Applied Conversation Analysis Research Articles

Applying Conversation Analysis to the communication between medical personnel and patients

Unlike standard survey- or interview-based social science research, Conversation Analysis reveals the exact interactional practices by which medical personnel carry out their duties. This gives the results of CA research enviable face validity, and enough detail to indicate specific interventions for change. I outline some of the promises and potential difficulties of applying CA to medical encounters.

Applied conversation analysis: Intervention and change in institutional talk

Applied conversation analysis: Intervention and change in institutional talk

Asserting the Right to Belong: Feminist Co-Mentoring among Graduate Student Women

This empirical case study aims to identify how graduate student women mentor each other when tutoring writing and, through doing so, assert their right to belong in the academy. Much existing literature on feminist mentoring emphasizes the need for better mentoring for women, whether in work or school environments, in current or future faculty positions (see, e.g., Bona, Rinehart, and Volbrecht; Darwin; Eble and Gaillet; Enos; Fishman and Lunsford; Goeke et al.). Across the literature, there is also attention to the role that peer mentoring or co-mentoring plays in providing support for women in higher education. Jennifer Goeke et al., for instance, have shown the importance of peer mentoring among junior faculty for achieving both scholarly productivity and work/life balance. Lori D. Patton has documented that peer mentoring among African American women provides a range of benefits, including “sharing information with friends, writing and studying together, seeking advice, and simply enjoying conversations with a person they could trust” (529). And in reflecting on their own relationship, Gail M. McGuire and Jo Reger have argued that reciprocal co-mentoring provides encouragement through shared success, allows individuals to pool knowledge and resources, and makes a space for sharing doubts about academia (62–63). While this literature suggests the value of mentoring, particularly feminist co-mentoring, it also indicates a need to understand better the nature of these collaborations. Specifically: what does feminist co-mentoring look like in practice? What interactional and relational work is involved when graduate student women mentor each other? Toward answering these large but central questions, we use the method and theory of applied conversation analysis (CA), which allows us to present and closely analyze a case study based on videotaped interactions of two graduate student women of color who met weekly in a campus writing center over several months. This case was recorded as part of a larger study that involved videotaping writing conferences and interviewing writers and tutors about their ongoing relationships and work together. Though the case study participants never explicitly name

Toward Explaining the Transformative Power of Talk about, around, and for Writing

This article provides an initial approach for capturing moments of talk about, around, and for writing to explain why writing groups and writing conferences are so often considered “transformative” for the people involved. After describing the widespread and yet disparate transformations so often attributed to collaborative writing talk, I introduce applied conversation analysis (CA) as a method for getting at what is often difficult to identify, document, and explain: the intricacies of moments that underlie, if not directly account for, transformations. At the core of this article, I present a case study of a writer, Susan, and tutor, Kim, and analyze their talk and embodied interactions around writing. In particular, two sequences of their talk—the first an example of “troubles telling,” or attending to a reported trouble (Jefferson, 1981, 1984, 1988) and the second an enactment of humor that names asymmetrical power relations (Holmes, 2000)—illustrate the ways in which building affiliative relationships might allow for naming and poking fun at, if not restructuring, power relations. Further, self-reports from interview data indicate how the occasions of talk between Susan and Kim mark shifts in thinking about themselves, their writing, and their commitments—shifts that can be attributed to their relational, affiliative interactions and that provide supporting evidence for the transformative power of collaborative writing talk.

Structure, complexity and cooperation in parallel external chat interactions

This article examines structure, complexity and cooperation in external chat interactions at the workplace in which one of the participants is taking part in multiple parallel conversations. The investigation is based on an analysis of nine chat interactions in a work-related context, with particular focus on the content of the parallel time spans of the chat interactions. The analysis was inspired by applied conversation analysis (CA). The empirical material has been placed at my disposal by Kristelig Fagbevægelse (Krifa), which is Denmark’s third-largest trade union. The article’s overall focus is on “turn-taking organisation as the fundamental and generic aspect of interaction organisation” (Drew & Heritage, 1992, p. 25), including the use of turn-taking rules, adjacency pairs, and the importance of pauses. Even though the employee and the union members do not know one another and cannot see, hear, or touch one another, it is possible to detect an informal, pleasant tone in their interactions. This challenges the basically asymmetrical relationship between employee and customer, and one can sense a further level of asymmetry. In terms of medium, chat interactions exist via various references to other media, including telephone calls and e-mails.

