Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1989. 19/3. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 19)

M. Deli, Ágnes: On the functions of Oack-ChanneLing

10 (yes) C that's a (good) point/thought L I think so, too etc. In view of Stubbs' analysis we assume that some supports are not merely back-channel items (Stubbs did not use this term here) but imply a borderline between those and agreement, i.e. they indicate a transition between feedback signals (BCH-s) and the listener's opinion i.e. agreement, which has propositional content and that such a contribution of the second speaker (previously being in the role of the listener) is a speaking turn. In this study we will rely on Oreström's classification of backchannels as well as use Stubbs' discussion of supports and propose some modifications as well as a scale along which the second speaker's utterances can be arranged according to the extent of his intellectual involvement in the first speaker's utterance. Thus we are supposed to arrive at a stage where the second speaker claims for a speaking turn and expresses his agreement with tiie previous speaker on what he has said. As exclamations and exclamatory questioos, though back-channel items, are of purely emotional character, and as such, cannot be included in the cline offered in Table 1. they will not be discussed iiere. For the labels suggested by Stubbs (1983) and üreström (1983) seern to be ambiguous in the name functional glosses will be used liere instead, partly in accordance with Stubbs, to indicate the difference in the function and semantic content of the items in guest ion as well as the different degrees to which the secood speaker is involved in tiie conversation regarding his intellectual and emotional attitude. Table 1. provides the summary of the possible semantic contents of backchannelling as well as the overlapping functions of the linguistic devices used for feedback signals and agreement. The horizontal scale beginning with a broken line and ending in a gradually increasing number of straight lines is meant to imply the strength of support on the part of the listener /=second speaker/. The more lie gets involved intellectually the stronger his support of the previous utterance appears to be.