Head movements in the context of speech in Arabic, Bulgarian, Korean, and African-American Vernacular English.

A previous study among European-Americans (McClave, 2000) observed that particular forms of head movements occur in specific communicative environments. The present study investigates whether any of the form–function relationships observed in the original study are cross-cultural. The database consists of seven hours of videotaped spontaneous conversations in Arabic, Bulgarian, Korean, and African-American Vernacular English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]