What's unique about face-to-face dialogue?

What's unique about face-to-face dialogue?
Hand gestures, figurative language, facial displays, and direct quotation

Janet Bavelas, Ph.D., F.R.S.C.

Department of Psychology, University of Victoria

Victoria, BC, Canada

Abstract:

Many scholars propose that face-to-face dialogue is the fundamental form of language use. Our ongoing research program seeks experimental evidence for this unique status. We are discovering that dialogue itself has a significant effect on the participant’s use of demonstration. Demonstration is a language modality in which the speaker uses an icon or image of the referent, e.g., hand and facial gestures. Recent results reveal that some verbal forms of demonstration such as figurative language and direct quotation are also strongly linked to dialogue and are suppressed in monologue (i.e., where there is no addressee). This research calls into question two widespread beliefs: that verbal and nonverbal acts are fundamentally different and that one can learn about dialogue by studying individuals.

About Janet Bavelas:

Janet Bavelas is Prof. Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Victoria (Canada). She holds several elected fellowships (including the Royal Society of Canada) and has been a member of many governmental councils and boards of directors (including the Int. Communication Association and the Int. Society for Gesture Studies). Janet Bavelas has pioneered the study of dialog and social behavior and has published numerous seminal papers and books in this realm. Her empirical work intriguingly elucidated the underpinnings of human communication and the many behavioral facets of this activity in language, gesture, facial displays, feedback, gaze, or motor mimicry. She was among the first to arrive at a "radically social" view on face-to-face dialogue, which highlights the specifics of interacting in a social context and underlines the tight integration between modalities and interactants. Since the 90-ies of the last century, gestures in interaction, their functions in different verbal and situational contexts and finally, the traces of these properties in the gesture morphology itself have been among Janet Bavelas and her co-workers’ prominent research topics. Her seminal work has been a unique line of research that already has and increasingly will point up future directions for the study of human communication and the development of interaction technology as done in Bielefeld in SFB 673 and CITEC.