Turn-taking in collaborative storytelling

This conversation-analytic paper investigates the multimodal design and interactional functions of the connective et puis après (‘and then after that’) in a French-language corpus of video-recorded collaborative storytellings. Two similar, yet different, sequential positions are investigated: the juncture between subsequent story episodes and the space between extended side sequences and the return to the story-in-progress. Such juncture positions constitute recognizable moments at which both members of the telling party, i. e., the current teller and the co-teller, must determine the topic of the next story episode as well as its delivery. Thus, juncture positions provide a perspicuous setting for the analysis of how tellership is negotiated and how topic progression is achieved. The connective et puis après appears to be a resource for current tellers to establish spaces for coparticipation at juncture positions, closing prior talk and projecting continuation. The multimodal analysis shows that both its prosodic design and co-occurring changes of the embodied participation framework contribute to opening interactive turn spaces and to making telling-specific next actions relevant.

Assessment by Thai academic English writing teachers of the flow of given to new topic information within academic writing

Adhering to a structured process of the flow of given to new topic information within academic written discourse is a significant challenge for most tertiary-level non-native EFL students. The progression of given to new topic information in written academic text is equally difficult for many non-native academic English writing teachers to distinguish, much less assess. This research seeks to determine if given to new information progression can be significantly identified, and explore the possibility of such topic progression being utilized as a practical form of academic writing assessment by experienced Thai tertiary teachers of academic English. Multiple Linear Regression was employed to determine the relationship between the Thai writing teachers' identification of the flow of given to new topic information and a preliminary analysis of topic information flow by a qualified native English writing teacher. The insights gained from this study show that the Thai academic English writing teachers could not significantly detect the presence of given to new topic information progression within the academic texts. The implication of this research suggests that at this time, the practical utilization of a given to new progression analysis may not be a feasible evaluative measure in written assessments for Thai academic English writing teachers.

News Discourse in Translation: Topical Structure and News Content in the Analytical News Article

Topical structure in news translation has received relatively little attention despite its stated significance in discourse content and in producing functionally adequate translations. Journalists write news stories with a given structure, order, viewpoint and values, which are “transferred” in translation and affect the way topics are organized. This study explores how shifts in topical development in translation influence rhetorical structure and ultimately news content. Using Lautamatti’s Topical Structure Analysis and Bell’s Event Structure Model, the paper describes the translation strategies applied in (re)producing the source text’s topical and event structures in the target language in a corpus of Hungarian–English news texts (the summary sections of analytical news articles). Results show that while translators generally preserve the sources’ structure in translation, in some cases (e.g. sequential topic progression) significant changes occur, altering the status of some information as well as the event structure, thus producing modified news contents. The paper also examines whether the claim that news translation is influenced by norms similar to those regulating news production more generally applies to this news genre, too. Findings suggest that due to the stereotypical features of this genre, the data only partially support this claim.

The Relationship Between Types Of Paragraphs And Topic Progression Used In Paragraphs Written By Iranian EFL Students

Using Lautmattis (1978) framework, this study examines the types of topic progression techniques used in 120 paragraphs written by 40 Iranian undergraduate students. Each student was asked to write three types of paragraphs; namely, those of comparison and contrast, cause-effect, and chronology. The present study investigates the relationship between the types of paragraphs and types of topic progression techniques used in them. As the results of the Chi-square test show, there is a relationship between types of paragraphs and types of topic progression techniques. In paragraphs of comparison and contrast, sequential progression (38.44%); in paragraphs of cause-effect, sequential progression (34.72%); and in paragraphs of chronology, extended parallel progression (35.52%) were the most frequently used types of topic progression.

Referenciação e progressão tópica: aspectos cognitivos e textuais

This paper analyzes the relation between topic progression (maintenance of theme) and referetiation (process of the organization of referents) throughout a text. From a cognitive point of view we know that the user’s (producers and receivers) task is made more difficult if the investiment in shared knowledge and new knowledge is not managed with equilibrium. Therefore, we postulate that textual progression and its correlation with stable cognitive models is a complex activity of explicitation realized by means of repetition, cognitive pressupposition, lexical selection, syntactic decisions, and so forth. This study, then, is an attempt to define parameters taken from textual production that are valid for a set of differentiated discursive genres.

Analyzing Topical Structure in ESL Essays

Topical structure analysis (TSA), a text-based approach to the study of topic in discourse, has been useful in identifying text-based features of coherence. It has also been used to distinguish between essays written by groups of native English speakers with varying degrees of writing proficiency (Witte, 1983a, 1983b). More recently, TSA has distinguished between higher and lower rated ESL essays, but with different results from those found with native speakers of English (Connor & Schneider, 1988). The present study replicated the previous ESL study of two groups of essays written for the TOEFL Test of Written English with three groups of essays. Findings indicate that two topical structure variables, proportions of sequential and parallel topics in the essays, differentiate the highest rated group from the two lower rated groups. We offer explanations for the results and propose that all occurrences of a particular type of topic progression do not contribute equally to the coherence of a text.