Conversations IntraGender

Conversation Analysis

Each conversation is accompanied by an analysis to give a quick evaluative summation of the students’ performance along with a recommendation of how the students could do better. Various patterns of fluency and dysfluency might be cited if the issue is relevant to the video / transcript.


 

 

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Intragender Conversations

Takuya and Ryuta

Takuya and Ryuta

Session Adv 2 : Female 1 to Female 2 Statistics Number of Words: 660...

Yuusei and Ryutaro

Yuusei and Ryutaro

This discussion between Yuusei and Ryutaro show a relatively average speaking rate, with Yuusei having far more number of words than Ryutaro, 451 to 260, who uses far too many minimal responses. Acoustic dysfluency is low, as is the overall amount of silence for both speakers 1.5%, with no cross-talk pausing. Both speakers are animated and fully engaged. Lexical dysfluency is extremely low, as is syntactic dysfluency. MLRs are relatively high for both speakers, 19.3 and 12.2, despite Ryotaro’s minimal responses. In short, this interaction about shopping and anime easily shows that dysfluency can be masked, insofar that Ryutaro did have a few very long responses that balanced out his rather short replies.

Yumi and Yuika

Yumi and Yuika

This discussion between Yumi and Yuika shows another relatively unbalanced discussion between females. Yumi is producing three times the number of words to Yuika, (238 words to 88) furthermore, Yuika has far too many minimal responses. Yuika’s MLRs, are only 4.2 syllables compared to Yumi’s 13.2. The speaking rates for both girls are very low: 54.3 for Yumi, with a dismal 37.7 for Yuika; however, the amount of silence is low, 5.0% or 17.8 seconds. While Yumi has higher production, she also has a higher rate of meaningless syllables (22 compared to Yuika’s 3). The interchange is the shortest of the corpora due to time considerations for this particular session, but it does give an adequate picture of how same-sex discussions can be more dysfluent than gendered ones, but this, of course, is case-by-case.

Shunichiro and Koki

Shunichiro and Koki

This discussion between Shunichiro and Koki shows a fairly typical interaction for participants at this level. Acoustic, lexical and syntactical dysfluency are quite low and the MLRs are almost native level. In fact, there are few minimal responses; in addition, the amount of silence is also low, 5.0% or 38.5 seconds, with no cross-talk pausing. The speaking rate is average for Shunichiro and a bit higher for Koki, and while Shunichiro does have a bit too much repetition there is no retracing on his part. Shuniricho has a higher number of words compared to Koki, 610 to 434. In short, this reflects a fairly high level of fluency for participants at this level of proficiency.

Natsumi and Harumi

Natsumi and Harumi

This conversation between Harumi and Natsumi shows a relatively average speaking rate for Natsumi (90.5) and a low one for Harumi (65.7). This is one of the more unbalanced intragender interactions in the corpus, with Natsumi having almost three times the number of words than Harumi. While acoustic dysfluency is relatively low at 18.9 seconds of silence or 3.2%, and only 5.6 cross-talk pausing, and with lexical dysfluency also being low, there is an illusion of fluency, but the low speaking rate does take a toll, as does the issues in syntactic dysfluency, with a lot of retracing on the part of Natsumi, 17 occurrences, and repetition, 42, occurrences. Harumi also had a high rate in this regard, 27. As for MLRs Harumi only had 4.4 compared to Natsumi’s 10.7. Meaningless syllables were also very high for both speakers, which makes this interaction, while animated, difficult to listen to.

Takumi and Ryotaro

Takumi and Ryotaro

Takumi and Ryotaro have a fairly animated discussion with relatively high speaking rate, and very low acoustic dysfluency, total amount of silence is only 1.4% and with no cross-talk pausing. Similarly, lexical dysfluency is low as well, with only a high use of L1 on the part of Takumi (14 occurrences). MLRs are also approaching native use (12.9 / 13.6), and the conversation is rather balanced 274 words / 305 words, the only drawback is the high level of meaningless syllables. The conversation is some more “fluent” insofar that minimal responses are fewer.

Toko and Kaho

Toko and Kaho

The conversation between the two girls is balanced and with little lexical and acoustic dysfluency and with only some syntactic dysfluency being noted, insofar as to retracing, repetition, and meaningless syllables. The number of words is bit more balanced but Kaho is roughly a 100 hundred shy of Toko’s number of words at 365. While there are longer and more informative utterances, many of them are somewhat comprehensible due to the fragmentation and level of grammatical accuracy. However, both girls share enough background about Kitakyushu and Fukuoka that an animated and successful conversation was possible, despite the dysfluency.

Yuki and Hikaru

Yuki and Hikaru

This discussion between Yuki and Hikaru reflects a high speaking rate, with a low percentage of silence (5.6%) and little lexical and syntactic analysis, though there is a high level of repetition with Yuki. Mean length runs are rather short, 6.2 and 7.7. and the number of words is about low (281) to average (369). The conversation is spirited and the men are engaged. I would recommend that both men take more time to explain and to provide more background when telling a story or explaining a preference.

Megumi and Yuri

Megumi and Yuri

This discussion between Yuri and Megumi shows a higher level of speaking rate for Yuri, 104.6, and a lower one for Megumi. There is a low rate of silence of 5.7% The girls are are very animated, Mean length runs are 7.6 for Yuri’s and 6.5 for Megumi. And there is low acoustic dysfluency 5.0%, as well as a low lexical and syntactic dysfluency, though the levels of repetition could be lower. The interaction is balanced, with 254 words for Yuri and 248 for Megumi. In short, this is a good example of fluency in same-sex interactions, though minimal responses are bit too frequent.

Nozomi and Nanami

Nozomi and Nanami

This discussion is notable insofar that there is an extremely high level of silence, particularly with cross-talk pausing, 125.3 seconds, and overall there was a 184.6 seconds or 29.9%. This reflects that the two women were somewhat ill-at-ease in finding common ground, though, again, this may not be apparent from just watching the video. Minimal responses are extremely common throughout this discussion, and MLRs are very short as well, 5.7 for Nanami and 5.6 for Nozomi. The number of words is on the low-side, around 253 and 223.

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