Clarity in applied and interdisciplinary conversation analysis

Acknowledging the perils of interdisciplinary and applied conversation analysis, this essay argues for clarity in articulating relationships between methods, addressing, in particular, the language used to formulate claims regarding how participants’ post hoc reflections relate to findings from CA analyses.

Applied conversation analysis: intervention and change in institutional talk

Series Preface Acknowledgements List of Contributors Notation Applied Conversation Analysis: From Explication to Intervention C.Antaki 'Some' vs 'Any' Medical Worries: Encouraging Patients to Reveal Their Unmet Concerns J.Heritage & J.D.Robinson Changing Interactional Behaviour: Using Conversation Analysis in Intervention Programmes for Aphasic Conversation R.Wilkinson Improving Response Rates in Telephone Interviews D.W.Maynard , J.Freese & N.C.Schaeffer Improving Ethnic Monitoring on a Telephone Helpline S.Wilkinson Working with Childbirth Helplines: The Contributions and Limitations of Conversation Analysis C.Kitzinger Simulated Interaction and Communication Skills Training: The 'Conversation Analytic Role-Play Method' E.Stokoe Should Mandatory Jobseeker Interviews Be Personalised? The Politics of Using Conversation Analysis to Make Effective Practice Recommendations M.Toerien, A.Irvine, P.Drew & R.Sainsbury Giving Feedback to Care Staff About Offering Choices to People with Intellectual Disabilities W.M.Finlay, C.Walton & C.Antaki Reflecting on Your Own Talk: The Discursive Action Method at Work J.Lamerichs & H.Te Molder Conversation Analysis Applied to User Centered Design: A Study of Who 'The User' Is M.Egbert A Psychoanalyst's Reflection on Conversation Analysis's Contribution to His Own Therapeutic Talk A.Perakyla References Index

Applying corpus linguistics and conversation analysis in the investigation of small group teaching in higher education

AbstractIn this paper, we consider how a combined corpus linguistics and conversation analysis methodology can reveal new insights into the relationship between interaction patterns, language use, and learning. The context of the paper is higher education small group teaching sessions and our data are drawn from a one million word corpus, the Limerick-Belfast Corpus of Academic Spoken English (LI-BEL CASE). Our methodology combines corpus linguistics (CL) and applied conversation analysis (CA), enabling quantitative findings to be elaborated by more close-up qualitative analysis of sequences of interaction. Using a combined CL and CA approach (henceforth CLCA) enables us to consider more closely the relationships between, for example, interaction patterns and lexical chunks and to evaluate the extent to which tutors create or prevent opportunities for learning. Using CLCA, we offer a more detailed description of the linguistic and interactional features of turns at talk and consider how these features combine in the joint enterprise of meaning-making. Put simply, CLCA enables us to characterize seminar talk in a more systematic way. Starting at the level of turn, and using CA to move to a higher level of discourse, we can identify specific features of the spoken interaction, such as sequential organisation and topic management. Similarly, starting again at the level of turn but using CL, we can move our analysis to lower levels of discourse, such as cluster and word patterns, in order to see how words combine. This CLCA approach offers a fuller, richer description of talk in small-group teaching than would be found using either CA or CL alone. Finally, we offer an evaluation of a CLCA methodology and consider its applications in other research settings.

Echo, not quotation: what conversation analysis reveals about classroom responses to heard poetry

This article applies conversation analysis to classroom talk-in-interaction where pupils respond to poetry they have heard. The phenomenon of repeating in discussion details from the poem, including patterns of delivery, is considered and named echo to distinguish it from quotation in writing. The phenomenon is significant to the pedagogy of literary study given the existing tacit and unexamined assumption that when pupils repeat textual details verbally this has equivalence with quotation in writing. Three episodes drawn from a single sequence of classroom interaction are presented together with a transcript of the stimulus heard poem. Each is accompanied by an interpretive commentary. It appears that echo in classroom discussions of poetry performs actions distinct from quotation in writing, for example that the acts of presenting and analysing textual detail occur simultaneously. The innovation of the research lies in the inclusion of the transcript-rendered poem as a turn in the sequence of interaction: as a verbally oriented method, conversation analysis provides an apt means of rendering response to poetry presented in the oral mode. More broadly, the discussion is consistent with the emergent popularity of conversation analysis as a method for considering classroom interactions with a view to reflecting on subtle aspects of learning.

