Conversation Analytic Approach Research Articles

A Conversation Analysis-Complex Dynamics Systems Theory (CA-CDST) Approach for Analyzing Longitudinal Development in L2 Pragmatics

The compatibility of Conversation Analysis (CA) and Complex Dynamics Systems Theory Approach (CDST) in analyzing second language (L2) development has long been discussed (e.g., Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008a). Nevertheless, how CA and CDST are compatible and how the method can be applied to data to analyze L2 development has been rarely demonstrated, with a few exceptions (e.g., Siegel & Seedhouse, 2024). This paper builds upon these prior discussions, explaining the compatibility of CA and CDST and a demonstration of the Conversation Analysis-Complex Dynamics Systems Theory (CA-CDST) approach to holistically analyze L2 pragmatic development. The CA-CDST approach is exemplified through the analysis of the use of code-switching in L2 interaction. The analysis demonstrates that unmarked code-switching in L2 interaction is not an omnipresent interactional phenomenon. Rather, it is learned; it is an interactional resource that is co-constructed through the sequential process of multiple encounters, adaptation, and accommodation to both the interlocutor and the interactional setting. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates the adaptable nature of CA and how the CA-CDST can elucidate the non-linear nature of L2 pragmatic development.

The supportive nature of Classroom Codeswitching functions in a Mexican EFL higher education language center: Does Codeswitching remain inadequately misunderstood?

Classroom codeswitching continues to be a debatable topic in current education practice as some teachers believe that the alternate codes of two languages in the classroom can conflictive as others view it as positive. Currently, in multilingual societies of the 21st century, codeswitching (CS) is an everyday occurrence where both teachers and learners’ resort to their L1 in order to achieve a specific communicative purpose. From an interactional point of view, this case study deriving from my PhD work, examines how EFL university students are using CS functions for diverse classroom purposes such as equivalence, reiteration, and socializing in a predominantly “only in English” context. Specifically, observation sessions were carried out as these depictions demonstrated what was taking place in the classroom. Field notes are used to triangulate data; therefore, a more in-depth and solid analysis is brought forth as to how these resources are used. Consequently, classroom data was analyzed using an applied CA approach as it yields an explanation of the practices at hand that enable the participants of a conversation to negotiate meaning. Findings support Macaro´s (2014) argument that for CS discourse to be authenticated, it has to be accepted by both parties (teachers and students) in the classroom context. Meaning that CS is utilized for the purpose of learning as well as communication if and only if the participants in the discourse agree that the interaction involving CS is appropriate for the purpose it was intended. This classroom data evidences whether the L1 should be present is a matter, which needs reasoned discussion among policy makers and specifically educators to fully understand the supportive nature of CS in the language classroom. Key words: Code-switching, only in English, code- switching functions, Conversation Analysis Approach, English as a foreign language

Self-Repair in Tigrinya: Trouble Sources, Mechanisms and Solutions

This paper analyzes conversational self-repair, which refers to reconstructing problematic portions of a prior oral discourse by oneself, in Tigrinya. Tigrinya is a Northern Ethio-Eritrean-Semitic language spoken by the inhabitants of the Tigray regional state of Ethiopia and Eritrea. This article relies on recorded oral data from speakers of the Rayya Tigrinya variety, particularly inhabitants of Neksege located to the West of Maichew. A conversational analysis (CA) approach is used to analyze the trouble sources, mechanisms (initiators), and results of self-repair. The article shows that pronunciation problems emanating from dialectal variation or tongue slip, wrong word order including focus misplacement, missing constituents, perceived misunderstandings, and using (totally) wrong constituents are some of the trouble sources that push speakers to repair portions of a prior oral utterance. On top of that, cut-offs, particles, and lexemes (one verbal noun and some predicates) are identified as self-repair initiators. Though cut-offs do not indicate a self-repair, particles and predicates may sometimes indicate a self-repair. Finally, the article posits that expanding, replacing, re-ordering, aborting and restarting, and inserting are some of the solutions set for the repairable segments in the repaired portions of the oral discourse. The author recommends for further investigation repair in the process of language acquisition and learning, and the relationship between self-repair and the demographic features of participants.

