A pervasive set of Japanese terms called aizuchi (“eye-ZOO-chee”) serve as these expressions, which facilitate turn-taking. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name these phatic expressions that convey engagement with, and attention to, conversation partners. English often uses reduplication in these utterances, like “uh-huh” and “mm-hmm.”
ANSWER: backchannels [or backchanneling]
[10e] Backchanneling, phatic expressions, and turn-taking fall under the purview of this subfield, which draws heavily on Grice’s maxims. This linguistic subfield studies how context influences language.
ANSWER: pragmatics
[10m] Turn-taking can also be facilitated by these questions that add a hedge or request for clarification at the end of a sentence. Janet Holmes found that women used more “affective” or “facilitative” examples of these questions than men.
ANSWER: tag questions [or question tags]
<Social Science>