Interactive Discussion Research Articles

Bilateral amygdala damage impairs the acquisition and use of common ground in social interaction.

The development of "common ground," or mutual knowledge of shared information, is believed to require the ability to update a mental representation of another person's thoughts and knowledge based on verbal information and nonverbal social and emotional signals, to facilitate economical communication. As in other forms of everyday social communication, the development of common ground likely requires the orchestration of multiple cognitive processes supported by various neural systems. Here, we investigate the contribution of the amygdala to these processes. SM, a patient with complete, focal, bilateral amygdala damage, and deficits in social and emotional processing, and five healthy comparison participants, each interacted with a familiar partner. We investigated the participants' ability to develop and use referential labels across 24 dynamic, collaborative interactions. Participants verbally directed their partner how to arrange a set of 12 abstract tangrams while separated by a low barrier, allowing them to see each other but hiding their tangrams. In contrast to comparison participants, SM exhibited an impaired rate of learning across trials and did not show the typical simplification in the labels generated during the interactions. Detailed analyses of SM's interactional discourse and social behavior suggested that she has impaired perspective-taking or what can be interpreted as deficient "theory of mind," manifested in abnormal "language-in-use." These results support the conclusion that the amygdala, a structure critical for social and emotional processing, plays an important role in the acquisition and use of common ground and in social communication more broadly.

Identity in Sport Teams

In this paper we analyze identity in a soccer team using a discursive perspective, in which individual psycho-logical functioning is considered to be built in and through social interactions within groups. Analysis is based on naturally-occurring interactions that were audio recorded during technical meetings before and after the match. The data were collected within an ethnographic investigation of an Italian soccer tam carried out over a two-month period. The results show that the team’s members made rhetorical use of a complex repertoire of their own and others’ social identities, and that two main variables influenced the use of social identity markers: a) the role of the speakers (in particular the “power” role of the coach); b) the result of the match around which the interactive discourse revolved. Against this background, we discuss how narratives and identity positionings were used to achieve specific goals and to perform specific actions, such as the planning of future matches and the interpretation of victories and defeats.

Accounts of pain experience in an elderly care context

This article aims to show how a discourse and communication based approach in the context of the care of the elderly provides a basis for reflecting on pain. Based on six hours of data from talk encounters between care professionals and elderly clients, an activity analysis of institutional settings and categorization of interactional discourse was undertaken. The focus was: (a) how elderly people initiated painful accounts, and (b) how the professionals oriented to such accounts. It is found that pain-talks are governed by the institutional practice of different phases:framing; mapping troubles and symptoms; clients' self presentations; counseling, and concluding. This phase structure exemplifies knowledge of communicative activities and is part of practical knowledge which the party, or at least the professional, is expected to become acquainted with. A thematic interactional map of critical moments related to pain as (a) social death and hope, and (b) presentation of self as past and self as present emerges. The caring aspect is to support hope and to change the focus from social death to life and recovering. In foregrounding health, it is important for the elderly people to affirm their identity of themselves as being good and honest persons.

“It's Hard Getting Kids to Talk about Math”: Helping New Teachers Improve Mathematical Discourse

This article examines how two new teachers, with varied content knowledge and preparation as teachers in mathematics education, improved their use of whole-class discourse in their mathematics classes with a mentor's assistance. Discourse has long been shown to be influential in supporting students' learning of mathematics, but the implementation of these practices can be a struggle for new teachers. To the initial surprise of both teachers, the observational data did not coincide with the perceptions that the teachers had of their practice. However, with structured and frequent support from a mentor, along with observational data, there were noticeable improvements in both teachers' ability to facilitate mathematical discourse. By the end of the term, the teachers included more students in discussions, asked more questions that probed for understanding, and reduced the amount of time spent delivering instruction. The strengthening of students' understanding of mathematics through communication is well established (Gose, 2009; Pugalee, 2001; Way, 2008) and is clearly emphasized in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' (2000) Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. However, teachers' perceptions toward their capability to facilitate whole-class discourse, as well as their desired strategies in facilitating such discourse, can affect the implementation and effectiveness of researched-based practices within the classroom. This is especially true for 1st- and 2nd-year teachers. This article uses Piccolo, Harbaugh, Carter, Capraro, and Capraro's (2008) definition of mathematical discourse, as an “interactive and sustained discourse of a dialogic nature between teachers and students aligned to the content of the lesson that addresses specific student learning issues” (p. 378).

