Barbara A. Fox

Bio: Barbara A. Fox is an academic researcher from University of Colorado Boulder. The author has contributed to research in topics: Conversation analysis & Grammar. The author has an hindex of 35, co-authored 77 publications receiving 3689 citations. Previous affiliations of Barbara A. Fox include University of California, Los Angeles.

A Discourse Explanation of the Grammar of Relative Clauses in English Conversation.

Abstract: In the process of communicating, conversationalists constantly make decisions about their interlocutors' state of knowledge, and on the basis of these decisions make lexical, grammatical, and intonational choices about how to manage the 'flow' of information. This paper focuses on how such decision-making affects choices in relative clause constructions in American English conversations. On the basis of a quantitative analysis of a corpus of natural conversations, we show that the structural choices in relative clause constructions are best explained as symptoms of interactants' attention to information flow.*

Mercuric reductase. Purification and characterization of a transposon-encoded flavoprotein containing an oxidation-reduction-active disulfide.

Abstract: The flavoprotein mercuric reductase catalyzes the two-electron reduction of mercuric ions to elemental mercury using NADPH as an electron donor. It has now been purified from Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO9501 carrying the plasmid pVS1. In this plasmid system, where the mer operon is on the transposon Tn501, mercuric reductase comprises up to 6% of the soluble cellular protein upon induction with mercurials. The purification is a rapid (two-step), high yield (80%) procedure. Anaerobic titrations of mercuric reductase with dithionite revealed the formation of a charge transfer complex with an absorbance maximum around 540 nm. Striking spectroscopic similarities to lipoamide dehydrogenase and glutathione reductase were observed. These two enzymes, which catalyze the transfer of electrons between pyridine nucleotides and disulfides, are flavoproteins which contain an oxidation-reduction-active cysteine residue at the active site. The expectation that mercuric reductase contains a similar electron acceptor was confirmed when it was shown that mercuric reductase has the capacity to accept four electrons per FAD-containing subunit, and that two thiols become kinetically titrable by 5,5'-dithiobis-(2-nitrobenzoate) upon reduction with NADPH. These are characteristic features of the disulfide reductase class of flavoproteins. Further similarities with at least one of these enzymes, lipoamide dehydrogenase, include the E/EH2 midpoint potential (-269 mV), fluorescence properties, and extinction coefficients of E and EH2. Preliminary observations relevant to an understanding of the mechanism of mercuric reductase are discussed.

The language of turn and sequence

Abstract: 1: Cecilia E. Ford, Barbara A. Fox, and Sandra A. Thompson: Introduction 2: Cecilia E. Ford, Barbara A. Fox, and Sandra A. Thompson: Constituency and the Grammar of Turn Increments 3: Lisa Capps and Elinor Ochs: Cultivating Prayer 4: Charles Goodwin, Marjorie H. Goodwin, and David Olsher: Producing Sense with Nonsense Syllables: Turn and Sequence in Conversations with a Man with Severe Aphasia 5: Makoto Hayashi, Junko Mori, and Tomoyo Tagaki: Contingent Achievement of Co-Tellership in a Japanese Conversation: An Analysis of Talk, Gaze and Gesture 6: Sally Jacoby and Patrick Gonzales: Saying What Wasn't Said: Negative Observation as a Linguistic Resource for the Interactional Achievement of Performance Feedback 7: Marja-Leena Sorjonen: Recipient Activities: The Particle No as a Go-Ahead Response in Finnish Conversations 8: John Heritage: Oh-Prefaced Responses to Assessments: A Method of Modifying Agreement/Disagreement 9: Gene H. Lerner: Turn-Sharing: The Choral Co-Production of Talk-in-Interaction 10: Robert Jasperson: Some Linguistic Aspects of Closure Cut-Off Index

Interaction and grammar: Resources and repair: a cross-linguistic study of syntax and repair

Abstract: Introduction The organization of repair in conversation has been the focus of much work in conversation analysis and related fields over the last twenty years (e.g., Hockett, 1967; Du Bois, 1974; Jefferson, 1974, 1987; Moerman, 1977; Schegloff, Sacks, and Jefferson, 1977; Schegloff, 1979, 1987a; Goodwin, 1981; Levelt, 1982, 1983, 1989; Carbonell and Hayes, 1983; Hindle, 1983; Levelt and Cutler, 1983; Reilly, 1987; van Wijk and Kempen, 1987; Good, 1990; Postma, Kolk, and Povel, 1990; Bredart, 1991; Blacker and Mitton, 1991; Bear, Dowding, and Shriberg, 1992; Couper-Kuhlen, 1992; Local, 1992; Shriberg, Bear, and Dowding, 1992; Nakatani and Hirschberg, 1993). This work has uncovered the mechanisms of self- and other-initiation of repair, self- and other-achievement of repair, repair position, perception of repair, and so on. But within this fairly extensive literature, the relationships between repair and syntax have received relatively little attention (the major exceptions being Schegloff, 1979; Goodwin, 1981; Levelt, 1983; Geluykens, 1987; van Wijk and Kempen, 1987; Fox and Jasperson, frth.). And the operation of repair in different languages, with different syntactic systems, has, to the best of our knowledge, been the object of only a small body of research (see Schegloff, 1987b). This present study aims to begin to fill this gap by focusing on the syntax of repair from a cross-linguistic perspective. Cross-linguistic work on repair is especially compelling to us given our own, and others”, research on the relationships between same-turn (also known as first-position) self-repair and syntax in English conversation (Schegloff, 1979, this volume; Fox and Jasperson, frth.).

Discourse Structure and Anaphora: Written and Conversational English

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Conversation analysis 3. Anaphora in conversational English 4. Rhetorical structure analysis 5. Anaphora in expository written English texts 6. Anaphora in expository written and conversational English 7. Conclusions.