Prosodic imitation in classroom interaction

This article presents an analysis of how Finnish teenagers use prosodic imitation in their classroom interaction. The data consists of video recordings (14 lessons) of naturally occurring classroom interaction in junior secondary schools (students aged 13-15). The study is conducted by applying conversation analysis (CA). The prosodic imitation I explore involves the turns-at-talk that orient prosodically to the preceding turns in terms of, for example, intonation, pitch, volume, rhythm, or voice quality (Szczepek Reed 2008). When imitating, the participants usually also recycle some of the verbal elements (words or a syntactic construction) in their source turns. I argue that while prosodic imitation is in many respects a gendered practice, in addition to earlier studies that report boys silencing girls by imitating them (Gordon et al. 1999, Palmu 2003), I show that students use prosodic imitation to various interactional purposes. It is suggested that the prevalent function of prosodic imitation is to express alignment with the preceding turn/speaker, and the students, especially the girls, make most use of this imitation in the negotiations concerning institutional and gender asymmetries. Prosodic imitation is thereby one means for students to playfully deconstruct the institutionally organized interactional setting, and hence one of the instruments they use to empower themselves in interaction.

Applied conversation analysis: Intervention and change in institutional talk: Charles Antaki, Ed., Palgrave, Basingstoke, UK, 2011, 274 pp., price: 19.99 GBP, 32.00 USD (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-230-22996-9

Applied conversation analysis: Intervention and change in institutional talk: Charles Antaki, Ed., Palgrave, Basingstoke, UK, 2011, 274 pp., price: 19.99 GBP, 32.00 USD (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-230-22996-9

Applying Conversation Analysis: Script-based Interactions in Movies as a Domain of Inquiry

Applying Conversation Analysis: Script-based Interactions in Movies as a Domain of Inquiry

Investigating interactional competencies in Parkinson's disease: the potential benefits of a conversation analytic approach

Around 70% of people who develop Parkinson's disease (PD) experience speech and voice changes. Clinicians often find that when asked about their primary communication concerns, PD clients will talk about the difficulties they have 'getting into' conversations. This is an important area for clients and it has implications for quality of life and clinical management. To review the extant literature on PD and communication impairments in order to reveal key topic areas, the range of methodologies applied, and any gaps in knowledge relating to PD and social interaction and how these might be usefully addressed. A systematic search of a number of key databases and available grey literatures regarding PD and communication impairment was conducted (including motor speech changes, intelligibility, cognitive/language changes) to obtain a sense of key areas and methodologies applied. Research applying conversation analysis in the field of communication disability was also reviewed to illustrate the value of this methodology in uncovering common interactional difficulties, and in revealing the use of strategic collaborative competencies in naturally occurring conversation. In addition, available speech and language therapy assessment and intervention approaches to PD were examined with a view to their effectiveness in promoting individualized intervention planning and advice-giving for everyday interaction. A great deal has been written about the deficits underpinning communication changes in PD and the impact of communication disability on the self and others as measured in a clinical setting. Less is known about what happens for this client group in everyday conversations outside of the clinic. Current speech and language therapy assessments and interventions focus on the individual and are largely impairment based or focused on compensatory speaker-oriented techniques. A conversation analysis approach would complement basic research on what actually happens in everyday conversation for people with PD and their co-participants. The potential benefits of a conversation analysis approach to communication disability in PD include enabling a shift in clinical focus from individual impairment onto strategic collaborative competencies. This would have implications for client-centred intervention planning and the development of new and complementary clinical resources addressing participation. The impact would be new and improved support for those living with the condition as well as their families and carers.