Learner participation patterns and strategy use in Second Life: an exploratory case study

AbstractThis paper reports on an exploratory case study that investigates the synchronous interaction of intermediate level EFL learners in the 3D virtual world Second Life. The subjects took part in three seventy-minute chat sessions that involved the use of affordances provided by a purpose-built world within this environment. Analysis of the data revealed that the context and tasks appeared to elicit a high degree of participation. The interaction was highly learner–centered, with the majority of messages exchanged between students. The analysis further indicated that the subjects overcame initial difficulties to produce coherent target language output focused on the tasks through collaborative interaction involving the use of five transactional and two interactional discourse management strategies. Transactional strategies identified in the data were the use of split turns, time saving devices, addressivity, upper case and quotation marks. Interactional strategies were the use of politeness and keyboard symbols. The majority of these represented transfers from strategies used in non-computer-based forms of communication. The others were adaptive behaviours appropriate to the online medium. The consistent use of these strategies enabled the subjects to manage their interaction in an effective manner. Learner feedback was largely positive, and indicted that participation appeared to engender high levels of motivation and interest. This paper concludes by identifying areas of potential in future research on the use of 3D virtual worlds in CALL.

Exploring communicative practices in the blogging of female EFL university students

Blogs and other Web 2.0 technologies have offered the possibility of interactive communication to students who use English as a foreign language (EFL). The author proposes that we should explore how university students coconstruct a multitude of interactions within and around EFL blogging. Drawing on two interconnected methodologies — sociocultural theory and sociolinguistic studies — this paper analyzes online interactive discourse among small groups of female EFL students in an undergraduate “Online English Learning” course. The analysis suggests that the integration of these interactive, community-based approaches to EFL blogging opens up rich and complex communicative practices in which participants can share second language (L2) knowledge, support each other, and present their virtual selves through creative text construction and semiotic language use. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for L2 learning and future research.

Holistic Medicine Not “Torture”: Performing Acupuncture in Galway, Ireland

This article examines how the aesthetic design of clinics and interactive discourse and rituals construct the social reality of acupuncture sessions as a form of holistic medical therapy. Verbal and nonverbal interactions create an appealing medical environment but also help prevent the emergence of undesired counter-realities (e.g., pain, biomedical intervention). Based on observations of acupuncture sessions conducted in Galway, Ireland, I illustrate how ambiance and aesthetic elements of clinics create a complex medico-cultural environment that balances oppositional associations (Western/non-Western, exoticism/convention, medical alterity/medical professionalism). Patients interviewed continually referred to acupuncture as a natural and non-invasive form of medical treatment. This suggests that interpersonal discourse and aesthetic design play key roles in how patients define acupuncture treatment, and that these ephemeral agents may also influence how patients come to define efficacy.

Rhetorical unit analysis and Bakhtin’s chronotype

Bakhtin introduced the concept of chronotope (chronos = time; topos = space) to facilitate his exploration of the ways in which space-time intersections occur in literary texts. However, he also suggests that chronotopes characterise non-literary texts — indeed, that “every entry into the sphere of meaning is accomplished only through the gates of the chronotope” (1981: 258) — this historical, biographical and social time-space configuration. This formulation immediately suggests that these categories should be accessible via the categories of language and indeed, in English, they are most generally expressed via the Mood categories Subject and Finite. These same Mood categories of English are crucially involved in the identification of a unit of discourse — the rhetorical unit (Cloran 1994). Thus, this discourse unit provides a useful means of concretising, from a linguistic perspective, Bakhtin’s concept of chronotope and investigating the presence of such chronotopes in the everyday mundane discourse of mother-child interaction. Selections from such interaction are illustrations of authentic cultural chronotopes, and provide exempla of a (sub)cultural chronotopic motif within the broader culture, i.e. social positioning at a particular historical point in time (the late 20th century Australian culture).

