Showing papers in "Discourse Studies in 2012"
TL;DR: The hierarchical relationship between conversation analysis (CA) and membership categorization analysis (MCA) is discussed in this paper, where a set of clear analytic steps and procedures for conducting MCA are provided.
Abstract: This article has four aims. First, it will consider explicitly, and polemically, the hierarchical relationship between conversation analysis (CA) and membership categorization analysis (MCA). Whilst the CA ‘juggernaut’ flourishes, the MCA ‘milk float’ is in danger of being run off the road. For MCA to survive either as a separate discipline, or within CA as a focus equivalent to other ‘generic orders of conversation’, I suggest it must generate new types of systematic studies and reveal fundamental categorial practices. With such a goal in mind, the second aim of the article is to provide a set of clear analytic steps and procedures for conducting MCA, which are grounded in basic categorial and sequential concerns. Third, the article aims to demonstrate how order can be found in the intuitively ‘messy’ discourse phenomenon of membership categories, and how to approach their analysis systematically as a robust feature of particular action-oriented environments. Through the exemplar analyses, the final aim ...
437 citations
TL;DR: This paper used conversation analysis to identify whether a parent can get a child to do something without actually having done it, and how the child might avoid complying or seem to comply without actually doing so.
Abstract: How does a parent get a child to do something? And, indeed, how might the child avoid complying or seem to comply without actually having done so? This article uses conversation analysis to identif...
104 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a micro-analysis of video recordings of two-party strategy meetings was conducted to understand the ongoing negotiation of roles at meetings, and they found that participants orient to at least two aspects when making proposals: acceptance or rejection of the proposal; and questions of entitlement: who is entitled to launch a proposal, and who are entitled to accept or reject it?
Abstract: Meetings are complex institutional events at which participants recurrently negotiate institutional roles, which are oriented to, renegotiated, and sometimes challenged. With a view to gaining further understanding of the ongoing negotiation of roles at meetings, this article examines one specific recurring feature of meetings: the act of proposing future action. Based on microanalysis of video recordings of two-party strategy meetings, the study shows that participants orient to at least two aspects when making proposals: 1) the acceptance or rejection of the proposal; and 2) questions of entitlement: who is entitled to launch a proposal, and who is entitled to accept or reject it? The study argues that there is a close interrelation between questions of entitlement, aligning and affiliating moves, and the negotiation of institutional roles. The multimodal analysis also reveals the use of various embodied practices by participants for the local negotiation of entitlement and institutional roles.
86 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate what is needed for a proposable proposal in a workplace context using video-recorded planning meetings as data, and using conversation analysis as a method.
Abstract: This study analyses joint decisions. Drawing on video-recorded planning meetings in a workplace context as data, and on conversation analysis as a method, I investigate what is needed for a proposa...
82 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present new insights on practices and actions in meetings, and also seek to develop the methodological orientations of the field by insisting on the need for a multimodal approach to meeting interaction.
Abstract: The research tradition of Conversation Analysis (CA) has a long history of studying institutional interaction, but much of it has focused on situations of contact between institutional representatives and ‘users’ of the institution, such as patients, clients, customers, etc. (Arminen, 2005; Drew and Heritage, 1992; Heritage and Clayman, 2010). Less attention has been devoted to the internal life of organizations, in situations of collaboration between professionals, inside and across their respective sections and departments. A seminal work that established this as an explicit research focus was Deirdre Boden’s (1994) book The Business of Talk: Organizations in Action. Here, meetings were analysed as a major source of information about how organizations were ‘talked into being’ in the day-to-day practices of their members. Since then, there has been a growing research interest in meetings and other types of encounters inside organizations. The current special issue seeks to contribute to this growing body of studies by presenting new insights on practices and actions in meetings, and it also seeks to develop the methodological orientations of the field by insisting on the need for a multimodal approach to meeting interaction. Meetings are important and interesting objects of research for many reasons. First, they are important due to their pervasiveness in the workplace. Meetings constitute one of the most significant arenas for organizational communication involving more than two persons. They take up a large amount of the work time for many employees, especially in white-collar jobs. For leaders, participating in meetings constitutes one of the main activities of their work day. Meetings thus represent one of the main arenas where organizational knowledge and culture are created, negotiated and disseminated (Boden, 1994; Nielsen, 2009). Furthermore, meetings are prime sites where organizational roles and relations are manifested (Putnam and Fairhurst, 2001; Taylor, 2006). Scholars interested in leadership
79 citations
TL;DR: The authors distinguish between candidate understanding that solves a manifest problem by offering new, relevant information and candidate understanding which does not seem to relate to any obvious obscurity in what the speaker is saying, and only offers material that the speaker clearly knows, or ought to know.