Requesting a Colleague’s Independent Opinion at Work

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a multimodal conversation analytic approach to an epistemic action, requesting an opinion. It shows how it is performed in a professional context in which the production, distribution and verification of knowledge are fundamental and involve the workplace’s ecology and materiality. Contrary to other settings in which opinions have been described, requesting the opinion of a colleague does not mobilize personal subjective thoughts but rather an expert analysis. The study contributes to an approach of epistemic actions that considers not only the formatting of turns but also the multimodal organization of the performed actions and their embeddedness in a context in which knowledge is at stake. The paper is based on video recordings made in a forensic laboratory in Brazil, a work site in which requesting opinions is crucial within the organization of the ongoing activities. Describing the methodical organization of requesting an independent opinion of a peer in this professional setting, the paper also offers a first characterization of teamwork in the forensic laboratory. Data come from 50 h of video recordings, with participants speaking Brazilian Portuguese.

Building Trust to Study Trust: Paving the Way for Applied Trust Research in Social and Resocializing Institutions

Trust plays a pivotal role when aiding individuals in vulnerable positions. However, understanding the practical dynamics of trust remains limited. Empirical research on trust, particularly in collaborative and applied settings, is scarce. Trust in communications training is often treated as a nebulous concept, complicating its operationalization. This article delineates the initial stages of an applied research project on trust building in encounters between practitioners and citizens in vulnerable positions, outlines our project’s design, and details our experiences with cultivating trust with our participants. Employing an applied conversation analytic approach, we use video- and audio-ethnography to capture everyday interactions between employees and residents in social and re-socializing institutions. Combining a trust-building approach to get access to the field with rigorous analysis, we eventually aim to identify indicators of trust and distrust. Our distinctive approach, combining design, execution, and collaboration with inspiration from participant-oriented research, ensures relevance, accessibility, quality, and feasibility of our research will contribute to the conceptualization of trust as a social interactional phenomenon. It fosters co-ownership with practitioners, enhancing the impact of our findings, and allows us to rewrite the teaching material for future generations of social workers.

Exploring Nurse Responses to Spontaneous Breastfeeding Episodes During Routine Infant Health Checks in Finland: A Multimodal Conversation Analytic Approach

ABSTRACT Support for mothers’ uptake and longevity in breastfeeding is a global health priority. The benefits of breastfeeding are well documented, ranging from immediate health benefits for the infant that include provision of the best nutrition, to longer-term impacts such as reducing the risk of future digestive complications and obesity in adulthood. We analyze how impromptu breastfeeding might be supported by health-care nurses in Finnish maternity and child health clinics during routine infant health checks. The video data analyzed explore naturally occurring breastfeeding during these clinic encounters, using the analysis of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EMCA) approach to explore breastfeeding interactions between mothers, infants, and nurses. Findings demonstrate that, in extract 1 the nurse makes herself freely available, offering verbal and physical support when needed, and in extract 2 the mother manages a close intimate interaction feeding her baby whilst also engaging in knowledge exchange regarding important information with the nurse. We discuss how spontaneous breastfeeding interactions during routine clinic visits provide opportunities for nurses to support breastfeeding, where they are acknowledged as rather complex activities requiring focus. Considerations for professional practice are made by exploring how these early perinatal visits provide opportunities for nurses to observe and converse with mothers about how they are managing breastfeeding. A further conclusion suggests that an EMCA methodological exploration of breastfeeding interactions can inform future nurse practice in Finland and other countries.

AI in situated action: a scoping review of ethnomethodological and conversation analytic studies

AbstractDespite its elusiveness as a concept, ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) is becoming part of everyday life, and a range of empirical and methodological approaches to social studies of AI now span many disciplines. This article reviews the scope of ethnomethodological and conversation analytic (EM/CA) approaches that treat AI as a phenomenon emerging in and through the situated organization of social interaction. Although this approach has been very influential in the field of computational technology since the 1980s, AI has only recently emerged as such a pervasive part of daily life to warrant a sustained empirical focus in EM/CA. Reviewing over 50 peer-reviewed publications, we find that the studies focus on various social and group activities such as task-oriented situations, semi-experimental setups, play, and everyday interactions. They also involve a range of participant categories including children, older participants, and people with disabilities. Most of the reviewed studies apply CA’s conceptual apparatus, its approach to data analysis, and core topics such as turn-taking and repair. We find that across this corpus, studies center on three key themes: openings and closing the interaction, miscommunication, and non-verbal aspects of interaction. In the discussion, we reflect on EM studies that differ from those in our corpus by focusing on praxeological respecifications of AI-related phenomena. Concurrently, we offer a critical reflection on the work of literature reviewing, and explore the tortuous relationship between EM and CA in the area of research on AI.