The face-to-face light detection paradigm

We introduce a novel paradigm for studying the cognitive processes used by listeners within interactive settings. This paradigm places the talker and the listener in the same physical space, creating opportunities for investigations of attention and comprehension processes taking place during interactive discourse situations. An experiment was conducted to compare results from previous research using videotaped stimuli to those obtained within the live face-to-face task paradigm. A headworn apparatus is used to briefly display LEDs on the talker's face in four locations as the talker communicates with the participant. In addition to the primary task of comprehending speeches, participants make a secondary task light detection response. In the present experiment, the talker gave non-emotionally-expressive speeches that were used in past research with videotaped stimuli. Signal detection analysis was employed to determine which areas of the face received the greatest focus of attention. Results replicate previous findings using videotaped methods.

A Crisis of Authority in Predominantly Black Schools?

Background/Context Black students are no less engaged or more disruptive than other students of similar achievement levels and socioeconomic status. However, because Black students are more likely to have disadvantaged family backgrounds and lower levels of achievement, segregation concentrates the risk factors for problem behavior in predominantly Black schools. As a result of the behavioral climate in predominantly Black schools, teachers may rely on instructional methods that facilitate an orderly classroom and minimize the negative effects of disruptions, possibly resulting in an instructional approach that is less engaging for students in those classrooms. I rely on Metz's typology of developmental versus incorporative instruction and research on classroom discourse to identify instruction that may negatively impact student engagement. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study First, how do reports of problem behavior from teachers and administrators in predominantly Black schools differ from those in integrated and non-Black schools? Second, how does the prevalence of developmental instruction vary across schools with different racial compositions? Research Design This study uses the 2003–2004 Schools and Staffing Survey data to analyze reports of problem behavior from teachers and administrators. Logistic regression models are used to provide estimates of the prevalence of behavioral problems, adjusting for academic performance and socioeconomic status of the student body. The Chicago School Study (CSS) and the Partnership for Literacy Study (Partnership) data are then used to investigate the prevalence of developmental instruction. The CSS data contain student and teacher reports of the incorporation of student ideas into instruction. In the Partnership data, time summary statistics of observational records of teachers’ instructional activities (e.g., lecture, discussion, seatwork) and question property statistics from a coding of classroom discourse are presented. Conclusions/Recommendations Consistent with prior research, teachers are much more likely to report incidences of problem behavior in predominantly Black schools. Consequently, the instructional environment in predominantly Black schools and classrooms is tailored somewhat to reduce classroom disruptions and maintain an orderly environment. Specifically, the result is less interactive discourse and more seatwork. However, the differences in teachers’ instructional approach are relatively modest; there is no “crisis” of authority. Further research is needed on the effects of segregation on social relations in schools and how classroom instruction is affected.

Is there such a thing as a typical language lesson?

Much of the current literature relating to events that take place in the teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) classroom would seem to suggest that activities and tasks follow particular formats, where the linguistic focus of the lesson is introduced, and the students are encouraged to use it themselves in some form of structured interaction, with decreasing levels of teacher support. Skills lessons are reputed to have a slightly different format, perhaps including some inductive or deductive elements, but still basically focus on increasing student independence in a particular area. This paper argues that such an understanding of the way in which lessons progress has often been based on observed lessons, involving an additional person in the classroom collecting information. However, the Observer's Paradox would seem to suggest that the presence of an observer impacts on what actually happens whilst they are there, therefore such lessons may not, in fact, be a true representation of pedagogic practice in the language classroom. This paper draws on data from classroom transcripts of observed and non‐observed lessons, and analyses them using both external and internal features (self‐evaluation of teacher talk) in order to investigate some of the individual characteristics. It concludes that TESOL interaction and classroom discourse can take many different forms, and that a ‘typical language lesson’ is not typical, although it may be much more common in the context where an observer is present.

