Cornell Wild Roses Sectionals (April 14, 2007)

After our Sectional coordinator cruelly lead us to believe that we would finally host a tournament in Ithaca, Sectionals were moved to Geneva in Seneca Lake State Park.

We were ranked first (of 9 teams) in the tournament, and our first game was versus fifth ranked Syracuse. Our day had a rocky start. Syracuse scored the first 2 points against us. We scored the next 2, bringing the game to a tie. Syracuse scored the following 2 making our coach very nervous. She called a time out and told us we were losing to the 5th ranked team, and we were going to face even tougher teams today and tomorrow. Her speech and suggestions for a change in defensive tactics worked. We went on a 4 point run, and took half 6-4. (Games were to 11 for our pool, so half is at 6.) In the second half we only let them score twice, finishing the game 11-6.

Our next game was against our B-team (ranked 9th), who we beat 11-2. We think they didn't play as hard, since they were saving their energy to try to beat 8th ranked Colgate.

We played third ranked Ithaca next, I'm not quite sure what happened in this game because I was watching the B-team vs. Colgate game the whole time (I sprained my ankle last weekend, so I wasn't playing). I know that we took half against Ithaca before the other game had completed 3 points. Needless to say, we spanked Ithaca.
The Colgate/B team game was really exciting. They started out trading points.. really long points. But our B-team slowly gained the lead, and were up 6-3 at half. Although the game was capped, B team had enough points that they had to play out the whole game anyway. Although our B-team and Colgate had different skills, they were pretty evenly matched making for a good game. Colgate had good throws, but had no hands (couldn't catch). While our B-team has some really good cutters, who can't catch; a few good throwers, while everyone has the guts to put it; and a strong set of defenders.

Our last game was against Colgate who had just lost to our B team. We took the game quickly and then watched our B team play Syracuse.

As Saturday play had ended, we were planning to come back on Sunday for one or two more games. We were guaranteed a spot at Regionals, but did we win our section, get 2nd, or 3rd? If we won our first game on Sunday, we won our Section, but otherwise we'd need to play for 2nd/3rd place.

Unfortunately, we woke on Sunday to two inches of snow on the ground, leaving us with our games to be played next weekend.

Pool A (4-0) A1: Cornell (1) (3-1) A2: Ithaca (4) (2-2) A3: Syracuse (5) (0-4) A4: Colgate (8) (1-3) A5: Cornell-B (9)
Sat	Game	F#	Score	Game	F#	Score
8:30 10:00	A2-A5	1	11-0	A4-A3	2	1-11
10:15 11:45	A1-A3	1	11-6	A2-A4	2	11-0
12:00 1:30	A1-A5	1	11-2	A3-A2	2	6-10
1:45 3:15	A1-A2	1	11-2	A4-A5	2	L-W
3:30 5:00	A1-A4	1	W-L	A3-A5	2	11-2

A4: Better Late Than Never!

The Bavelas et al article, instead of actually providing any suggestions for methods of language analysis, served as something of a how-to-guide for creating your own thesis, transcribing conversations, and analyzing it in some conventional manner. One issue it did present was the act of transcribing itself. There are several ways of recording any given conversation. FtF, for example, can be recorded with a video and audio recorder, with just an audio recorder, with someone copying down what is said shorthand, etc. In each subsequent example, of course, a great deal of information gets lost, so researchers must always be very careful to choose the tech that's right for their purposes. Some conversations (interviews, for example) usually don't need any more information than what's given verbally. Language analysis, however, usually requires more input.
To illustrate my point (or attempt to), I transcribed two conversations on the same subject, one via FtF (only recorded audio) and one via text. I won't go into a great deal of analysis, all I'm looking for is how many times the conversation seems to derail (some break in verbal meaning), when in fact both participants maintain an understanding of the meaning (no track 2 verification).

FtF:
A: Dude, goin to the concert on Wednes-
B: The VAST one?
A: Don't like 'em?.
B: I do, man, but I've got -
A: Ohhh, yeah, you've got that prelim, I forgot.
B: Yeah. Besides, ever since their first -
A: They've definitely gone downhill. I still wanna see 'em, though. Lemme know if you change your mind.
B: Sure.

IM:
A: So, heard about the concert on Wednesday?
B: Ohh yeah, the VAST one?
A: Yeah, man. I'm really excited.
B: Me, too. I love their old stuff.
B: Think they'll play any?
A: Hope so.
A: It'll be good though, regardless.
B: Definitely.