Applying conversation analysis to traumatic brain injury: investigating touching another person in everyday social interaction

Purpose. Touching others, particularly the opposite sex, is a relatively common and problematic behaviour evident in many people with traumatic brain injury (TBI), in particular males. Here, we analyse this behaviour in a man with TBI (Richard) who regularly engages in inappropriate touching of women. The article draws on video-recordings of two naturally occurring social interactions between Richard and Joan (one of his carers) to analyse all six instances within these interactions where Richard touches Joan.Method. The recordings were made by leaving a video-recorder in Richard's home where he is supported by members of a care team. The socio-linguistic method of conversation analysis was used to transcribe and analyse the data.Results. The analysis shows that each of the six instances of the touching behaviour occurred not as a random or isolated event in the interaction but rather in accompaniment with talk as part of a particular conversational action. Specifically, the conversational action in each case was produced in an emphatic or heightened style, with this style constituted by Richard touching Joan as well as by his use of a number of other resources such as eye gaze and the use of stress.Conclusions. The analysis suggests that the touching behaviours in this case were linked not so much to physical opportunities (which were available through much of these interactions) but rather to what conversational action was being produced at that particular sequential context within the interaction. For example, several instances of touching occurred as part of emphatically produced conversational actions where a previous, non-emphatic, production of that action had not been accepted or responded to by Joan. Clinical implications, such as suggestions for prophylactic management on the part of those interacting with people with TBI, are discussed.

Learning to be a Teacher: Development of EFL Teacher Trainee Interactional Practices

Applying Conversation Analysis (CA), this longitudinal study examines how teacher trainees developed their classroom interactional practices in an elementary school and constructed their identities as teachers over a 19-month period. The analysis focuses on two Japanese university students participating as teacher trainees in English Activities classes at an elementary school. Over 30 hours of classroom interaction were video recorded and analyzed in detail. Observation of the data revealed that through participation in this particular community, the trainees developed classroom interactional practices in two areas: provision of assessments to students and initiative in giving directions. As the trainees’ interactional practices evolved, there were changes in their social actions in becoming teachers. This study demonstrates the positive effects of on-site training, and delineates the processes fledgling trainees undergo in transition to becoming fully participating teachers. 本研究では小学校の英語活動の授業において英語教育サポーターとして活動する大学生が19ヶ月間の間にいかにして教室相互行為の慣行を身につけ、教師としてのアイデンティティを構築していったかを会話分析の手法を用いて長期に渡って検証した。分析は横浜市の某小学校で英語活動に英語教育サポーターとして参加する大学生2名に焦点を当てた。検証の結果、19ヶ月間の間に児童の発話に対する口頭評価の仕方とおよび児童への口頭指示の仕方において2名の英語教育サポーターの成長がみられた。また、教室でのやりとりを学んでいくと共に、教師としてのアイデンティティも彼らの相互行為活動の中に垣間見られるようになった。本研究は現場での教育実習の有効性を示すと共に英語教育サポーターがその教育現場で徐々に駆け出しのサポーターから一人前の教師のようになっていく様子を描写した。

The Interactional Architecture of the Language Classroom

This article provides a summary of some of the key ideas of Seedhouse (2004). The study applies Conversation Analysis (CA) methodology to an extensive and varied database of language lessons from around the world and attempts to answer the question ‘How is L2 classroom interaction organised?’ The main thesis is that there is a reflexive relationship between pedagogy and interaction in the L2 classroom. This means that there is a two-way, mutually dependent relationship. Furthermore, this relationship is the foundation of the organisation of interaction in L2 classrooms. The omnipresent and unique feature of the L2 classroom is this reflexive relationship between pedagogy and interaction. So whoever is taking part in L2 classroom interaction and whatever the particular activity during which the interactants are speaking the L2, they are always displaying to one another their analyses of the current state of the evolving relationship between pedagogy and interaction and acting on the basis of these analyses. So interaction in the L2 classroom is based on the relationship between pedagogy and interaction. Interactants are constantly analysing this relationship and displaying their analyses in their talk. An example of data analysis is provided, including discussion of socially distributed cognition and learning.