Infant embodied requests and teacher-practitioner offers during early childhood education mealtimes

The importance of building healthy relationships with food in children's early years is of paramount importance. Building on prior work exploring the social and linguistic practices in infant eating interaction experiences, this research uses a multimodal conversation analysis approach to explore how mealtime interactions are managed as a co-constructed activity between infants (0–2 years) and early childhood teacher-practitioners. Here we will explore video data recorded during mealtimes in an early childhood setting in Mid-Wales, where infants orient to recruitments for assistance and teachers provide offers of help with food items throughout the data. Analysis demonstrates 1) infant recruitment of help through embodied ‘showing’ an item causing a problem in multimodal ways, initiating joint attention that mobilises an offer from an adult in the shape of ‘do you want me to X’ and 2) adult initiation of an offer of help in the shape of ‘would you like me to X’ that are not prompted by infants ‘showing’ an item. Such practices demonstrate infant social competence in recruiting assistance through multimodal resources, and adult's noticings that help is required and their initiation of provision of assistance. The detailed exploration into the ways in which mealtimes are a collaboratively achieved experience reveals how infants effectively contribute in resourceful ways, and how teacher-practitioner responses frame mealtimes as co-produced activities.

Challenging Stereotypes: A Conversation Analysis Approach to Students’ Narratives about Gender

Creating effective prevention programs is essential for reducing gender-based violence (GBV). Research underscores the importance of addressing GBV during early schooling years (Oliver, 2014), as schools, alongside families, serve as primary socialization environments for children and young people. Building on this context, this article presents a study that used prevention-based class seminars to challenge gender stereotypes and prompt reflection on GBV, gender-based discrimination, and gender stereotyping. The study involved approximately 600 minutes of classroom video recordings from five Italian middle school classes, featuring 112 12-year-old pupils during expert-conducted seminars. Using a Conversation Analysis approach, the data analysis reveals the forms of communication and gender narratives produced by the students during the workshops. While some narratives reinforced gender stereotypes and traditional norms, most narratives promoted equal gender relationships. This study contributes to research on violence prevention in schools, demonstrating how school-based programs can significantly impact students’ reflections on gender stereotypes and violence.

“Doing being a good parent” in the pediatric clinic: Parents' knowledge displays in advice requests on infants' everyday care

Parents and pediatricians play pivotal roles in promoting a nurturing environment for children's growth and development, especially during the critical first thousand days of life. Given the challenges involved in infant care and rearing, parents often rely on pediatricians' professional support in a wide range of daily caregiving practices as diverse as complementary feeding, hygiene management, pacifier use, or sleep routines. Nevertheless, little attention has been devoted to the in vivo observation of how parents actually request advice on babies' everyday care, and how pediatricians attend to such requests. By adopting a conversation analysis approach to a corpus of 23 videorecorded Italian pediatric well-child visits, the article explores the different ways through which parents navigate the face-threatening activity of soliciting the pediatrician's advice on infants' everyday care and management. The analysis illustrates that parents overall display (different degrees of) prior knowledge and competence on the topics brought to the pediatrician's attention while, at the same time, acknowledging the pediatrician's expertise and professional role. In this way, I argue that parents display themselves as competent, knowledgeable, caring, and therefore “good parents”. After discussing the results, in the concluding remarks I point to what seems to be a cultural change in parent-healthcare provider interactions.

Translanguaging in a beauty salon

Abstract This is an explanatory case study of how translanguaging offers space for practicing two shared languages: Saudi Pidgin Arabic and English as a lingua franca (ELF). It attends closely to overt types of translanguaging resources practiced by interlocutors. The study utilizes the conversation analysis (CA) approach to analyze conversations totaling 240 minutes, held in a beauty salon, between a Saudi female client and a Filipino beautician who communicated with each other using English and Saudi pidgin. The results show that the speakers’ interaction is mainly in English, but they switch to pidgin Arabic to fix misunderstandings, create humor, and engage in cooperative interaction. The study demonstrates that overt translanguaging resources employed by participants strengthen the multilingual nature of their ELF interactions, during which another contact language–Saudi pidgin in this case–can be practiced as another lingua franca. The study extends the limited literature on the nature of translanguaging in lingua franca social contexts and demonstrates the uniqueness of the translanguaging resources employed by ELF users.

