexity of academic writing 49
- Telling by omission 79
- Corpora, context, and language teachers 99
- The challenge of constructing a reliable word list: An exploratory corpus-based analysis of lexical variability in introductory Psychology textbooks 123
- Corpus linguistics and New Englishes 147
- Investigating textual borrowing in academic discourse 177
- Situating lexical bundles in the formulaic language spectrum 197
- Index 217
