General moves

Accept

An utterance that accepts a proposal, request, statement or information request . ”Good”, “very good”, ”that’s right” serve always as accept.

 Example (1) from (Allen and Core, 1997):
       A: Can you tell me the time?
       B: Yes (accept)

Example (2):

-Explainer: ['So what would that have to do', 'with gravity or astrophysics?']
-Explainee: ["Well, what I'm looking at is states of matter", 'that might exist inside neutron stars.', 'So, when a star dies, if the star is massive enough,', "there's a huge explosion, called a supernova,", "and the stuff that's left behind", "that doesn't get blown away", 'collapses into a tiny compact blob', 'called a neutron star.']
-Explainer: ['So what I love about neutron stars personally', "is that they're kind of city-sized,", 'right?']
-Explainee: [That's right.] ---> Accept

Accept-part

An utterance that accepts part of a proposal, request, statement or information request \parencite{karagjosova2005dialogue}. Implicitly, it rejects another part of the utterance, but we only code what is explicitly accepted. When an utterance does both explicitly, it should be segmented it into two units and labelled accordingly.

Acknowledge

Acknowledgments are utterances consisting of short phrases such as “ok”, “yes”, “uh-huh”, that signal that the previous utterance was understood without necessarily signaling acceptance. They do not resolve the content of the utterance they address. ”right”, ”alright” and ”ok” are ambiguous. They are commonly only an acknowledge when they are followed by a hint. ”OK” is commonly used after a not totally wrong answer.

Action directive

An utterance that requests an action to be performed, i.e., commands, pleas etc.

Example (1):

    -"Please show that..."

Example (2):

-Explainer: [Try look over there and concentrate on his face over there., 'Can you see me waving my hand without turning your eyes?'] --> Action directive
-Explainee: ['No.']
-Explainer: ['Alright, so, at some point,', 'you can probably see it right now?', 'So without moving your eyes, this is kind of hard,', "tell me how many fingers I'm holding up?"]
-Explainee: ['Uh, three?']

Backchannel response

A backchannel response can be verbal, non-verbal, or both. Backchannel responses are often phatic expressions, primarily serving a social or meta-conversational purpose, such as signifying the listener's attention, understanding, or agreement, rather than conveying significant information. Examples of backchanneling in English include such expressions as "yeah", "uh-huh", "hmm", and "right".

Commit

An utterance with which the speaker commits himself to a future course of action. An utterance that accepts an action directive or open option will typically be a commit. “Okay” can be also a commit. The speaker’s commitment does not depend on the acceptance of the commitment by the hearer, e.g.,as in the case of a promise.

Completion

An utterance that shows ”understanding by finishing or adding to the clause that a speaker is in the middle of constructing”

Continuer

A continuer is a short utterance which plays discourse-structuring roles like indicating that the other speaker should go on talking, such as “uh-huh” and “okay”

Example (1):

-Explainer: ["So today, we're gonna talk about blockchain technology."]
-Explainee: [Okay.] --->Continuer 
-Explainer: ['[Bettina] Have you ever heard of blockchain?']
-Explainee: ['I have.', "Whenever we have a transaction, and let's say", 'I buy something from you, this information gets logged.', 'And it gets verified by a third person or third party.', 'And then if like all this information verified', 'and it all matches, right, the transaction goes through', 'without any intermediary basically, right?', 'It gets stored, and when you make further transactions,', 'this information is ready, embedded.', "It's in the ledger."]

Example (2):

Gratitude

An utterance that expresses gratitude.

-Explainer: ['[Janna laughs]']
-Explainee: ["It's sort of like there's a description", 'that works pretty well.']
-Explainer: ["Yeah, you don't go to the doctor and say,", "Heisenberg's uncertainty principle caused", 'a series of fluctuations.']
-Explainee: ['Right, would you help me?', "So there's so many open questions.", 'The fact that they are all these fundamental issues', "that we really don't understand.", "But, on the other hand, there's all these moving parts", 'that fit together so neatly.', "There's definitely something that's working here.", 'But ultimately what is gonna emerge from that,', "what structure is lying under it, we just don't know.", 'But I think the fact that there are', 'so many fundamental questions', "that we just don't know the answer to,", "that is an opportunity, that's exciting, it's great."]
-Explainer: [Thanks so much for coming. It's really good to have you here.] -->Gratitude
-Explainee: [Thank you very much, Janna, it was my pleasure.] -->Gratitude

Maybe

An utterance with which the speaker ”explicitly states that he cannot give a definite answer at the moment”. Examples: "I’ll have to think about it."

-Explainer: ["We're gonna talk about some science.", 'Do you like science?']
-Explainee: ['Yes, a lot.']
-Explainer: ['Oh, very good.', "You've come to the right place.", "So we're gonna think about physics.", 'Have you heard the word physics before?', 'Do you know what that is?']
-Explainee: ['Yeah, kind of.']
-Explainer: ["What's your idea what physics is?"]
-Explainee: ["Um, I'm not so sure.] --> Maybe

non-lexical backchannel

Non-lexical backchannel is a type of backchannel response. A non-lexical backchannel is a vocalized sound that has little or no referential meaning but still verbalizes the listener's attention, and that frequently co-occurs with gestures. In English, sounds like uh-huh and hmm serve this role. Non-lexical backchannels generally come from a limited set of sounds not otherwise widely used in content-bearing conversational speech; as a result, they can be used to express support, surprise, or a need for clarification at the same time as someone else's conversational turn without causing confusion or interference. English allows for the reduplication, or repetition, of syllables within a non-lexical backchannel, such as in responses like uh-huh, mm-hm, or um-hm, as well as for single-syllable backchanneling. In a study examining the use of two-syllable backchannels that focused on mm and mm-hm, Gardner found that the two tokens are generally not identical in function, with mm being used more productively as a continuer, a weak acknowledgment token, and a weak assessment marker. In contrast, mm-hm is generally used as a backchannel to signal that the speaker is yielding their conversational turn and allowing the other speaker to maintain control of the conversational floor.

