Discourse structure of academic talk in university office hour interactions

Abstract

In line with some promising studies dealing with particular academic speech events at university level (He, 1993; Tracy, 1997), this article analyses recordings of another established form of spoken academic discourse at university outside the classroom; viz. office hour interactions between faculty and students (cf. Carpenter, 1983). Office hour appointments at two German universities were video-recorded and subsequently transcribed according to conventional transcription notations. The study draws upon two levels of analysis. First, a phasal sectioning (cf. Young, 1994) is performed to highlight different stages in the organization of office hour talk, which are decisive for a fruitful consultation and indispensable to conform to official standards in academia. Concurrently, on an interactional level, findings from conversation analysis are used to display how this form of consultation unfolds, and how participants orient towards both the respective institutional tasks as well as the discourse partner. What becomes clear from this preliminary study is that the academic significance of office hours is often underestimated. Those cases in which complex academic matters are under discussion demand careful action-taking and mutual orientation by both participants. This face-to-face encounter has multiple consequences for the academic and the social relationship between teacher and student, as well as for pedagogical practices and institutional (i.e. educational) circumstances at large.