In the FtF conversation, person B made a negative facial expression when asking for clarification that the concert was, in fact, with VAST. Though A never bothered to clarify, he took that expression as another bit of communication, stating "I'm not a big fan." This was not B's intended meaning, however, and B had to clarify that verbally. Although an extra bit of communication took place here, the meaning wasn't lost in the transcription process and no meaning was gained non-verbally. There were also three points at which one speaker interrupted the other. The first two were to interject track 2 clarification or information and didn't seem to involve any missed non-verbal cues. On the third to last line, B finished his sentence with a little wave of his hand, as though searching for the word 'album' and never finding it. Although this could be construed as non-verbal communication, no actual information is given. In both non-verbal cases, no new information is really presented outside of what an audio recorder can pick up, and thus the conversation seems to flow from an audio standpoint. The IM serves as the control in this point, since the conversation log covers every bit of information (except for pauses, of course...there were no notable ones). In many cases, a FtF transcription of simple verbal imput would seem to be far more confusing than its IM counterpart - this is why Bavelas et al warns researchers to use video when video is needed - but this simply isn't the case here. Which means I didn't reinforce my hypothesis...oh well.

A4

In Measures of Process Monketal claims that first and second-person pronouns are often meta conversational; Meaning that they are used in indirect queries which are usually more polite than direct queries. However I believe that this claim does not correlate well with the theory that one aims to save face when communicating. For example when a person desires to purchase a muffin he may ask “do you have any muffins,” or “are any muffins available”. Both ways mentioned above are indirect queries, and one can easily see how one can be polite without the use of a first or second-person pronoun. It can also be seen that first and second-person pronouns can easily be used to make queries impolite. In the example from above one could easily say “you, are there any muffins available.” I think most people we agree that the addition of the word “you” into the inquiry made the request impolite. Therefore my hypothesis would be that there is no correlation between politeness and the use of first and second-person pronouns. To test my hypothesis I will use two conversations from a class I participated in. In this class, meetings were conducted via a video and chat based system. In the first conversation several other group members and I (all college kids) are discussing how to accomplish a given task. In the second conversation the group is presenting the finding to the professor.


We supposed to get ball outta pipe w/ out break anything. Any Ideas.
We could cut cereal box, roll it up and suck ball out
May work, any other ideas.
3. Urinate in pipe
1. Yeah about that…
3. It’s a legit idea
2. Don’t think the professor would like that
3. What ev I think it wil work\
1. It will work, but we are graded on safety, efficiency… and I don know…
3. Think of something better.
4. Could use cereal box, roll it up, push around ball and pick it up
3. Ain’t that what James said.
1. No, james wanted to suck it out.


Professor: So methods were discussed
1. We discussed methods that used the air pressure, buoyancy force as well as several methods that used the cereal box to create direct contact with the ball.
Professor: How and what method did you decide on
1. There was some disagreement, so we came up with system where each group member ranked all the different methods by the different criteria mentioned in the assignment. They scores were then added, and the one with the lowest score was chosen. In the end using the cereal box and pushing it around the ball was the chosen method.


It can be seen that that first and second-person pronouns comprise 5 words out of a total of 110 words in the first conversation, while they comprise 3 words out 101 in the second conversation. Another important factor is that the students were trying to be more polite with the teacher. Thus my hypothesis is proven right. In addition, by looking at the conversations it seems that 1st and 2nd person pronouns are used a lot more when discussing opinions rather than facts. Thus it can be seen that they are many variables that control the use of first and second person pronouns and making the simple assumption that the presence of first and second person pronouns is a sign of politeness is ridiculous.

Text Vs. Telephone Topic Changes

The Monk et al. piece discusses the apparent disorder in conversational structure when comparing text versus non text communication. In the instance of text based communication, the piece argues that it will be less organized and contain more topic changes due to texts inherent ability to keep a formal record of past utterances. In non text based communication such as face to face or telephone, the piece explains that this form of communication will be more organized because voice is ephemeral and no record is kept to refer back to if confusion occurs. Due to my past experience and from the small experiment listed below, I agree with the Monk et al. piece. Below is the experience I had when comparing voice to text based communication.

Voice (using telephone)

Brendan: Hello?

Rachel: Hi whats up?

Brendan: Not much you?

Rachel: Nothing really, what are you doing today?

Brendan: Oh not much probably just doing some work and then I will go for a run.

Rachel: Sounds like fun.

Brendan: Not really.

Rachel: (laughs) What did you think of that movie we saw last night?

Brendan: I thought it was OK but a bit too girly.

Rachel: You would think that.

Brendan: Yes I would.

Rachel: Where are you going to go for a run?

Brendan: Probably just around campus.

Rachel: Cool, I think I will go for a run later too.

