The role of digital video media in second language listening ...

not for their information potential, but rather as boundary markers to demarcaterelevant sections of videotext. As shown in her high degree of focus, she knowswhat to look for and how to find it. Abby uses visual signposts to make herrecursions as efficient as she can as she goes over aural phrases to tease out wordsand confirms task-relevant information. She works the visual and aural elements intandem to create an efficient method for finding and confirming task-relevantinformation. In this case, exact names (‘Choshi City, Nishiogawa District’) arelocated and repeated as she makes a complete answer to the tasks.As she continues, Abby encounters the fourth task that asks her to state where theemployee found the money. Paused at Frame M14 after six seconds of seeing aconveyor belt littered with rubbish, she makes no use further use of videotext beforewriting an answer. She explains that the relevant information “mostly came from thepicture” and adds that “it is an English word so it jumps out at you” (text unit 63).Abby is clearly making reference to the Japanese phrase ‘beruta conubeya’(conveyor belt) which, to a trained ear, can be heard as an English loan word. In thisinstance, the visual element is of primary importance to Abby as the aural elementtakes on a confirmatory role.Abby appears to lose a strong a priori focus in the middle of the task set as shemakes five recursions before answering the fifth task. The question asks listeners tostate the exact amount of money found at the rubbish collection site. Although sherecalls an approximate figure, she is unsure where to find the specific amount. Abbyabruptly pauses her first move (“Oh, here we go” in text unit 64) when she locatesa task-relevant phrase. She then initiates an eighteen-second review and claims shewasn’t listening (text unit 67). If indeed she wasn’t attending to the aural track, it islikely that she was paying attention to the visual elements during the extensivereview. By the third recursion, Abby locates a key task-relevant phrase (‘yon hyakuju mai’ or 'four hundred thousand yen' in text unit 68) that provides a key to theanswer. She then uses two subsequent recursions of two to four seconds each to233