UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

The concept of ‘backchannel’ refers to the signals recipients produce to demonstrate attention, understanding, or agreement without interrupting the current speaker or signer (Yngve, 1970). Research in this area has expanded to include lexical (e.g., okay, I see), non-lexical (e.g., mm) (Gardner 2001), and visual (e.g., nodding, smiling) cues (Mesch 2016), focusing on their roles in turn-taking, recipient engagement, timing, function, and cross-linguistic and individual variations. We invite contributions that explore the complexities of backchanneling, including its impact on conversational flow and its manifestation across different languages, language modalities, various populations and cultural contexts.

Building on the framework established by Pickering and Garrod (2004), this theme investigates how interactants synchronize their linguistic and non-linguistic behaviors. This phenomenon is known to occur at various linguistic levels, as well as through the use of visual cues like smiles and laughter in conversation (Ludusan & Wagner 2022; Kuder & Bauer 2024). We welcome studies examining the interplay between alignment, prediction, and comprehension, as well as the underlying physiological mechanisms. Topics of interest include syntactic, lexical, and prosodic alignment, the synchronization of spatial references, strategies for repairing misalignment, and the relationship between alignment and feedback (Coco, Dale, & Keller, 2018).

This theme explores the strategies interactants use to address misunderstandings and errors in conversation, such as clarification requests and self-repairs. Repair strategies are vital for maintaining interactional flow, and research in this area has deepened our understanding of self-repair, other-initiated repair, and the management of turn-taking during these processes (Schegloff et al., 1977; Dingemanse et al. 2015). Studies show that the morpho-syntactic structure of a language influences self-repair strategies (Fox et al., 2010). Sign languages, like spoken languages, also employ a conventionalized set of resources to indicate problems with perception and understanding (Manrique, 2016). We invite abstracts analyzing the shape and distribution of repair strategies and how these strategies vary across languages and cultures. Contributions exploring repair mechanisms in multi-party conversations and the interaction between verbal and non-verbal cues are highly welcome.

Turn-taking and the timing of turn transitions are critical components of effective communication. Pauses may be significant, especially when signaling misunderstanding (Mertens & De Ruiter, 2021), and conversational overlaps can occur without apparent reason. The time between successive turns is known to be very short—shorter than simple reactions to a turn ending can explain (De Ruiter, 2019). Recent studies have shown that turn-taking behaviors, such as response timing, significantly influence perceived fluency ratings, with differences observed between native and non-native speech. For example, overly eager or reluctant responses impact fluency ratings differently in native and non-native speech contexts (Van Os et al., 2020). Beyond feedback, this theme explores broader implications in areas such as human-computer interaction, second language learning, or cross-cultural communication. We invite innovative methodologies and theoretical frameworks that extend our understanding of feedback and other conversational mechanisms, especially those that challenge conventional boundaries of conversation analysis. Contributions might explore how timing affects the perception of feedback and other interactional moves, or how various contexts (e.g., virtual environments, multi-party dialogues) influence conversational dynamics.