In the conversation above, the only line that detracts from the linear nature of the conversation is line 12. This line refers back to line 5 about going for a run. This supports the Monk et al. argument that voice is more organized and contains less topic changes.

Text (using AIM)

Bg00765: Hey

Rseegs28: whats up

Bg00765: nm u?

Rseegs28: nm just doing some work

Bg00765: feeling any better today?

Rseegs28: not really my stomach still hurts

Bg00765: what kind of work r u doing

Rseegs28: just some stuff for marketing

Bg00765: sucks. I have pretty much no work to do

Rseegs28: Thanks

Bg00765: haha, I thought u don’t even like marketing

Rseegs28: I don’t but I still have to do the work

Bg00765: Hmm perhaps

Rseegs28: uh huh

Bg00765: you want to hang out later?

Rseegs28: yea prob as long as my stomach is feeling better

Bg00765: im sorry, ill give u a call later, feel better

Rseegs28: Thanks

In the text conversation, more disorganization is apparent than in voice communication. Line 7 refers back to line 4, line 11 refers back to line 8, line 16 refers back to line 6. These are very large gaps between lines that show many changes in topics. This is consistent with the notion that text based communication is less organized than voice communication due to the record that is kept of past utterances.

My results agree with the Monk et al. piece. The telephone speech proved much more organized while the text conversation was much less organized with more topic changes.

A4: Communication breakdown... It's always the same.

Monk defines breakdown (9.3.3) as "those instances where the tools or medium of communication interfere with the task being carried out or even the communication process itself." When we were discussing Monk's piece last Tuesday, I was repeatedly reminded of all the "breakdowns" that happen in podcasts I listen to. A podcast is an internet audio broadcast that can be subscribed to--or downloaded on demand. Their topics range from technology and gadgets to kitting and parenting--they are really all over the board. In the podcasts I listen to, there is usually a panel of guests that discuss technology-related news via Skype--a piece of voice-over-IP (VoIP) audio-chat software. Time and time again there are software glitches where people drop in and out of the connection and the presenters stop the topic at hand and fall down a track 2 rat-hole and start discussing the current glitch or software problem.

Conveniently, this happened during the latest episode of "MacBreak Weekly" (a podcast about Apple and Macintosh news, rumors, and information). In this episode five people are on the panel of guests and they get to discussing ways to use the Finder (an application/environment in the MacOS operating system). When one of the panelists (represented below by "MM") mentions a meticulous/nit-picky way of using the Finder, the host/moderator (represented below by "LL") starts to mock and make light-hearted fun of MM. Coincidentally, MM's connection had just dropped and the rest of the guests come to the (brief) conclusion that he actually left the show--in anger. When he finally reconnects, he explains what happened and jokes around. It was interesting witnessing the stop in normal flow of the show and the resulting discussion of the breakdown discussed afterward.

Here is a link to the podcast, it happens around 1:05:02
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/twit.cachefly.net/MBW-033.mp3



LL: Oh wait a minute, now he hung up...

SB: (laughs) I think--

GR: Wow he is so angry right now
LL: I think this is a technical issue--because I don't think we were THAT hard on him--I was that hard on him, was I?

RL: You're gonna have to send him a box of fruit or somethin'

LL: I've done that before... that wouldn't be the first person I've sent a box of fruit to... he's not answering.

LL: ...Oh my god, he's pissed off. That can't be--

MM: no--hello. no Skype. no here--you're going to edit this out right?

LL: Yeah.

MM: Uhh... that's like the fifth time that this happened during this call where suddenly everything goes into this sorta crazy tunnel-vision mode.
LL: --right.

MM: and everything gets really, really slow and robot-voiced--and then drops... That's why I keep disappearing--just so you know.
LL: So you're not mad at us?

MM: (jokingly) OH, I'm mad.

(everyone laughs)

MM: when I come back on...
(more laughter)

MM: when I get back on buddy... oh--you're gonna feel...

LL: (laughingly) "Let me press the 'record button'" --chunk-- "go ahead"

(and the joking continues)

Conferring Expressions in an Interview

In the Monk piece, we are told that conferring expressions (pronouns such as it, that, and they) are often a good indicator of common ground development. When avoiding an explicit topic opening the speaker is making the assumption that given the conversation topics and trends, the listener will be able to interpret what these pronouns refer to. The piece I examined is an excerpt of an interview with Blake Ross, the founder of Firefox. The topic of the interview is the interplay between Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Interviews such as this one have two very unique elements. The first is that the person being interviewed generally has a very long response. The goal of the interviewer is to essentially elicit as much information as possible from the interviewee, while keeping his end of the conversation relatively short. The second unique element is that the subject of the conversation is very explicitly stated and therefore very much a part of the common ground. My assumption was that because Ross would be speaking for a long period of time about an “understood” topic that his usage of conferring expressions would be substantial.

