Perspectives On Interaction

This volume in honor of Susan M. Gass focuses on interaction in second language acquisition from multiple perspectives. International experts in the field of SLA contribute insights and explanations on the interaction approach's compatibility with other theoretical approaches, key empirical studies, interaction in specific contexts, and future directions. Readers will find an enriching discussion of how the interaction research tradition is viewed in a wide range of different approaches to learning and teaching second languages.

This book gathers together 11 empirical-based studies of classroom interaction carried out in different countries, including the USA, England, Kenya, Sweden, and China. Along with a state-of-the-art literature review, the chapters provide key insights and engagement priorities that will prove relevant to a variety of learning and teaching contexts.

Interaction is a prominent part of our everyday life and experience; daily reality is constructed within the interactions that individuals establish with those around them, with whom they share experiences in a concrete context. Objects, phenomena and individuals permanently influence each other through this dynamic process. The authors of this volume engage in an on-going interpretative process of defining this influence, giving considerable attention to the way participants to interaction try to understand each other, to interpret each other’s activity and prove this in an explicit or implicit way through a variety of semiotic codes (verbal, nonverbal or paraverbal). The authors, implicitly, address the question: how do social actors (in their quality of translators, writers, painters or teachers) see the world around and the interactions between its constituent parts/activities/processes? The primary goal of Perspectives on Interaction is to bring together concerns, approaches, interpretations and analyses on the proposed topic. The authors, members of a young research group (“Cultural Spaces”), have examined various aspects through which interaction manifests itself in social practices, linguistics, translation studies, didactics and literary discourse. This has made possible the gathering of the material under four headings which constitute the chapters of the book: Translation as Interaction; Aspects of Social Interaction; Texts and Representations in Interaction; Interactive Practices in Literary Discourse. Ideas have been organized around some important key points: communication, action, interaction, competence, performance, linguistic and nonlinguistic signs. The volume will appeal to researchers and students working within the fields of translation, education, arts, discourse and literature, and offers inspiring topics and relevant research.

In the field of Second Language Studies, shared datasets provide a valuable contribution to second language research as many variables are held constant (e.g., participants, tasks, research context) thus allowing for an evaluation of theoretical and/or methodological perspectives that may not otherwise be comparable. This edited volume includes a wide range of studies using a common dataset (the Corpus of Collaborative Oral Tasks). The corpus includes 820 spoken tasks (268,927 words) carried out by dyads of L2 English speakers (primarily Chinese and Arabic learners). Studies included in the book are categorized into three main traditions: learner corpus research, Task-Based Language Teaching, and assessment. Because the corpus contains text and sound files, both lexico-grammatical and phonological analyses are included. Intended for researchers in the field of Second Language Studies with an interest in oral interaction research, this book provides a collection of methodological, pedagogical, and assessment studies using a common dataset.

This volume brings together empirical research that explores interaction in a wide range of educational settings. It includes work that takes a cognitive, brain-based approach to studying interaction, as well as studies that take a social, contextual perspective. Interaction is defined quite broadly, with many chapters focusing on oral interaction as is typical in the field, while other chapters report work that involves interaction between learners and technology. Several studies describe the linguistic and discourse features of interaction between learners and their interlocutors, but others demonstrate how interaction can serve other purposes, such as to inform placement decisions. The chapters in the book collectively illustrate the diversity of contemporary approaches to interaction research, investigating interactions with different interlocutors ( learner-learner, learner-teacher), in a variety of environments (classrooms, interactive testing environments, conversation groups) and through different modalities (oral and written, face-to-face and technology-mediated).

This is a collection of articles dealing with the point of view of symbolic interactionism and with the topic of methodology in the discipline of sociology. It is written by the leading figure in the school of symbolic interactionism, and presents what might be regarded as the most authoritative statement of its point of view, outlining its fundamental premises and sketching their implications for sociological study. Blumer states that symbolic interactionism rests on three premises: that human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings of things have for them; that the meaning of such things derives from the social interaction one has with one's fellows; and that these meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process.

Since interactions may occur between animals, humans, or computational agents, an interdisciplinary approach which investigates foundations of affective communication in a variety of platforms is indispensable. In the field of affective computing, a collection of research, merging decades of research on emotions in psychology, cognition and neuroscience will inspire creative future research projects and contribute to the prosperity of this emerging field. Affective Computing and Interaction: Psychological, Cognitive and Neuroscientific Perspectives examines the current state and the future prospects of affect in computing within the context of interactions. Uniting several aspects of affective interactions and topics in affective computing, this reference reviews basic foundations of emotions, furthers an understanding of the contribution of affect to our lives and concludes by revealing current trends and promising technologies for reducing the emotional gap between humans and machines, all within the context of interactions.

This volume presents a comprehensive, critical examination of current research methods used to study human social behavior as it occurs in interpersonal settings such as families, acquaintanceships, friendships, and romantic partnerships. Multidisciplinary in approach, the book's chapters are written by leading figures in communication, social psychology, sociology, and family studies who explore the methodological choices a researcher must make in order to study interpersonal interaction. To permit clear comparison, all chapters in this volume reference the same, common research problem to develop examples, illustrate controversial issues, and describe the potential of the particular method under discussion. Written in an accessible style, chapters openly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each method, consider underlying philosophy and assumptions, and note limitations as well as advantages. The result is an originally crafted work that offers readers a unique way to learn about, compare, and ultimately judge the many methods presently available to the researcher or student of interpersonal interaction. Part I considers the assumptions researchers must make about the nature of a social interaction in order to study it. Chapters address issues related to formulating research problems, choosing a research paradigm, determining a viewpoint (participant, peer, or observer) from which to gather data, deciding on appropriate levels and units of analysis, incorporating time, and assessing the mutual adaptation that characterizes interpersonal communication. Part II focuses on procedures for gathering data. These include using accounts and narratives, logs and diaries, retrospective self reports, discourse records, direct observation, and experimentation. Part III highlights new and newly re-discovered methods for analyzing interaction data. Assuming that the reader is familiar with traditional regression and mean-differences approaches, chapters build on this knowledge base to discuss content analysis, tests of sequential association in categorical data, ways of dealing with interdependence in dyadic data, and longitudinal analytic techniques such as time-series analysis, phasic analysis, and meta-analysis. The book concludes with a chapter that both summarizes previous chapters and convincingly argues for methodological pluralism. Encompassing the broad range of central concerns in designing research studies--from conceptualization, through assessment, to data analysis--this book is an ideal reference source for all those engaged in actual research projects. It is also highly valuable for advanced undergraduate and graduate methods courses.