Patients in pain

Communication research on medical interaction has made inroads into how patients shape treatment outcomes as well as how physician presentation of treatment can shape patient acceptance or resistance. Pain is the number one reason patients visit primary care physicians. The overprescription of opioids for chronic pain remains a major public health problem in the US and constitutes a risk factor for opioid addiction. In this study, we investigated how primary care physicians communicate recommendations for alternatives to opioid treatments for patients with self-reported moderate to serious chronic musculoskeletal pain and examined the relationship between communication strategies and patient resistance to non-opioid treatment recommendations. We relied on a convenience sample of 35 video recorded visits in which musculoskeletal pain was reported as moderate to severe (or over 5 on the pain scale). Using a combined approach of abductive analysis, conversation analysis and descriptive statistics, we show that physicians are less likely to face patient resistance when they frame their non-opioid pain treatment recommendation as novel and present the treatment as concrete and tailored to the patient’s problem.

Power Relations in Institutional Discourse: A Conversation Analytic Approach

Language is one of the dominant channels through which power can be exercised and struggled over during social interaction. In institutional discourse, power can interactionally be achieved and negotiated through the use of a variety of discursive resources at the disposal of discourse participants. This study employs a conversation analytic approach (CA) to data collection and analysis. The main objective of the study is to find out how power and control are exercised throughout the course of news interviews. Data analysis of a substantial extract from a BBC news interview with former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, revealed four discursive features of particular significance in terms of the management of power and control: questioning, interruption, topic-controlling, and formulation. These discursive control devices enable the interviewer to exercise power and control over the interviewee. The use of each of these discursive features is examined and the implications of the analysis for language teaching and learning are discussed.

Repair or not? Face-saving in EFL Classes in an Elementary School in Japan

This study examines how face is protected for smoothly conducting English classes and building good relationships among class teachers (CTs), native English teachers (NETs), and students in EFL classes in an elementary school in Japan. In this study, interactions among the CTs, the NETs, and the students in English lessons were recorded for about 50 hours in total, and the transcribed data were analyzed partially on the basis of existing research on classroom discourse, conversation, and classroom-based conversation analytic approaches. The results show that the CTs, the NETs, and the students manage an irregular usage of Japanese by the NETs and of English by the CTs and the students in EFL classrooms by protecting interlocutors’ face in various ways, such as indirect repair and silence.

Teachers’ multimodal resources for delegated peer repair: Maximizing interactional space in whole‐class interaction in the foreign language classroom

AbstractIn classrooms, teachers play a fundamental role in managing students’ participation. As part of their classroom interactional competence to maximize interactional space for students’ learning, teachers use multimodal resources to orchestrate turn‐taking, allocate the next speaker, and manage repair sequences. However, little is known about how teachers employ these resources to engage learners in delegated peer repair, that is, repair sequences initiated by a student and solved by another classmate. Adopting a multimodal conversation analysis approach, this study aims to investigate how Spanish‐as‐a‐foreign‐language teachers multimodally manage delegated peer repair in whole‐group interaction by increasing interactional space to promote students’ participation. The findings show that teachers often resort to embodied resources such as gaze, gestures (pointing), and hand and body movements (stepping backward) to engage students in delegated peer repair, leading to increased student participation and autonomy. We end with some reflections on the relevance of the adopted methodology for better understanding how teachers employ multimodal resources to create interactional space and engage students in delegated peer repair, thus promoting learners’ interactional competence in the foreign language. It also suggests some potential implications for teachers’ professional development.

Offering an olive branch: a study of dissenting rater's practices for resolving placement discrepancies

Assessment of student writing by human raters often involves discrepancies, necessitating discussions for resolution. This study explores this process within a US university's English for Academic Purposes program, focusing on the exit practices of dissenting raters - strategies used to conclude disagreements. Utilizing multimodal conversation analysis, the study reveals that dissenting raters typically employ two exit practices: acknowledging personal bias and deferring to the opinions of co-present raters. While acknowledging bias effectively ends disagreements, deferring to others can be perceived as challenging equal participation, thus introducing complexity into the resolution process. The study also highlights how social concerns regarding professional credibility and reputation influence raters’ resolution strategies. The findings offer valuable insights into the interactional complexities of academic placement meetings, underscoring the importance of understanding exit practices in these contexts. They also demonstrate the potential of a conversation analysis approach for uncovering unexplored facets of rater interactions.

