Papers by figures: conversation

Even apparently universal patterns (like the use of ‘mhm’ during tellings) can show important cross-cultural differences. A. Continuers (marked ○) are among the most frequent recipient behaviours in both English and Korean, shown here in four 80 second stretches of tellings. B. However, the relative frequency of continuers is about twice as high in Korean based on 100 random samples of 80 second segments in both languages: on average, 21% of turns are continuers in Korean, against 9% of turns in English (measures expressed this way to control for speech rate differences).