Definition and use
The term was coined by Victor Yngve in 1970, in the following passage: "In fact, both the person who has the turn and his partner are simultaneously engaged in both speaking and listening. This is because of the existence of what I call the back channel, over which the person who has the turn receives short messages such as 'yes' and 'uh-huh' without relinquishing the turn." Backchannel responses are a part of basic human interaction because to have a productive or meaningful person-person interaction humans must cooperate with one another when participating in a conversation. Meaning, when two people are involved in a conversation, at any given moment only one person is primarily speaking and the other is primarily listening, yet the listener is often giving minor messages through backchannel responses. The term "backchannel" was designed to imply that there are two channels ofApplicability
Backchannel responses can show that the listener understands, agrees, is surprised by, is angered by, and more by what the speaker is saying. Backchannel communication is present in all cultures and languages, though frequency and use may vary. For example, backchannel responses are not only a key component of oral languages but they are also important in sign languages. Another example is Germans produce smaller backchannel responses and use back channel responses less frequently. Confusion or distraction can occur during an intercultural encounter if participants from both parties are not accustomed to the same backchannel norms. Studies have shown that when people learn a second language they learn or adapt to how people that are native speakers of that language use backchannel responses. This may occur in terms of the frequency that a person produces backchannel responses or what those responses sound like.Types
Research in recent years has expanded the set of recognized backchannel responses to include sentence completions, requests for clarification, brief statements, and non-verbal responses. These have been categorised as non-Non-lexical backchannels
A non-lexical backchannel is a vocalized sound that has little or no referential meaning but still verbalizes the listener's attention, and that frequently co-occurs with gestures. In English, sounds like ''uh-huh'' and ''hmm'' serve this role. Non-lexical backchannels generally come from a limited set of sounds not otherwise widely used in content-bearing conversational speech; as a result, they can be used to express support, surprise, or a need for clarification at the same time as someone else's conversational turn without causing confusion or interference. English allows for thePhrasal and substantive backchannels
One of the conversational functions of phrasal backchannels is to assess or appraise a previous utterance. Goodwin argues that this is the case for the phrasal backchannel ''oh wow'', where use of the backchannel requires a specific conversational context where something unexpected or surprising was said. Similarly, more substantive backchannels such as ''oh come on, are you serious?'' require a context where the speaker is responding to something exasperating or frustrating. In both of these cases, Goodwin argues that the backchannels focus only on addressing some aspect of the immediately preceding utterance rather than the larger conversation itself. They can appear both in the middle of extended talk as well as at the end of longer conversational turns.Recent research
Research in 2000 has pushed back on the notion of backchannels, in which the listener's role is merely to receive information provided by the speaker. Bavelas, Coates, and Johnson put forth evidence that listeners' responses help shape the content of the speaker's utterances. They grouped acknowledgment tokens into two categories: generic and specific. Generic responses could be considered backchannels and would include ''mm hm'' and ''yeah'', while specific responses would involve a reaction to the given content. Examples might include ''Oh!'' or a facial display of concern. They transcribed students telling a fellow participant about a close call experience that they had had. With one group of participants, they had the listener perform another task to distract them from the story being told. The researchers asked independent reviewers to code the verbal and visual responses of the narration events as generic or specific. They also asked other independent reviewers to gauge the quality of the narration in each case. They concluded that the responses from the distracted listeners included significantly fewer specific responses than from the undistracted listeners. In addition, they found that the quality of the narration was dramatically lower when the listener was distracted. Their basic contention was that listeners are co-narrators and help the storyteller in his or her narration. In other words, a storyteller tells a better story with an audience that is engaged than one that is not. Tolins and Foxtree have also published research demonstrating how backchannel communication influences speakers. Their research was specifically looking at how speakers respond to generic responses compared to specific responses. In 2017, Kyoto University's Graduate program of Informatics began developing a robot to assist individuals, more specifically the elderly, with mental health through the use of attentive listening. They utilized backchannel generation as a method for the robot to have some form of feedback to feel like a real conversation. Further research is being conducted to be more practical. In 1997 there was a study on 205,000 telephone utterances that showed 19% of those constituted a "backchannel". This study was a part of a new method of "discourse detection" and "statistical modeling" that allowed them to have such a large sample size, giving the possibility of generalizing this data to larger communities.See also
*References
{{Reflist Linguistics Sociolinguistics