Interactionist Approach Research Articles

Effects of Symbols on Communication Within the Society Via Symbolic Interactionism and the Case of Cem Karaca’s Song

Individuals, in the process of establishing a meaningful world, create communicating and interacting socially. As Symbolic Interactionists underline, free individuals with free will continue their lives by adapting to the order, in a sense, as imitators of the resources they interact with in the social order. Based on these theories, communication experts and sociologists are expected to realistically evaluate the meanings and consequences created by symbols so that people can live meaningful lives in the interaction processes that individuals are exposed to in society. According to the symbolic interactionist approach, what others think about us represents a process that directly affects who we are. In terms of symbolic interactionism, daily life constitutes one of the most important social elements that should be examined as the area of use of common symbols and language that reveal meaning. This study aims to address the concept of symbolic interaction in order to emphasize the importance of how symbols in culture and many social areas in society, from sports to music, from art to literature, from media to social media, interact with individuals and how similar behaviors become widespread. In the research, document review and qualitative data collection methods were used through symbols.

The Meaning of Bouquets Among the Ponorogo City Society: a Symbolic Interactionism Perspective

This study aims to examine the meaning of giving bouquets among urban communities, especially as a symbol of social status and expression of emotions using a symbolic interactionism approach. In a society that is increasingly connected with the influence of social media, giving bouquets has transformed from a mere tradition into a more complex trend. Bouquets, which were once identical to flowers as an expression of affection or someone's emotions in appreciation, now involve various other forms of gifts and function as a tool to express happiness, gratitude, and social support. This study uses a qualitative approach with participatory observation methods, in-depth interviews, and documentation to explore the meaning of giving bouquets in various social contexts, such as graduations, celebrations, and personal achievements. The results of the study show that giving bouquets is not only an expression of personal emotions, but also as a status symbol that strengthens social relationships between individuals. Thus, giving bouquets functions as a social communication tool that reflects the dynamics of changing values and social interactions in society

Against interpretive exclusivism*

Interpretive exclusivism is the dogma that we can only understand cultural systems by interpreting them, thereby ruling out causal explanations of cultural phenomena using scientific methods, for example based on measurement, comparison, and experiment. In this article, I argue that the costs of interpretive exclusivism are heavy and the benefits illusory. I make the case instead for an interactionist approach in which interpretive and scientific approaches work together on an equal footing. Although such approaches are neither easy nor cheap, I argue that they are necessary to improve the intellectual ambition, comparative breadth, and practical relevance of anthropology as a discipline. In all these ways, incorporating rather than excluding scientific methods would improve the long‐term prospects of anthropology as a flourishing field of research and teaching.

Disagreement and forms of politeness in Moroccan media debate: An interactional approach

Disagreement and forms of politeness in Moroccan media debate: An interactional approach

Mediation Through Dynamic Assessment: Facilitating EFL Learners’ Self-efficacy in Speaking Skills

Though we cannot deny the importance of testing learners’ proficiency to determine their successful intake, the traditional forms of assessment often hinder their linguistic and cognitive development. In the context of Bangladesh, where English is considered a foreign language, it can be noticed that it is their inability to speak in English that the tertiary-level students experience the most difficulties with at universities following English medium instructions. Their situation worsens when they are evaluated traditionally for their spoken performances in their university language courses. That is why dynamic assessment can be an alternative to traditional assessment for evaluating learners’ speaking skills. It is closely associated with Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory. It believes that the proximity to written or spoken competence cannot be achieved by learners on their own. Therefore, mediation and zone of proximal development play crucial roles in establishing and extending the scope for learners to communicate with others. The interactionist approach of dynamic assessment benefits students in improving their speaking skills in many contexts because of its dialogic and mediated process. Thus, with the help of qualitative data analysis, this paper examines how consequential dynamic assessment will be in evaluating speaking skills at the tertiary level.

