Production of Back-Channel Feedback in Japanese 

may involve a Prosodically Triggered Reflex


Nigel Ward and Wataru Tsukahara

Journal of Pragmatics


Abstract

In Japanese, back-channel feedback is cued by a prosodic feature,
namely a region of low pitch.  
This is readily observable, is measurable in corpus data, and accounts
for some instances of back-channel feedback which are not responses to
meaning, not responses to utterance end, or not responses to cue
words.
Anecdotal evidence further suggests that the production of
back-channel feedback is partly a reflex.
This suggests a way to resolve a debate on the theoretical status of
conversation rules: they can be valid objects of study,
under the interpretation that they involve reflexes.

This paper also discusses
other cues to back-channel feedback,
factors which inhibit back-channel feedback,
issues in the definition of back-channel feedback,
the compositional meaning of back-channel grunts,
experiments with a computer conversationalist,
the role of a low pitch cue in back-channel production in English,
the possible significance for phonological theory,
and methods for the analysis of conversation phenomena.*