‘Softballs’ for ‘Hardballs’: The congenial political interview on right-wing partisan TV news outlets

Taking a conversation-analytic approach, this article examines potentially shifting norms of political interviewing against the surge of authoritarian populism and increasingly legitimated forms of political and discursive bias on affiliated partisan TV outlets. Based on four political interviews of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon on Fox News and GB News, the analysis documents changes in interviewing practices away from the conventions of accountability interviewing. These changes involve the design of IR questions, the interpersonal dynamics between IR and IE, and the interactional work performed by questions and political interviewing at large. It is demonstrated that, in the aftermath of organizational and ideological disruptions affecting partisan right-wing media such as Fox News, political interviewing enacts a congenial type of questioning, with attendant transformations in the negotiation of accountability. The analysis documents two variations of congenial interviewing practices, one in the absence of adversarial questioning, and the other in the presence of ostensibly accountability questions, that are nevertheless deployed as interviewer resources for doing strategic image-repair work in the benefit of the interviewee. The attested questioning practices have implications for the normalization of authoritarian populist discourses and agendas, and, also, for the future of journalism as watchdog and safeguard of democratic institutions in liberal democracies.

A Conversation Analytic Study on Scaffolding Strategies Applied in an Online English Class

In higher education, it is anticipated that English students should possess both proficiency in language and the capacity for critical thinking. Nonetheless, the dynamics of English as foreign language (EFL) classrooms often reveal a tendency for teachers to exert significant control over the class. Thus, this study aims to discover the scaffolding strategies applied by the teacher in an online EFL class in terms of classroom interactional competence (CIC). The participants were twelve English preparatory class students studying at A2 level of a state university in Türkiye. The majority of the students were Turkish and one of them was Somalian. They were enrolled in the same class. In the application process, the Microsoft Teams educational platform was used, and the lesson was conducted synchronously through this platform. The lesson lasted ninety minutes. By adopting a conversational analysis (CA) approach, a ninety-minute online English class was critically examined within the scope of Walsh’s (2006) self-evaluation of teacher talk (SETT) framework and concept of CIC. The interaction was analyzed by specifically focusing on scaffolding mechanism. According to the findings, the teacher was found to apply restating, reformulation, inviting participation from students, providing explanation, modelling, extension, further explaining students’ understanding and checking scaffolding strategies.

Investigating the Depiction of Informal Mentoring Relationship between Two Fictional School Teachers in Rita TV Series: A Conversation Analysis Approach

Investigating the Depiction of Informal Mentoring Relationship between Two Fictional School Teachers in Rita TV Series: A Conversation Analysis Approach

Short Note—Revisiting Formality in Contemporary Business Interaction: A Conceptual Framework

Formality is better than its reputation. Formality may accomplish and sustain shared attention, execute events in an orderly and fair manner and secure broad and relevant participation. Formality is moreover not rigid and binary. It is relative, dynamic, co-constructed, and locally negotiated. It may provide proactive solutions to complexities in contemporary institutional interactions and may support participants’ orientation toward specific goals. This paper presents a conceptual framework for the concept of formality in social interaction. The paper proposes that formality is analyzed according to six dimensions: structural–episodic; preemptive–remedial; stipulated–taken-for-granted; instructed–questioned; scripted–negotiated; and excessive–granular. It takes a conversation analytic approach to video or audio recordings of real-life contemporary business interaction, both co-located and mediated via information and communication technology. As a wide-ranging and multifaceted set of instruments, formality may be used beyond institutional goal-orientation to include and exclude, to create transparency or lack thereof, and to promote or block (un)just powers. The practical implication is therefore to encourage a reflexive practice that promotes transparency by allowing for the participants to negotiate the formality of a situation. To formulate and explain formality may serve to include lay people in institutional procedures and place the participants on a more equal footing. Being aware of how to increase and decrease formality, episodically as well as structurally, makes it possible to question and redesign layers of formality in institutional processes, procedures, and encounters.