A STUDY OF THE USE OF BACKCHANNEL IN SANTA BARBARA CORPUS OF SPOKEN AMERICAN ENGLISH

This study focuses on the use of backchannel in five selected conversational texts taken from Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English. The conversational texts that used by the writer entitled Deadly Diseases, Mickey Mouse Watch, Zero Equals Zero, Vet Morning and What Time is it now. This study aims to explain the types and function of backchannel that found in the conversational texts.
In addition to analyse the data, this study uses the theory of Duncan & Fiske (1997) and Maynard (1986). This study conducted by using a qualitative research, because the data are in the form of utterance. The data of the study is an utterance of conversational texts that contain backchannel. The method of collecting data in this study is content analysis method and to analyze the data, the writer uses interactive data analysis.
In the findings, the writer finds 63 data. The writer finds four types of backchannel; short utterance are 53 data, sentence completion is 1 data, short question are 5 data, and brief restatement are 4 data. The writer also finds four functions of verbal backchannel; continuer are 9 data, display of understanding are 12 data, agreement are 25 data, and display of emotional response are 17 data.

Keywords: Backchannel, Conversational text, Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English