Locations

Rapport project elicitations were conducted in various locations. English elicitations were all conducted on campus at the University of Chicago. Iraqi Arabic elicitations were conducted at URHAI Community Service Center for the Iraqi community on Chicago's far north side, as well as in the Iraqi refugee community in Amman, Jordan. Emirati Arabic elicitiations were conducted at the University of the United Arab Emirates, Al Ain, UAE. Mexican Spanish elicitations were conducted at various locations in Chicago, including the Centro Romero and the South Chicago neigborhood, and also in the San Francisco area, Northern California.

Elicitation Overview

Pairs of participants with a previously established relationship, such as family or friends, participated in the study. One participant would watch the eliciting stimulus, Wallace Chafe's “The Pear Film,” two times (link here). In the first part of the elicitation, this participant (hereafter the “speaker”) was instructed to tell the other participant (hereafter “listener”) what they had just seen in as much detail as they could remember. The listener was instructed to be an active, engaged listener, and to keep in mind that they would be asked to retell the story they had heard to an examiner who had already seen the film. In the second part of the elicitation, the listener told the story to the confederate listener.

Instrumentation

Both parts of the elicitation were recorded with three JVC GR-DVL-9800 camcorders,

set up as to capture the facial expressions of each of the two participants, and also to capture both participants from a side angle, with their whole bodies visible. Audio was recorded with two AKG model 520C fixed-distance headworn microphones, routed via shielded XLR cables to a BeachTek DXA-6 stereo audio phantom power adapter with channel volume control.


The three camera views were digitized from mini DV tapes in FinalCut Pro, and synched and concatenated into a single .mov file. The following is a still frame from one such video:

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