Speech and Language Processing: An Introduction to Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, and Speech Recognition

Abstract: From the Publisher: This book takes an empirical approach to language processing, based on applying statistical and other machine-learning algorithms to large corpora.Methodology boxes are included in each chapter. Each chapter is built around one or more worked examples to demonstrate the main idea of the chapter. Covers the fundamental algorithms of various fields, whether originally proposed for spoken or written language to demonstrate how the same algorithm can be used for speech recognition and word-sense disambiguation. Emphasis on web and other practical applications. Emphasis on scientific evaluation. Useful as a reference for professionals in any of the areas of speech and language processing.

Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach

Abstract: The article proposes a framework for the analysis of identity as produced in linguistic interaction, based on the following principles: (1) identity is the product rather than the source of linguis...

What do you mean by collaborative learning

Abstract: This book arises from a series of workshops on collaborative learning, that gathered together 20 scholars from the disciplines of psychology, education and computer science. The series was part of a research program entitled 'Learning in Humans and Machines' (LHM), launched by Peter Reimann and Hans Spada, and funded by the European Science Foundation. This program aimed to develop a multidisciplinary dialogue on learning, involving mainly scholars from cognitive psychology, educational science, and artificial intelligence (including machine learning). During the preparation of the program, Agnes Blaye, Claire O'Malley, Michael Baker and I developed a theme on collaborative learning. When the program officially began, 12 members were selected to work on this theme and formed the so-called 'task force 5'. I became the coordinator of the group. This group organised two workshops, in Sitges (Spain, 1994) and Aix-en-Provence (France, 1995). In 1996, the group was enriched with new members to reach its final size. Around 20 members met in the subsequent workshops, at Samoens (France, 1996), Houthalen (Belgium, 1996) and Mannheim (Germany, 1997). Several individuals joined the group for some time but have not written a chapter. I would nevertheless like to acknowledge their contributions to our activities: George Bilchev, Stevan Harnad, Calle Jansson and Claire O'Malley.

Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis

Abstract: Much of our daily lives are spent talking to one another, in both ordinary conversation and more specialized settings such as meetings, interviews, classrooms, and courtrooms. It is largely through conversation that the major institutions of our society - economy, religion, politics, family and law - are implemented. This book Emanuel Schegloff, the first in a series and first published in 2007, introduces the findings and theories of conversation analysis. Together, the volumes in the series constitute a complete and authoritative 'primer' in the subject. The topic of this first volume is 'sequence organization' - the ways in which turns-at-talk are ordered and combined to make actions take place in conversation, such as requests, offers, complaints, and announcements. Containing many examples from real-life conversations, it will be invaluable to anyone interested in human interaction and the workings of conversation.

Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition

Abstract: Child psychiatrists, pediatricians, and other child clinicians need to have a solid understanding of child language development. There are at least four important reasons that make this necessary. First, slowing, arrest, and deviation of language development are highly associated with, and complicate the course of, child psychopathology. Second, language competence plays a crucial role in emotional and mood regulation, evaluation, and therapy. Third, language deficits are the most frequent underpinning of the learning disorders, ubiquitous in our clinical populations. Fourth, clinicians should not confuse the rich linguistic and dialectal diversity of our clinical populations with abnormalities in child language development. The challenge for the clinician becomes, then, how to get immersed in the captivating field of child language acquisition without getting overwhelmed by its conceptual and empirical complexity. In the past 50 years and since the seminal works of Roger Brown, Jerome Bruner, and Catherine Snow, child language researchers (often known as developmental psycholinguists) have produced a remarkable body of knowledge. Linguists such as Chomsky and philosophers such as Grice have strongly influenced the science of child language. One of the major tenets of Chomskian linguistics (known as generative grammar) is that children’s capacity to acquire language is “hardwired” with “universal grammar”—an innate language acquisition device (LAD), a language “instinct”—at its core. This view is in part supported by the assertion that the linguistic input that children receive is relatively dismal and of poor quality relative to the high quantity and quality of output that they manage to produce after age 2 and that only an advanced, innate capacity to decode and organize linguistic input can enable them to “get from here (prelinguistic infant) to there (linguistic child).” In “Constructing a Language,” Tomasello presents a contrasting theory of how the child acquires language: It is not a universal grammar that allows for language development. Rather, human cognition universals of communicative needs and vocal-auditory processing result in some language universals, such as nouns and verbs as expressions of reference and predication (p. 19). The author proposes that two sets of cognitive skills resulting from biological/phylogenetic adaptations are fundamental to the ontogenetic origins of language. These sets of inherited cognitive skills are intentionreading on the one hand and pattern-finding, on the other. Intention-reading skills encompass the prelinguistic infant’s capacities to share attention to outside events with other persons, establishing joint attentional frames, to understand other people’s communicative intentions, and to imitate the adult’s communicative intentions (an intersubjective form of imitation that requires symbolic understanding and perspective-taking). Pattern-finding skills include the ability of infants as young as 7 months old to analyze concepts and percepts (most relevant here, auditory or speech percepts) and create concrete or abstract categories that contain analogous items. Tomasello, a most prominent developmental scientist with research foci on child language acquisition and on social cognition and social learning in children and primates, succinctly and clearly introduces the major points of his theory and his views on the origins of language in the initial chapters. In subsequent chapters, he delves into the details by covering most language acquisition domains, namely, word (lexical) learning, syntax, and morphology and conversation, narrative, and extended discourse. Although one of the remaining domains (pragmatics) is at the core of his theory and permeates the text throughout, the relative paucity of passages explicitly devoted to discussing acquisition and proBOOK REVIEWS