Abstract: A listener can offer an interpretation (can give a ‘candidate understanding’) of what a speaker is currently saying. I distinguish between, on the one hand, proposing a candidate understanding that solves a manifest problem by offering new, relevant information; and, on the other hand, proposing a candidate understanding that does not seem to relate to any obvious obscurity in what the speaker is saying, and only offers material that the speaker clearly knows, or ought to know. Both kinds are interruptions to the progressivity of the speaker’s project, but they differ qualitatitively. I argue that the former is affiliative and the latter disaffiliative, insofar as the latter calls attention to, and therefore invites correction or abandonment of, what the speaker is doing. I discuss what such a move might serve, and show how making it involves epistemic and deontological rights.
66 citations
TL;DR: The recent resurgence of Sacks' work on membership categorization has highlighted the growing analytic interest in how members' social category orientations operate at multiple levels of interactional work as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The recent resurgence of Sacks’ work on membership categorization has highlighted the growing analytic interest in how members’ social category orientations operate at multiple levels of interactional work. One of the outcomes of this, highlighted in Stokoe’s discussion, is the re-emergence of the question of whether membership categorization analysis (MCA) has been, is, or can be an approach in its own right. In this brief discussion I consider the emergence of ‘MCA’ as an approach to the study of social-knowledge-in-action, the relationship between MCA and contemporary directions in conversation analysis (CA), and finally the future of MCA as it continues to develop.
61 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present some characteristic practices used for introducing agenda-based topics and show that they rely on the known-in-advance status of the items, and are presented by the chair as unilateral announcements.
Abstract: Meetings differ from ordinary conversation in that they have an agenda that specifies in advance the topics to be addressed during the meeting. However, the introduction of these topics needs to be locally accomplished and recognized by the participants as agenda items. This article presents some characteristic practices used for introducing agenda-based topics. It shows that they rely on the known-in-advance status of the items, and are presented by the chair as unilateral announcements. They exploit and invoke the written agenda in several ways. The announcements are often short phrasal constructions, just citing the written title of the agenda point. Furthermore, a gaze down at the written document is used as a public display that the introduction is related to the agenda. In contrast to this practice of introducing agenda items, topics not specified by the agenda are introduced by suggestions and questions that present the introduction as contingent on acceptance by the co-participants. The analysis s...
58 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a multimodal approach is used to facilitate the brain-storm interaction in a multi-modal perspective, where participants are helped to express their thoughts and engage in a social process of clarifying, developing and refining ideas.
Abstract: This article discusses ‘brainstorm’ interaction in a multimodal perspective. It shows how an innovation workshop facilitator is ‘doing facilitation’ by not only organizing group activities and managing turn-taking, but also drawing each group member out to participate actively and contribute to the group process. Institutional goals are transformed to individual conversational participation. Participants are helped to express their thoughts and engage in a social process of clarifying, developing and refining ideas. In the process the facilitator is socializing the participants into a particular participation framework, letting them collaborate in shaping a local community of practice. The facilitator is separating phases of activities to afford decoupling actions, creating specific local sequential environments for participants to produce particular kinds of talk, thus engaging a group of participants in a social process of collaborative idea development. The article will show how multimodal orientation ...
57 citations
TL;DR: The interactional organization of meetings is an important locus of observation for understanding the way in which institutions are talked into being as discussed by the authors, and this article contributes to this growing body of work.
Abstract: The interactional organization of meetings is an important locus of observation for understanding the way in which institutions are talked into being. This article contributes to this growing body ...
54 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an adjacency-pair organized course of action in the institutional context of customers calling an electronics repair facility to request the status of equipment they have pre-ordered is described.
Abstract: This article describes an adjacency-pair organized course of action in the institutional context of customers calling an electronics repair facility to request the status of equipment they have pre...
TL;DR: When children are present in family therapy they can and do make fleeting contributions as mentioned in this paper, and we draw upon naturally occurring family therapy to support our work in this area. But we do not discuss the role of children in our work.
