Halbe2012

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Halbe2012
BibType ARTICLE
Key Halbe2012
Author(s) Dorothea Halbe
Title “Who’s there?”: differences in the features of telephone and face-to-face conferences
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, business meetings, discourse analysis, qualitative, workplace interaction
Publisher
Year 2012
Language
City
Month
Journal Journal of Business Communication
Volume 49
Number 1
Pages 48–73
URL Link
DOI 10.1177/0021943611425238
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

A significant part of the work in business settings, especially in multinational projects, is done through talking over the phone in conference calls. The differences in the setting in comparison with face-to-face meetings create a new dynamic of talk and turn taking because of the lack of body language. This article analyzes a number of the differences between these two types of meetings, using a corpus of (International) Business English, in which the multinational participants discuss an information technology research project. English is used as a lingua franca among participants from different companies and different nationalities (e.g., Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish). Features studied include self-identification, the number of turns, interruptions, overlaps, back-channeling behavior, pauses, side comments, small talk, breaks, distribution of talk, meeting structure, and length of conferences. The findings show that because of the lack of body language signals, there are differences in most of these features, for example, fewer interruptions, overlaps, and pauses in concalls than in face-to-face meetings. Small talk is restricted to the end or beginning of calls if it happens at all, side comments do not happen among the participants but may occur with people outside the conference. Back channels occur more frequently in conference calls, as they constitute the only means of communicating attention. The latter highlights the concerns for politeness to secure good working relationships in business relations.

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