The impact of backchannels on the perception of listening competence

In a conversation, a listener uses backchannels to signal that he or she is attending to what the speaker is saying. Although the relationship between backchanneling and listening has been referred to substantially in the literature (Fries, 1952; Yngve, 1970; Stubbe, 1998; Ward, Escalante, Al Bayyari & Solorio, 2007; Bodie, St. Cyr, Pence, Rold & Honeycutt, 2012), this relationship has been understudied experimentally. This thesis experimentally investigates the connection between backchanneling and how a listener is perceived—specifically, if the person is perceived as a competent listener or not. This thesis offers a novel methodology for experimentally researching the relationship between backchanneling and listening. The experimental section of this thesis is broken into two parts. In the first study, participants (n=70) were presented with an audio clip in which the quantity of backchannels uttered by the listener was manipulated. In the second study, an identical audio clip was presented to participants («=30). This time the placement of backchannels was manipulated. Though the results of both experimental studies were inconclusive, the research conducted nevertheless raised an important theoretical question, that is, how do the quantity and placement of backchannels used by a listener affect how they are perceived? Additionally, this thesis theoretically expands on perception studies in sociolinguistics, which have traditionally focused on how the speaker is perceived by others (Labov, 1966; Labov, 1972; Kramer, 1977; Feldstein, Dohm, & Crown, 2001; Campbell-Kibler, 2005). In contrast, the research detailed in this thesis focuses on how the listener is perceived. In doing so, this thesis offers one possible way that the concept of a competent listener can be operationalized (based on a framework provided by Bodie et. al., 2012). In this research, A competent listener is someone who understands the speaker, pays attention to the speaker, and is friendly towards the speaker.