**5. Conclusions**

*Types of Nonverbal Communication*

of foreground-background gestures.

We can therefore confirm our hypothesis that turn management DAs co-occur with regulators. The case analysis further supports the hypothesis that turn management DAs particularly co-occur with communication regulators. Moreover, we can observe that during propositional content, i.e., task-oriented DAs, use of illustrators (foreground NCIs) is more common (see **Figure 2**: B in Example 1). In accordance with Cooperrider's [27] characteristics of foreground-background gestures, we observed the spatial prominence of each type of gesture. Example 1 shows how non-verbal behavior changes in parallel with the change of DAs. As the DAs changed from task with the function of informing to turn management with the function of turn release (see **Figure 2**, B and 1), so did the NCI. It shifted from foreground behavior to background behavior. Moreover, foreground NCIs are far more prominent than the background NCIs. It seems that, as this simultaneous shift in DAs and foreground-background behavior occurs, body behavior is decelerated and minimized. Our findings, therefore, corroborate Cooperrider's [27] the special hallmarks

There are, however, border cases. For example, the background DA of providing

A potential concept to further elaborate on the underlying nature is to observe whether the gesture is prominent (in its iteration or spatial dimensions) or subtle [27], as observed in Example 1. In accordance with this distinction, a subtle nod suggests background nature whereas a prominent nod suggest that the gesture is of foreground nature. Moreover, the relative timing may also, provide additional insight in the communicative intent. Although, not directly investigated in this research, is seems that when the stroke phase of the embodiment (especially a hand gesture) cooccurs with a specific speech referent (i.e. the gesture starts at the same time as the spoken articulation) the information provided is propositional, i.e., of foreground nature, whereas when the stroke phase occurs outside boundaries of the targeted referent (or without one) the information provided is of background nature. An example would be phrases "look over there!" and "what do you mean?". In general, deictics will accompany both phrases. On the one hand, the phrase "look over there" is clearly a task-oriented DA and will be accompanied by a pointer, the stroke of which will occur aligned with the verbal articulation of "there". On the other hand, the stroke phase of a similar gesture 'visualizing' the "you" in "what do you mean?" will co-occur with "mean" and will be recognized as a referential deictic in turn management (i.e., as turn offer). Thus, in our future investigations, we tend to analyze if the alignment of verbal structure with the prosody of non-verbal cues (i.e. the cues preceding verbal acts, cues following verbal acts, cues at the beginning or end of verbal cats) may shed further light on the true purpose of the shared nature.

feedback during active listening, such as uttering the supportive "yes" or "mmhmm", can be accompanied by a slight nod of the head. Head nodding is generally considered a foreground gesture, if it signals a "yes" or "no" answer, since it can substitute speech altogether. However, in background use, one does not provide an answer, but merely signals to the interlocutor, that one is listening to them and wishes them to continue their turn. Hence, the act is clearly of background nature. Nevertheless, it is impossible to state that at the same time one does not also agree with what the interlocutor is saying. Agreement, however, is considered a foreground act. This is a typical case where the duality no longer applies. Hence, it is possible even for background DAs, such as feedback providing and eliciting, to cooccur with foreground NCIs. Moreover, even task-oriented DAs are often accompanied with batons, a representative background NCI, since they signal importance or set the rhythm but do not convey any propositional content. It is therefore difficult to extend the shared background-foreground nature hypothesis to other DAs. Despite this observation, the exploration of the shared nature in foreground DAs

offers an interesting research question for future research.

**120**

In this chapter, we examined what kind of non-verbal behavior accompanies turn management DAs. For the annotation of turn management DAs, the ISO 24617-2 scheme's functions sufficed. Nevertheless, turn management DAs frequently overlap with other DAs, especially within the time management dimension. The fact that it is sometimes very difficult to decide which dimension and function is the most fitting shows the importance of multidimensional DA tagging. As a future endeavor, it would be more functional to create annotation schemes that, besides being multidimensional, denote the hierarchical order of the tags assigned, for example, the primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. dimensions and functions.

Cooperrider's [27] distinction between gestures that occur in the foreground or background proved an effective method within the concept of DAs. We hypothesized that there is an interlink between background NCI and background DAs. Since regulators, specifically, communication regulators, convey typical background NCI, we predicted their co-occurrence with turn management DAs. Indeed, the present case study confirms this hypothesis. Moreover, an interlink with deictic NCI was observed. As they can be of either background or foreground nature, the premise that background DAs co-occur with background NCI is maintained. This duality is not observed only within NCI but also within DAs. An utterance can have alternative expressions, one of background nature and one of foreground nature. However, the duality occurs simultaneously for NCI and for DAs. Hence, the fact that there is the same duality at the NCI level and at the DAs level strengthens the hypothesis of an interlink between the two concepts.