Q: I know you're asked frequently about Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft's next browser. How much have you used the test version, and what do you think of it?

Ross: I've used it a little bit. The truth is that it actually looks pretty good. People don't expect me to say that, they expect me to say that it's terrible. They did exactly what we were expecting them to do, which was take a bunch of time and get IE7 up to feature parity with Firefox. I haven't seen any real innovation above and beyond what we delivered in Firefox. I think that it's a solid product, but I think that by the time it comes out, we're going to be another world ahead of them again, so I think it's kind of a step or two behind us.

We really are trying to make it less of a religious thing. The whole browser space in general has traditionally been very religious.

Q: Kind of like operating systems.

Ross: Kind of like operating systems, exactly. We're trying to just say, we've all got good ideas in this space. Everyone's talking, for example, about how IE7 is ripping off Firefox. I'm very careful to say that they're matching feature parity. They are ripping off Firefox in a sense, but the truth is that when we started Firefox, we ripped off Internet Explorer because we wanted to make sure that people who migrated from IE felt comfortable in the Firefox world.

If that means copying the interface to some degree, if that means copying some keyboard shortcuts to make sure that people can migrate and feel comfortable, that's what we'll do, and then we can innovate on top of that. I think in general, the community understands that this is kind of a collaborative process. There are always going to be people on the fringes who are just kind of zealots in either direction.

4 uses of “it”
11 uses of “that”
4 uses of “they”

Based off of the counts, I would say that the assumption is pretty accurate. Ross uses the identifiers in reference to Microsoft, Mozilla, Firefox, and Internet Explorer far more than he uses the titles themselves. I would be interested to compare these conference counts to a conference count of a standard conversation as a control in to the assumption.

A4: Task Focus in IM and Phone

Monk, et al. (1996) discusses the task focus of discussion between different communication media. For example, it is mentioned that writing or typing resulted in much higher proportions of task-focused communication than spoken language. My experience has reflected this to some extent; I've generally found online communication veers from the topic of discussion less often than phone conversations do, for instance. I feel this is also aided in the case of live CMC (as in Instant Messaging) because both sides often have immediate access to topic-related research through the world wide web. In the case of phone and FtF communication, the source of information for the conversation generally has to come entirely from the memory of the two conversation partners.

I wanted to examine the task focus of IM and phone conversations. My task was to get shopping advice regarding the purchase of a piece of electronics (specifically a hard drive). I contacted two friends with a similar amount of knowledge on the subject. I decided to call one and IM another, log the conversations and then examine how many lines of the discussion by the other party were related to the task at hand (getting advice on buying hard drives) and how many were really task-irrelevant.

IM Conversation
Me: so, it's going to be hard drive purchasing time shortly. any recommendations? I'm thinking 500s...
Friend: i've seen external 500GB as low as $155
Friend: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144069&CMP=AFC-Dealnews&ATT=22-144-069
Me: I'm MUCH more comfortable buying from a brick and mortar store, mostly because it's easier to hide that purchase
Friend: well best you're going to get there is like $170 for a 500gb, plus sales tax
Friend: http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=953454&Ntt=500gb&uniqueSearchFlag=true&An=text
Me: that's fine, sales tax isn't so bad near me anyway
Me: well...i don't have money yet, so I hope they keep that price
Friend: ah
Me: well i really need about another TB of space
Me: and by need i mean can use
Friend: well it never really pays to buy space that you can't use right away
Friend: it will be cheaper to buy it later

Phone Conversation:
Me: So I'm thinking about spending some money on new hard drives soon.
Friend: Oh yeah? Running out of space already?
Me: Yeah you know me, I can never have enough storage. Any suggestions?
Friend: Check the ads in the newspapers. Don't buy anything from CompUSA, they totally ripped me off.
Me: What happened?
Friend: They gave me an expired mail-in rebate then refused to let me return the item.
Me: Any other hard drive-related advice?
Friend: Stop downloading so much stuff so you don't need to keep buying them?
Me: Fair enough...

For clarity, I made the focused lines green and the irrelevant lines purple. As a final tally, the IM conversation had 3 lines of useful purchasing advice and 1 line irrelevant to the task, while the phone conversation was precisely the opposite with 1 line of useful purchasing advice and 3 lines of humor and unrelated stories. To some extent, the first conversation was aided by the fact that the friend was able to get task-related information directly from the internet as he was talking to me. Still, the conclusion here is that the IM discussion had vastly more task focus than the phone conversation.