Exploring the contribution of NGOs to European education governance through social network analysis

ABSTRACT At the European level, interest groups contribute to public policy shaping and decision-making within and across political domains. However, the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which respond to neither normative nor utilitarian rationality, as an interest group involved in European education governance needs further research. This study focuses on NGO1, a Brussels-based meta-organisation with a vested interest in education. Adopting a structural interactionist approach and using Social Network Analysis, the study depicts how the organisations involved in NGO1’s networks interacted over 2019–2023, defining its network governance. The results highlight how this meta-organisation is at the centre of a network governance structure that connects it to crucial EU institutions while supporting the emergence of some of its member organisations. This means that NGO1 can be helpful to its constituency: (i) to reinforce collaborative relations among themselves, creating, moreover, highly cohesive subgroups, potentially capable of exerting pressure on NGO1’s stance and agenda-setting; and (ii) to team up with NGO1, perhaps under its coordination, for direct collaborations with EU institutions and lobbying concerning the EU agenda. The analytical strategy applied in this study could be used to extend the examination of other Brussels-based meta-organisations and their contribution to European Education Governance.

Postneoliberalism and institutions of higher education involvement in regional economic development: An interactional community development approach

ABSTRACT Due largely to the recognition of neoliberalism’s role increasing socioeconomic inequalities by both the political right and the left, neoliberalism is evolving into postneoliberalism. While the characteristics of postneoliberalism are still being determined, at the moment it is taking on authoritarian and anti-democratic qualities. I argue that this paradigm shift to postneoliberalism provides institutions of higher education (IHEs) an opportunity to reaffirm and reassess their economic development efforts, emphasizing social justice and equity. I draw upon the interactional approach to community development to argue for specific practices IHEs can take. These practices include making the organizational capacity of these institutions more inclusive internally and externally; utilizing local knowledges and resources; and implementing policies that support a focus on social justice both externally in how the university interacts with communities, as well as internally so that faculty efforts are more effectively supported.

Leaders at Italian Alzheimer’s Cafés addressing ethical issues: from advocacy response against human trafficking to Dolcezza approach with persons living with dementia

Objectives This article features results of a qualitative research conducted with twenty-nine men and women responsible for Alzheimer’s cafés in Italy, on the topic of ethical issues in dementia care. The goal was to identify the sources of moral distress for caregivers, exploring some bottom-up solutions that have been implemented shared with others in informal settings. Method During the in-depth interviews participants shared about challenges and opportunities related to dementia care and ethics, informed by the symbolic interactionist approach to the theory of social representations. Results The analysis of interviews resulted in identification of six main themes, each with some sub-themes: awareness, personhood, social connectedness, isolation, access, and institutional dimension. Conclusion The results pointed out the importance of culturally appropriate approach and advocacy for tackling ethical issues, especially in the light of morally wrong egregious abuse of persons with dementia (as related by participants), which can be classified as benefits trafficking, a form of human trafficking.

Identifying the Unidentified Race: A Study of Normative Features of Commonsense Knowledge of Racism in Asian Members’ Online Interaction

This article adopts an interactionist approach to examine the normative features and the everyday reproduction of commonsense knowledge regarding race and racism in social interaction among Asian members. Specifically, applying conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis to forum interactions in online Asian American communities, I focus on the interactional phenomenon where recipients of a racism report, in responding to the report, make relevant the perpetrator(s)’ race that is not identified in the report. I identify three sets of practices adopted by members: (1) directly assuming the perpetrator(s)’ race, (2) asking about the perpetrator(s)’ race, and (3) implicating the perpetrator(s)’ race through telling second stories. I show that members’ patterned practices point to their orientations toward a normative expectation that “Whites” are the perpetrators of anti-Asian racism and a common assumption that perpetrator(s)’ race matters when making sense of anti-Asian racism. However, such proposed racial common sense can be contested by coparticipants. I demonstrate that commonsense knowledge regarding race and racism is normatively and morally organized so that disagreements and contestations over the use of such knowledge are often treated by participants as arising from normative/moral breaches. Implications on studies on racism and relative positioning of racial groups in the contemporary U.S. context are also discussed.

Identity as experience – an interactionist approach

Identity as experience – an interactionist approach

Review of Chepinchikj (2022): Interactional approach to cinematic discourse: How do Woody Allen’s characters talk?

Review of Chepinchikj (2022): Interactional approach to cinematic discourse: How do Woody Allen’s characters talk?

Navigating power and impoliteness in criminal court discourse

Abstract This study uses an interactional pragmatic approach to examine impoliteness in Turkish High Criminal Court proceedings, offering an alternative perspective compared to the Anglo-American contexts typically explored in legal discourse research. Grounded in (Culpeper, Jonathan. 1996. Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics 25. 349–367.) impoliteness super strategies, the analysis draws from 45-min audio recordings of seven criminal trials, focusing on impoliteness during the examination-in-chief. The findings reveal a significant register clash, especially from a defendant who deviates from formal legal norms through misalignment, mock impoliteness, threats, and profanity. This disruption challenges courtroom decorum, affects power dynamics, and influences trial progression and interaction, underscoring the complex interplay between institutional authority and individual behavior, which shapes overall (im)politeness in the courtroom.