Abstract: Family therapists face a number of challenges in their work. When children are present in family therapy they can and do make fleeting contributions. We draw upon naturally occurring family therapy...
TL;DR: This study contributes to expanding accounts for turn taking beyond traditional word-based grammar (i.e. lexicon and syntax) by attending to bodily-visual action, as well as phonetics and prosody.
Abstract: As multiparty interactions with single courses of coordinated action, workplace meetings place particular interactional demands on participants who are not primary speakers (e.g. not chairs) as the...
TL;DR: This paper examined how discourse participants use language, the body and the local interactional and material context in the construction of offers and argued that the frequent accomplishment over time of such complex actions may contribute to the emergence of a set of social action formats for offers.
Abstract: The article examines how discourse participants use language, the body and the local interactional and material context in the construction of offers. The data consist of eight hours of video recordings of everyday interactions in English and Finnish, and conversation analysis is used as the method. We focus on offers that make available to the recipient some concrete referent or material object or artifact in the current situation, that is, ‘concrete offers’. The article shows that such offers can be conceptualized as consisting of two interlinked actions, one identifying the referent and the other explicating the offer. The article further argues that the frequent accomplishment over time of such complex actions may contribute to the emergence of a set of social action formats for offers. This action combination is explored by discussing offers that range from fully linguistically articulated ones, to types where embodied actions take an increasingly central role.
TL;DR: In this article, a case study based on the argumentative analysis of news in the press is presented, where the concept of contextual frame is introduced to refer to the news context, that is, the background against which a certain event is presented as a piece of news.
Abstract: By presenting a case study based on the argumentative analysis of news in the press, this article introduces and discusses strategic manoeuvring with contextual frames. Drawing on the linguistic notion of frame, I introduce the concept of contextual frame to refer to the news context, that is, the background against which a certain event is presented as a piece of news. I argue that newspapers and journalists make use of contextual frames in the apparently neutral genre of news reporting to propose specific interpretations of the facts at issue, which become the basis for explicit comments and editorials. To show how this works, I investigate in detail a case of newspaper coverage of a complex episode using the pragma-dialectical notion of strategic manoeuvring and the Argumentum Model of Topics (AMT) to analyse argument schemes. I show that, in the use of contextual frames, there is a prominent relation between presentational devices (the lexical choices that build up the frame) and topical potential; co...
TL;DR: This article synthesizes existing scholarly attempts at either conceptualizing or exploring the possibilities of combining CA and ethnography and gives further considerations to whether or how resorting to talk-extrinsic data may be beneficial, by providing four illustrative cases from four different settings.
Abstract: The conversation analytic view of context is often critiqued as being too narrow. In this article, we join the ongoing debate regarding conversation analysis (CA) and context by 1) synthesizing existing scholarly attempts at either conceptualizing or exploring the possibilities of combining CA and ethnography and 2) giving further considerations to whether or how resorting to talk-extrinsic data may be beneficial. We do so by providing four illustrative cases, with increasing complexity, from four different settings. In each case, an initial CA analysis is followed up with an informal ethnographic interview with the participants. By offering some specificity to this ongoing methodological controversy regarding talk-extrinsic data, we aim to begin building a useful framework within which further discussions on analysis, context, and cross-fertilization may proceed.
TL;DR: In this article, a taxonomy of interactional metadiscourse resources in various contexts have gained increasing attention recently, however, little work has ever been done in investigating the use of interactal metdiscourse in job postings.
Abstract: Interactional metadiscourse resources in various contexts have gained increasing attention recently. However, little work has ever been done in investigating the use of interactional metadiscourse in job postings. Based on Hyland’s (2005a, 2005b) model, I propose the taxonomy of interactional metadiscourse which consists of two broad categories: stance features and engagement features, and seven sub-categories: hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, reader-inclusive pronouns, questions and directives. Drawing on a detailed analysis of 220 job postings totaling about 77,100 words, together with 30 informants’ feedback of the attitude toward the use of interactional metadiscourse, the article explores the ways in which the writer interacts with the reader via interactional metadiscourse in this genre. The study has yielded some interesting results: in job postings, the occurrences of stance markers and engagement markers are close in frequency; within the genre, two sub-corpora of job postings (...