From verbs to interactional discourse markers: the pragmaticalization of Latin rogo, quaeso

Il volume appartiene ad una serie dedicata alla linguistica del latino, a cui hanno collaborato studiosi provenienti da tutto il mondo, sotto la direzione di Gualtiero Calboli.

A Case Study on the Discourse Characteristics of Docents Who Mediate Visitor's Learning in the Natural History Museum

This study aimed at understanding the characteristics of interactive discourses between docents and visitors in natural history museums. Two docents participated in this study. One worked in Seodaemoon Natural History Museum and the other in Gwacheon National Science Museum. To analyze the characteristics of interactive discourses, especially understanding the mediation of visitors' learning, Pedagogic Discourse Analysis method was adopted. The results show two contrasting types of interactive discourses, Encouraging Visitors' Meaningful Participation (EVMP) and Encouraging Visitors' Simple Participation (EVSP). In the EVMP discourse, structural cohesion is strong in thematic flow and information flow. Docent and visitors share the role of information provider and Themes are developed through the interactions between the docent and the visitors. On the contrary, in the EVSP discourse, structural cohesions are weak. Even though the visitors participate in the discourse, their discourse scarcely contribute to develop Themes in the discourse. Most of the information is developed and expanded by the docent. These results helped us to suggest that docents have to understand and use visitors' prior knowledge as a discourse Theme. It is also suggested that docents need to have not only the competent content knowledge about exhibitions but also the capability to lead discourses that allow the visitors to participate meaningfully during the education processes.

“You Have No Idea What You are Talking About!” From e-disagreement to e-impoliteness in two online fora

This paper reports on an ongoing project in the area of intentional impoliteness as perceived by the participants and as marked in discourse in the asynchronous Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) context. We focus on occurrences of impolite talk and examine the context bound nature of communicative strategies adopted by the interactants in order to deliberately do impoliteness. We also analyze how impoliteness is lexicalized in relation to the inherent characteristics of the CMC context. Specifically, this paper draws on a sample of data from two Communities of Practice (CofP): Greek students and professional academics. 200 posts were collected from interactions where dispute occurred. Special attention is paid to the use of spelling and punctuation and one interactional discourse particle, namely re (untranslatable), in unmitigated confrontational disagreement that breaches the norms of unmarked behaviour in the two CofPs. Our preliminary findings show that (im)politeness is firmly embedded in the micro (discourse) and macro (social) context. The impoliteness strategies employed by the interactants indicate different judgements of what constitutes marked behaviour and are contingent on factors such as the overall purpose of communication, the co-constructed norms of the forum, the relationship between participants and the dynamic group identities which the interactants call upon in any given situation. © 2010 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG.