Offer

An utterance by which the speaker indicates willingness to commit to an action, if the hearer accepts it

-Explainer:	['Do you know what origami is?']
-Explainee:	['Is that where you fold paper', 'to make different animals, like those?']
-Explainer:	['Yes, in fact it is.', 'Have you ever done any origami before?']
-Explainee:	['Nope.']
-Explainer:	['[Robert] Would you like to give it a try?] ---> Offer
-Explainee:	['Sure.']

Phrasal backchannel

Phrasal backchannel is a type of backchannel response. Phrasal backchannels most commonly assess or acknowledge a speaker's communication with simple words or phrases (for example, "Really?" or "Wow!" in English). One of the conversational functions of phrasal backchannels is to assess or appraise a previous utterance.

-Example (1):

-Explainer: ['Okay.', "We're going to start with a model", 'that every Japanese person learns in kindergarten,', "it's called a crane, traditional origami design,", "it's over 400 years old.", "So, people have been doing what we're about to do", 'for 400 years.']
-Explainee: [Wow.] ---> Phrasal backchannel
-Explainer: ["Let's fold it in half from corner to corner, unfold it", "and then we'll fold it in half the other direction,", "also corner to corner but we're going to lift it up", "and we're going to hold the fold with both hands.", "We're going to bring these corners together,", 'making a little pocket and then,', 'this is the trickiest part of this whole design,', "so you're going to put your finger underneath the top layer", "and we're going to try to make that layer", 'fold right along the edge.', 'Now you see how the sides kind of want to come in', "as you're doing that?"]
-Explainee: ['Yeah.']
-Explainer: ["It's called a petal fold,", "it's a part of a lot of origami designs", "and it's key to the crane.", "Now we're ready for the magic.", "We're going to hold it in between thumb and forefinger,", 'reach inside,', "grab the skinny point that's between the two layers,", 'which are the wings,', "and I'm going to slide it out so it pokes out at an angle.", "We'll take the two wings, we spread them out to the side", 'and you have made your first origami crane.']
Explainee: [Wow.] ---> Phrasal backchannel

-Example (2):

-Explainer: ["Do you know what we're gonna talk about today?", "It's called blockchain."]
-Explainee: ["What's blockchain?"]
-Explainer: ["That's a really good question.", "It's actually a way that we can trade.", 'Do you know what trade is?']
-Explainee: ["Mmm-hmm, it's when you take turns doing something.", "It's when you give up most of what you want, right?"]
-Explainer: ['When you give up most of what you want?', 'Well, sometimes that definitely happens for sure.', 'What if I told you that this is the kind of technology', 'that I work on that means you could trade', 'with any kid all over the world?']
-Explainee: [Really?] ---> Phrasal backchannel
-Explainer: ['Yeah.']

-Example (3):

-Explainee: ['Connectone?']
-Explainer: ['Connectome.']
-Explainee: ['To be honest, I have no idea.']
-Explainer: ["That's good, that's a great place to start.", 'There are cells in your brain.', 'Those brain cells are connected by wires to each other.', 'Electricity travels down those wires and communicates', 'from one part of the brain to the other part of the brain,', 'and each of those brain cells makes, you know,', "a thousand connections, it's something like", 'a hundred trillion connections.']
-Explainee: [Whoa.] ---> Phrasal backchannel

Reassert

The same as assert, but the speaker thinks that the claim has already been made, and indicates it.

Reject

An utterance that rejects a proposal, request, statement or information request. It says nothing positive about the antecedent (possibly indicating error). It can be implicit or contain ”no” or “not”.

The following statements indicate reject moves:

-That's not a statement.
-One cannot conclude that.
-That is not the way to go.
-What you answered is not clear.
-This is not a complete statement.
-This is incomplete or not entirely correct.
-This is not a complete expression.
-You did not apply the rule correctly.

Reject-part

An utterance that rejects partly a proposal, request, statement or information request. It implicitly accepts another part of the utterance, but we only code what is explicitly rejected.

Example (1):

-That is not entirely correct.

Repeat rephrase

This move is “...used for utterances that repeat or paraphrase what was just said in order to signal that the speaker has been understood...[they] do not necessarily make any further commitment as to whether the responder agrees with or believes the antecedent.”

Rephrasing

Rephrasing is an explanation move where the explanandum is phrased or expressed in a different way especially to make the meaning clearer

Satisfaction

An utterance which expresses a positive emotion.

Example (1):

-Explainer: ['Have you ever traded or sold anything?']
-Explainee: ["Actually, I'm selling my computer on eBay right now."]
-Explainer: ["That's amazing.", 'What made you decide to trade on eBay?']
-Explainee: ["Well, I mean, I've heard of it,", 'and I trust it a lot because they have', "all of their guarantees, so I know that I'm gonna", "get money and the person's gonna get what they want."]
-Explainer: ['So what if I told you that blockchain technology', 'is basically a tool where you can do the exact same thing,', 'but it goes to you and I directly?', "You wouldn't need an eBay or a brand in between."]
-Explainee: [That's cool.] ---> Satisfaction

Example (2):

Substantive backchannel

is a type of backchannel response. Substantive backchannels consist of more substantial turn-taking by the listener and usually manifest as asking for clarification or repetitions. More substantive backchannels such as "oh come on, are you serious?" require a context where the speaker is responding to something exasperating or frustrating.