A study of phonetic realization of backchannels based on the functions
Heejae Jeong, Ji-Young Shin · Korean Semantics · 2023
Korean Semantics, 80. Previous studies have shown the functions performed by backchannels and identified their locations from a sentence perspective. In this study, we argued that the form, prosodic location, and prosodic realization patterns of backchannels exhibit more complex variations based on their functions, through an analysis of colloquial corpus. The form, prosodic location and timing, and duration of backchannels were measured and the differences between functions were tested using a corpus of 40 two-person conversation data. As a result, the form of backchannels mainly used varied depending on their functions. In addition, backchannels were most frequently used with the speech overlaps and the duration of backchannels was a significant factor in identifying functions. The realization of backchannel functions is complexly revealed through not only the forms used but also prosodic locations and cues. This study demonstrates the importance of researching backchannel using spoken Korean data.