Quantitative Analysis of Gazes and Grounding Acts in L1 and L2 Conversations

Abstract

The listener’s gazing activities during utterances were analyzed in a face-to-face three-party conversation setting. The function of each utterance was categorized according to the Grounding Acts defined by Traum (Traum, 1994) so that gazes during utterances could be analyzed from the viewpoint of grounding in communication (Clark, 1996). Quantitative analysis showed that the listeners were gazing at the speakers more in the second language (L2) conversation than in the native language (L1) conversation during the utterances that added new pieces of information, suggesting that they are using visual information to compensate for their lack of linguistic proficiency in L2 conversation.

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