TL;DR: This article examines two corpora of telephone calls to the Swedish emergency services SOS-Alarm, examining the procedural consequentiality of the routine opening by the operator and proposing that the work of emergency assistance agencies worldwide might consider implementing opening routines with a similar design.
Abstract: This article examines two corpora of telephone calls to the Swedish emergency services SOSAlarm The focus of analysis is on the procedural consequentiality of the routine opening by theoperator In the first corpus, the summons are answered by identification of the service via the emergency number In the second corpus, the protocol has been altered, such that the opening entails the emergency number combined with a standard query concerning the nature of the incident Through sequential and categorial analysis of the two collections, we highlight the distinct trajectories of action ensuing from the two opening protocols The stand-alone emergency number opening typically results in callers asking for a specific service In contrast, opening turns that endwith a direct query about the incident tend to solicit brief descriptions of the trouble We discuss the benefits of the latter procedure in terms of topical progression and institutional relevance, proposing that the work of emergency assistance agencies worldwide might consider implementing opening routines with a similar design
TL;DR: This paper argued that the nature of the analytic aims of a research project determines whether or not participants' reported findings will match the analytic objectives of the project, and argued that participants' reports of their analytic aims are unreliable.
Abstract: In response to an article by Waring, Creider, Tarpey and Black (2012), the author argues that the nature of the analytic aims of a research project determines whether or not participants’ reported ...
TL;DR: This article used conversation analysis to investigate multimodal social actions, focusing on management of speaking rights and co-construction of units, and displays of knowledge and accountability between two people.
Abstract: This article addresses the issue of how team identity is constructed between two people during a series of regular meetings of a work group in Serbia. Using conversation analysis to investigate (multimodal) social actions, this study looks at the recurrent construction of an implicit team identity by focusing on management of speaking rights and co-construction of units, and displays of knowledge and accountability. With its longitudinal perspective, the article contributes to the existing body of research on teams in interaction in general, as it builds upon previous research on interactional parties and conjoined participation. The results are especially relevant for the investigations of teams in meetings, as they provide evidence of how formal features of interaction are recurrently employed to display institutionally relevant epistemics and accountability.
TL;DR: The authors argue that people's personal accounts of contingent and fleeting moments of interaction are of a different order of event from the actions they produce in situ, and that CA does use context, insofar as any analyst works with scenes in a culturally familiar landscape, bolstered by ethnographic accounts for help with local terminology or institutional agendas.
Abstract: In a critique of Conversation Analysis’ treatment of context, Waring, Creider, Tarpey and Black invite us to see that, when understanding some stretch of interaction, speakers’ retrospective reports might be helpful. Two standard responses to Waring et al.’s argument are that 1) people’s personal accounts of contingent and fleeting moments of interaction are of a different order of event from the actions they produce in situ, and are matters of analysis in their own right; and that 2) CA does use context, insofar as any analyst works with scenes in a culturally familiar landscape, bolstered (sometimes) by ethnographic accounts for help with local terminology or institutional agendas.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used data from a national Swedish evaluation of interventions to replace professionals' judgements with objective numbers using psychometric measurement to replace professional judgment with objective number.
Abstract: Different areas of child welfare work call for psychometric measurement to replace professionals’ judgements with objective numbers Using data from a national Swedish evaluation of interventions f
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the ways in which a group of four-year-old children co-constructed friendship networks when they began primary school in Wales, UK and found that the children used the collective pro-terms 'we' and 'us' in order to explicate affiliations and exclusions with their peers in their everyday social interactions.
Abstract: This article discusses the ways in which a group of four-year-old children co-constructed friendship networks when they began primary school in Wales, UK. This discussion has emanated from a wider study of the everyday social interactions children engage in when new to their school environment. The children’s interactions were investigated through the use of an inductive, ethnomethodological approach through the combination of conversation analysis (CA) and membership categorization analysis (MCA). The transcriptions revealed that the children used the collective pro-terms ‘we’ and ‘us’ in order to explicate affiliations and exclusions with their peers in their everyday social interactions. These findings offer an insight into the daily social organization processes children engage in and suggests their preference for exclusive dyadic friendships. The article also reveals the social competencies which four-year-old children have in accomplishing social organization.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show how a suspect's statement travels through two stages of the criminal law process: the police interrogation and the trial, exhibited by two modes of production: talk and writing.