Eye closures in spoken Hebrew

Abstract The present study focuses on eye closure (EC) as a communicative facial gesture in Israeli Hebrew media talk and pays particular attention to its coordination with co-expressive verbal, prosodic, and embodied resources. Drawing on the interactional approach to language and embodied action, the study demonstrates that EC can convey four contextual meanings — concentration, hedging, negation, and totality — depending on the context in which it occurs and the verbal material with which it is co-produced. The paper proposes that these contextual meanings are derived from the more general meaning of disengagement conveyed by EC. Moreover, the present paper suggests several potential semiotic connections between the basic physiological use of EC as a reflex of self-protection and evasion and its observed contextual meanings. This provides evidence for the co-optation of the basic functions of facial gestures for communicative purposes via metaphorical-metonymical extensions.

The effects of implicit corrective feedback on production of lexical stress in L2 English

The interactionist approach to second language acquisition has yielded a plethora of studies confirming the positive impact of interaction and corrective feedback on second language (L2) development. Nevertheless, only a few studies have attempted to investigate the development of L2 prosody using the interactionist approach. The current study contributes to this line of research by investigating the relationship between recasts and the production of primary stress in L2 English. Following a pretest-posttest design, 68 L1 Arabic speakers were randomly assigned to control and intervention groups. The pre- and posttest comprised sentence-completion and information-exchange tasks, whereas the intervention was a role-play task that dyads carried out with the researcher. The intervention group received a recast upon producing target words with misplaced primary stress, whereas the control group did not receive any corrective feedback. The results of acoustic analyses, which focused on syllable duration, intensity, and pitch, indicated a positive relationship between recasts and development of primary stress placement. The results were also supported by expert listener judgments. The findings suggest that interaction and implicit corrective feedback play a positive role in the development of lexical stress.

L2 discourse marker use in interaction: The case of pues in Spanish

AbstractWhile discourse markers (DMs) are crucial for coherence and interactional competence, previous research suggests that learners' usage of DMs differs from L1 speakers. Prior research has taken either a discourse‐functional or interactional approach, yet combining these two methods may provide greater understanding of the unique learner communicative needs that drive the acquisition and use of DMs. This investigation contributes to research on interlanguage DM use by quantitatively investigating the frequency and functional distribution of the Spanish DM pues by L2 and L1 speakers of Spanish from a discourse‐functional perspective and qualitatively examining pues as an interactional resource. Oral interviews with 58 L2 and 14 L1 speakers of Spanish were analyzed, revealing distinct frequency and distributional patterns across groups and unique L2 interactional needs that are supported with the DM pues. Results inform L2 learners and teachers of the importance of DMs for interactions and provide classroom implications.

Discussion of Emotions Among Newly Diagnosed Non-Hispanic White and Chinese American Patients With Breast Cancer and Their Oncologists.

This qualitative study analyzed how Chinese American (CA) and non-Hispanic White (NHW) breast cancer patients and their oncologists communicated about patients' emotional concerns. Data included twenty-four recordings of clinical encounters between oncologists and four CA and eight NHW women with a new breast cancer diagnosis between 2013 and 2015. Using an interactional sociolinguistics approach to discourse analysis, we examined how CA and NHW patients and their oncologists initiated conversations about patients' emotions. We also categorized oncologists' responses by whether oncologists turned toward, turned away, or remained neutral to patients' emotions. When bringing up emotions with oncologists, NHW patients brought up social and personal life topics, whereas CA patients only brought up biomedical topics. We also observed that oncologists initiated discussions about emotions with only English-speaking patients of both racial groups. There were no observed differences in how oncologists remained neutral to or turned away from both CA and NHW patients' emotional expressions. When oncologists turned away from patients' emotions, they did so to solve administrative or biomedical problems. In conclusion, the findings suggest that CA patients' racial backgrounds and the language spoken during the encounters may influence how patients and oncologists initiate discussion about patients' emotions. Furthermore, the findings suggest that oncologists remain neutral and turn away from CA and NHW patients' emotions in similar ways. This study provides preliminary data for more comprehensive investigations of Asian American cancer patients' actual communication with their providers regarding emotions and treatment decisions to facilitate patient-provider communication quality.

