Glossary

(Active) Speaker view: This viewing option uses technology that picks up on microphone usage to highlight the panel of the person who is speaking on a user’s screen. 

Annotate: In terms of corpus analysis, annotation involves giving an explanation or comment by adding notes to a written transcription and video: in this case gestures.  In ELAN we add descriptions of gestures being used via tiers on the transcription.   

Automated transcription: Uses speech recognition to convert audio to text. 

Automatic recording: A feature of virtual meeting platforms that can ensure the recording of entire sessions. This can be set up prior to a meeting to ensure that the entirety of a meeting is recorded from the moment the host logs in. 

Backchannels: Spoken and non-verbal non-floor-holding responses when a listener responds to the floor-holding message in a conversation. 

Beat gestures: Are up-down, left-right movements of the hand while speaking.   

Big data mining: Refers to extraction techniques performed on large datasets such as Twitter and focuses on retrieving relevant information and patterns.   

Bots: Automated programs used to engage in social media designed to imitate humans and interact with web user.     

Breakout rooms: These are smaller group meetings created from the main virtual meeting space. These can be created by a meeting organiser to facilitate, for example, small group discussions.  

Cloud recording: This recording option saves recorded files to a platform’s online cloud storage system. Users can access files by logging in to these cloud storage locations. This can make file sharing convenient as it does not require the need to attach large files to email or compress them (see below). 

Chat: In virtual meeting platforms, such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, this feature allows hosts and participants to send messages in real time to individuals and/or all participants.     

Cluster: In a corpus, these are a group of words or items that occur frequently together. 

Dactylonomy: Is the act of counting on fingers while verbally counting.   

Deictic gestures: These are motions using body parts, usually a finger pointing to an object or space.     

Emblematic Gestures: Gestures that can occur with or more often independent of speech and convey meaning visually, for example: a thumbs up or a wave.  The form of an emblem is usually consistent, but the intended meaning can be culturally specific.   

Embodiment, or embodied action, focuses on the body and includes gestures, facial expressions, laughing, gaze shifts, head movements, and body postures. 

File compression: Due to large video and audio files being created from recordings of virtual meetings, file compression is often necessary as a means of sharing via email, which is limited in its capacity to attach large files. Tools such as WinZip facilitate both compression and unzipping of large files. 

Gallery view: This option shows all participants in a grid configuration on a user’s screen. Each participant is given equal screen space in gallery view and panels will expand or contract as members join or leave a meeting.  

Gaze: The direction of orientation that people display through the positioning of their head, particularly their eyes, in relation to their environment. 

Gesture: The mode of communication that is achieved through the movement of parts of the body.   

Gesticulation: A form of non-verbal behaviour opposed to non-verbal communication.  Often seen in the form of an involuntary hand or body movement while speaking 

Hybrid meeting: A meeting that has participants who are connected to the meeting virtually and some participants who are in the same place.  

Iconic gesture: Refers to speech and motions co-occurring where the gesture is used to describe the object being discussed.  An example would be a speaker pointing down while saying the word down.     

Kinesics: Is the technical term for hand and body gestures while speaking 

Local recording: A recording option that saves recorded files onto the hard drive of the meeting organiser.  

Medium: A medium is the material or technology which facilitates communication. In the context of this project, this includes both the hardware and the software (e.g. a computer and Zoom respectively), that are used to create virtual meetings. 

Metaphoric Gestures: Hand gestures used to describe an abstract concept, object or event, for example hand up and flat palm to indicate height or that something exists on a scale.    

Mode: A mode is a means of communicating. Communicative modes include visual, linguistic, aural, gestural and spatial modes. 

MP4 file: Is an MPEG-4 video file format used most frequently to store video and audio files.  It allows streaming over the internet and can also store subtitles and still images.    

Multi-modality: Refers to various communicative resources including gestures, gaze, body postures, body movements, prosody, lexis, and grammar.  

Multi-modal corpora: Collections of video data annotated along a timeline in order to code multi-modal information to see how multiple modes function together. 

Nonverbal behaviour (NVB): Any behaviour excluding speech that is intended or not intended to carry meaning. The distinction from nonverbal communication is that nonverbal behaviour may not carry meaning. For example, a person scratching their head may be behaviour that has no communicative purpose.    

Nonverbal communication (NVC): Behaviour that is not spoken that is intended to carry meaning. 

Oculesics: Is the study of eye related non- verbal behaviour such as gaze, eye movement and eye rolling.    

OneDrive: This is the Microsoft cloud service that gives access to a user to all of their files.  The user can store, edit, protect and share their files with others.  OneDrive can be accessed from anywhere via all devices.   

Otter: A voice transcription software tool developed by California-headquartered tech company Otter.ai. that uses artificial intelligence to transcribe in real time what is said in a recording. The web-based platform facilitates editing and collaboration on transcripts it calls ‘conversations’.  

Panel: This refers to the frame in which a participant is visible on a virtual meeting platform screen. 

Proxemics: The study of space between people.  

Reactions: In the context of virtual meetings, this feature allows participants to react at any point during the meeting with visualisations representing for example, applause or a raised hand to submit a question.  

Security: This function (in Zoom) allows the meeting host to give options to meeting participants for example screen sharing.    

Sentiment: Is a view or opinion held or expressed, can be positive or negative.   

Screen sharing: This function allows a user to be able to share what is active on their screen in real time with other participants in a virtual meeting. 

Spotlight: This function gives a virtual meeting organiser the option to highlight a participant’s video during a meeting so that all participants see that person more clearly. This is useful if one speaker is taking the floor and the organiser wishes to give them to be the focus of the meeting. 

SRT file: SubRip subtitle files or SRT files are usually created for generating subtitles for video projects. SRT files are plain text files that include the text in sequence with start and end timecodes to align with video content. 

Together mode: In Microsoft teams, this function digitally places participants in a digitally shared background such as meeting venue or classroom.   

Top tweets: With their relevance based on the popularity, retweets and replies of a tweet, top tweets are the most relevant tweets for a search item.   

Thumbnail image: A smaller representation of a larger image. Use of thumbnail images usually facilitates ease of viewing multiple images at one time, for example, a thumbnail image of a participant may be overlayed on a screen share so that viewers can see both the shared screen and the participant. 

Transactional interaction: In the context of a meeting this is where the host or chair goes through the motions of getting the task or objectives of the meeting completed without deviation from the main topic.   

Video-mediated interaction: Refers to a communicative event, where participants interact live by using a web connection and a medium (e.g. computer, laptop, smartphone) and seeing each other in real time. 

Virtual meeting: A meeting in which participants in various locations connect via technology that facilitates audio or audio and video exchange in real time.  

VTT file: A text file that is saved in the Web Video Text Tracks (WebVTT) format. It contains supplementary information about a web video, including subtitles, captions, descriptions, chapters, and metadata. Zoom and other platforms save transcriptions in this format.