Abstract: The aim of this article is to show how a suspect’s statement travels through two stages of the criminal law process: the police interrogation and the trial, exhibited by two modes of production: talk and writing. I first discuss how the suspect’s statement is elicited and written down by the police in the police report; next I consider how the police report is made to form part of a legally adequate case-file; and finally I investigate the ways in which the judge quotes and refers to the police report in his questioning of the suspect during the trial. This step-by-step inspection of the trajectory of the suspect’s statement shows processes of de- and recontextualization. The suspect’s statement is written down so as to enable it to be taken out of one context (the police interrogation) and inserted into another (the trial). This means that old meanings are removed from the suspect’s statement and new meanings are added. In the courtroom, however, the judge treats the suspect’s written statement as his ow...
TL;DR: The authors argue for clarity in articulating relationships between methods, addressing, in particular, the language used to describe the relationships among methods and methods, and argue that the perils of interdisciplinary and applied conversation analysis can be identified.
Abstract: Acknowledging the perils of interdisciplinary and applied conversation analysis, this essay argues for clarity in articulating relationships between methods, addressing, in particular, the language...
TL;DR: This article illustrates how students convey their epistemic positions with different syntactic structures and how such distinct positions are ratified in the unfolding sequence of question–answer sequences and pedagogical practices.
Abstract: Using video recordings of one-on-one writing conferences as data, this conversation analytic study provides a sequential analysis of student-initiated question–answer sequences and demonstrates tha...
TL;DR: This article provided a conversation analytic description of a two-part structure, "I don't want X, I want/just want Y", in the context of family mealtimes and television documentaries.
Abstract: This article provides a conversation analytic description of a two-part structure, ‘I don’t want X, I want/just want Y’. Drawing on a corpus of recordings of family mealtimes and television documen...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the role of assessments in gifting sequences, the distribution of assessments across participants, and some of the possible troubles which can arise in doing assessments of gifts based on discourse analysis of 44 gifting situations in one family's 30 home videos spanning 13 years.
Abstract: This article analyzes gift-exchange occasions as both a sequentially organized activity and as a ritual practice imbued with social and cultural meaning. Specifically, the article focuses on the role of assessments in gifting sequences, the distribution of assessments across participants, and some of the possible troubles which can arise in doing assessments of gifts based on discourse analysis of 44 gifting situations in one family’s 30 home videos spanning 13 years. I argue that participants encounter difficulties in the process of proffering assessments of gifts, and that such troubles revolve around the dilemma of constructing positive assessments as authentically given. The analysis discusses the organization of action in gifting occasions, outlines the expectations and dilemmas involved in doing assessments of gifts, and presents participants’ discursive practices for managing potential troubles in gift assessment.
TL;DR: In this paper, a Finnish discussion program broadcast six days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA in 2001 is analyzed as an interactional project, being prosecuted by the hosting journalists.
Abstract: This article shows how journalists deploy membership categorization in managing conversational drama among ordinary individuals in live television discussion. The scripted agenda for the discussion is analyzed as an interactional project, being prosecuted by the hosting journalists. The case in focus is a Finnish discussion program broadcast six days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA in 2001. Five guests are invited to the studio and introduced to the audience. The membership categories that are activated at the beginning of each entrance are consequential to the way the interactional activities unfold in the rest of the discussion, leading from experiential entitlement to accountability and accusation. Introductory identifications are utilized in the question formulation to push moral accounts from the category members and to build an institutionally proper identity for the journalists. The collaboration in realizing the moral casting vividly illustrates the cultural power of the categorization...
TL;DR: In this article, a sociolinguistic study was conducted to explore the perception of both the requestor and the requestee with respect to using mitigation strategies in the requestive speech act and their effects on compliance.
Abstract: Strategies used in requestive speech act and their effects on compliance have been the focus of a number of studies. Previous research, however, has dealt mainly with perceptive data elicited from one of the interlocutors involved in the use of mitigation. A sociolinguistic study could explore the perception of both the requestor and the requestee with respect to using such strategies. This article aims to study the possible correlation between request compliance and the use of mitigation devices. The question is what observable effects using mitigators have both on the requestor’s judgment of compliance and on prohibiting the requestee from rejecting the request. Four role-play interactions followed by stimulated recall procedures were used to collect the required data. The results obtained from the analysis of data revealed that, in similar situations, American requestors are comparably more certain than Iranians that the addressee would comply with their requests using fewer mitigation devices; while, ...