Interaction Between Patients With Type 2 Diabetes And Diabetes Nurse Specialists During Annual Check-Ups: A Study Using Video Recordings

Background : Patients with Type 2 diabetes are involved in lifelong treatment through annual diabetes check-up. Diabetes nurse specialists are in charge of these appointments which are meant to promote patient’s health, diabetes control as well as the recommended physical examination. Communication during the annual diabetes check-up depends on each party’s agenda or goals. The interaction structure during the annual check-ups by diabetes nurse specialists is rarely studied, though it is important for patients understanding. Objective: The aim of this study was to explain how the interaction was initiated and performed during the physical examination in annual diabetes check-ups.Methods: Applied conversation analysis was used in 20 video observations to describe verbal and nonverbal interaction between patients with type 2 diabetes and diabetes nurse specialists during the annual diabetes check-ups. Findings : Annual check-ups consisted of five phases: opening, health history, physical examination, conclusion and closing. Patients were generally the main actors. By recounting their health history they were able to set the agenda. The pattern changed to more passive participation during the physical examination which required mutual cooperation in order to create reliable outcomes. The informative value of check-ups varied depending on, the patients’ problems and the type of examination used, among other things. Practical implications: First professionals must be aware that routines of instruction to patients during physical examination procedures have an influence on patients’ understanding of measurement outcomes. Second, professionals should understand that even when there is no problems there can still be a subject for discussion about self-management. Third professionals need to be prepared to cope with embarrassing examination routines in order to enhance informative value.

Conversation after right hemisphere brain damage: Motivations for applying conversation analysis

Despite the well documented pragmatic deficits that can arise subsequent to Right Hemisphere Brain Damage (RHBD), few researchers have directly studied everyday conversations involving people with RHBD. In recent years, researchers have begun applying Conversation Analysis (CA) to the everyday talk of people with aphasia. This research programme has provided novel insights into the complex inter-relationship between impairment, language use, and interactional organization. This paper will argue that the detailed, inductive approach of CA is well suited to investigating pragmatic communication disorders resulting from RHBD, and will help to elaborate previous findings about RHBD and conversation. In particular, this paper will review and discuss previous investigations of conversation after RHBD, and put forward arguments relating to how CA might be applied to talk-in-interaction involving people with RHBD.

Meetings that Evolve Interactively: Viewing a Town Hall Discussion with an LSI Perspective

This paper applies conversation analysis methods to a large public meeting. Examination of various pivotal speech acts and actions as performed by the presenters as well as the attendees suggested the enactment and sequencing of these different modes of interaction did not evolve randomly. As in any system, all elements within a group are interdependent and reciprocally influential; therefore, in this meeting, as the communication modes, communication goals, topic initiation, and agenda management roles shifted, individual parties and the group as a whole subtly coordinated to accommodate those shifts. One particular participant performed several implicit and explicit functions in the ongoing communication system of this meeting. Comparing his apparently spontaneous behaviors to the planned procedures of the program presenters revealed possible insights into how better to serve the diverse goals of presenters who want an orderly intake of information and attitudes and attendees who want a sense of involvement and empowerment.

Topic Negotiation in Peer Group Oral Assessment Situations: A Conversation Analytic Approach

This study examines the production of topical talk in peer collaborative negotiation in an interactive assessment innovation context. The ability to stay on topic, to move from topic to topic and to introduce new topics appropriately is at the core of communicative competence. Applying conversation analysis (CA), we describe and analyze how one group of secondary ESL students orient to and construct what they take to be relevant to the assessment task as interaction proceeds. We found that in the context of group oral discussion described in our study, in the course of turn-by-turn interaction which was characterized by intensive engagement and active participation between peer participants, this group of students were able to pursue, develop, and shift topics to, on the one hand, ensure the successful completion of the assigned task, and on the other, to display individual contributions. Topical transitions appeared to be the result of participants constantly monitoring the content of talk for relevance to the assessment task agenda. Such negotiation of topical talk among the participants indicates that peer group discussion as an oral assessment format has the potential to provide opportunities for students to demonstrate ‘real-life’ interactional abilities to relate to each other in spoken interaction.