Where Trouble Starts: Communication Breakdown in a Complex Emergency Call

ABSTRACT Emergency calls require efficient communication between caller and call taker to establish a need for assistance and dispatch help quickly. Analyzing communication processes at this first link in the emergency medical care chain has important implications for improving the quality of emergency care across the health system. This paper examines an interaction between a call taker and a caller requesting assistance at the scene of a family murder, using a hybrid interactional sociolinguistic approach to analysis. We also draw from court testimony. We demonstrate how several factors contribute to communication breakdown, prolong the call, and lead to the call taker doubting the credibility of the emergency. These include the caller’s inability to frame a believable request for help nor clarify his stance concerning the emergency, an absence of urgency and emotion in his description of the incident, an extended focus on and repair of the incident location, and his dysfluent speech behaviors. We demonstrate how communication breakdown is co-constructed and compounded by system-related trouble. This call has useful implications for call-taker training and highlights that when an interaction goes wrong, it has a cascading effect on health care not only for those patients who need the help urgently but also for the efficient running of the health system as a whole.

‘Someone has taken all my tiaras' pre-teen girls’ emotional engagements with controversial online behaviors

ABSTRACT Based on ethnographic fieldwork including video recordings, this study examines how pre-teen girls, in everyday peer interaction, deal with controversial issues on a social media network. Drawing on a multimodal interactional approach, we analyze the situated affective and collaborative embodied work through which a peer group unravels and remedies problematic online behaviors (cheating, scamming, stealing). The results show how the girls affectively align themselves to deal with online risks in ways that demand different social media skills as well as networks of supportive peers. The girls agentively draw upon the affordances (texting, images, social norms) of the social media network as well as their expertise and collective knowledge of similar online events. The creative power of the peer group plays an important role, in terms of how the girls nourish their peer culture while building mutual trust and collaborative competencies for interpreting and anticipating risky practices in their lives with peers.

Empowering pandemic pivots: the inclusive power of remote work and school

ABSTRACT We examine the transitions to remote work and education as unplanned large-scale social experiments in critical institutions that were rapidly digitized in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the long tail of the pandemic continues, going remote continues to impact marginalized populations in unexpectedly positive ways and meet needs that are invisible to dominant populations. Therefore, we make the case for remote work and school as new frontiers in digital inclusion with particular benefit to traditionally underrepresented groups. We use Symbolic Interactionist approaches drawing on Hochschild’s emotion work and Goffman’s impression management and stigma to reveal interactional mechanisms through which digital communication modalities offer a way to circumvent some of the deleterious aspects of face-to-face social interaction that occur in these institutional spheres. Digital interaction tools facilitate flexibility and greater control of impression management to avoid stigma among workers and students who are most at risk of being marginalized or harmed in face-to-face institutionally embedded interactions. Thus, both remote work and school can supply new avenues for institutional inclusion of particular value for those who suffer the most from bias, stigma, and/or discrimination in face-to-face institutional settings governed by norms that were built by those with privilege to serve and replicate their privilege. Finally, we call attention to the ways that going remote is being resisted as older forms of social control reemerge, as well as to how remote workers and students are increasingly subjected to digital surveillance tools that extend Foucault’s concept of the panopticon into the digital realm.

Negative health classifications: understanding avoidance and social exclusion during a pandemic

During a pandemic, there is a fine line between distancing and avoiding other people, with stigmatizing classifications sometimes transforming social distance into social exclusion. Drawing on Bourdieu's under-utilised theory of classification struggles, this paper conceptualises schemes of pandemic Othering in terms of Negative Health Classifications. Complementing the interactionist approach in pandemic stigma research, classification struggles are a social practice that denote a conceptual link between the individual and social structures of inequality. When social structures are unstable, as was the case during the pandemic, an established common sense can become questionable. Based on the analysis of survey data from 2606 respondents collected during one of the peaks of COVID-19 in Austria and Germany, the paper explores two struggles over health classifications, (1) social cleavages created and exacerbated by individuals who strive to tackle medical crises by avoiding the 'disease carriers', and (2) conflict over illegitimate pandemic practices resulting in the loss of social capital and a polarization of social groups. The findings offer evidence of widespread negative health classifications emerging during the COVID-19 pandemic that future research should explore in their implications for inequalities in other health policy contexts.