Learning via problem solving in mathematics education

Three forms of mathematics education at school level are distinguished: direct expository teaching with an emphasis on procedures, with the expectation that learners will at some later stage make logical and functional sense of what they have learnt and practised (the prevalent form), mathematically rigorous teaching in terms of fundamental mathematical concepts, as in the so-called “modern mathematics” programmes of the sixties, teaching and learning in the context of engaging with meaningful problems and focused both on learning to become good problem solvers (teaching for problem solving) andutilising problems as vehicles for the development of mathematical knowledge andproficiency by learners (problem-centred learning), in conjunction with substantialteacher-led social interaction and mathematical discourse in classrooms.Direct expository teaching of mathematical procedures dominated in school systems after World War II, and was augmented by the “modern mathematics” movement in the period 1960-1970. The latter was experienced as a major failure, and was soon abandoned. Persistent poor outcomes of direct expository procedural teaching of mathematics for the majority of learners, as are still being experienced in South Africa, triggered a world-wide movement promoting teaching mathematics for and via problem solving in the seventies and eighties of the previous century. This movement took the form of a variety of curriculum experiments in which problem solving was the dominant classroom activity, mainly in the USA, Netherlands, France and South Africa. While initially focusing on basic arithmetic (computation with whole numbers) and elementary calculus, the problem-solving movement started to address other mathematical topics (for example, elementary statistics, algebra, differential equations) around the turn of the century. The movement also spread rapidly to other countries, including Japan, Singapore and Australia. Parallel with the problem-solving movement, over the last twenty years, mathematics educators around the world started increasingly to appreciate the role of social interaction and mathematical discourse in classrooms, and to take into consideration the infl uence of the social, socio-mathematical and mathematical norms established in classrooms. This shift away from an emphasis on individualised instruction towards classroom practices characterised by rich and focused social interaction orchestrated by the teacher, became the second element, next to problem-solving, of what is now known as the “reform agenda”. Learning and teaching by means of problem-solving in a socially-interactive classroom, with a strong demand for conceptual understanding, is radically different from traditional expository teaching. However, contrary to commonly-held misunderstandings, it requires substantial teacher involvement. It also requires teachers to assume a much higher level of responsibility for the extent and quality of learning than that which teachers tended to assume traditionally. Over the last 10 years, teaching for and via problem solving has become entrenched in the national mathematics curriculum statements of many countries, and programs have been launched to induce and support teachers to implement it. Actual implementation of the “reform agenda” in classrooms is, however, still limited. The limited implementation is ascribed to a number of factors, including the failure of assessment practices to accommodate problem solving and higher levels of understanding that may be facilitated by teaching via problem solving, lack of clarity about what teaching for and via problem solving may actually mean in practice, and limited mathematical expertise of teachers. Some leading mathematics educators (for example, Schoenfeld, Stigler and Hiebert) believe that the reform agenda specifi es classroom practices that are fundamentally foreign to culturally embedded pedagogical traditions, and hence that adoption of the reform agenda will of necessity be slow and will require more substantial professional development and support programs than those currently provided to teachers in most countries.Notwithstanding the challenges posed by implementation, the movement towards infusing mathematics education with a pronounced emphasis on problem solving both as an outcome and as a vehicle for learning seems to be unabated. Substantial work on the development of more effective means for professional development and support of teachers is currently being done.

Discourses on User Participation

Users should participate in information technology (IT) artifact development, but it has proven to be challenging. This applies also in the open source software (OSS) development. This chapter critically examines discursive construction of user participation in academic literatures and in practice, in IT artifact development. First three academic discourses constructing user participation are discussed. Then the discursive construction of user participation is explored in OSS development literature. Afterwards, results from several empirical, interpretive case studies are outlined. Some of them have been carried out in the IT artifact product development organizations, others in the OSS development context. Clear similarities can be identified in the discourses constructing user participation in these divergent IT artifact development contexts. The academic discourses on user participation clearly also legitimate certain ways of constructing user participation in practice. The OSS development literature bears resemblance mainly with the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) discourse on user participation. Therefore, it is argued that especially the HCI community should carefully reflect on what kinds of discourses on user participation it advocates and deems as legitimate.

Hippocampal amnesia disrupts verbal play and the creative use of language in social interaction

Background: While the neural substrates and cognitive components of creativity have received considerable attention in cognitive neuroscience, the creative use of language in social interaction has been less well studied. As part of a broader programme of research on language‐and‐memory‐in‐use in individuals with hippocampal amnesia, we analysed verbal play, a creative use of language that is pervasive in everyday communicative interaction. Aims: To identify instances of creative uses of language in the protocols of social and collaborative interactions, to characterise the qualitative nature, and to determine the frequency of these interactions initiated by participants with hippocampal amnesia vs comparison participants in order to ascertain whether amnesia impairs this aspect of social communication. Methods & Procedures: This study uses quantitative group comparisons and detailed discourse analysis to analyse verbal play in the interactional discourse sessions of four participants with hippocampal amnesia and four healthy (demographically matched) comparison participants, each interacting with a familiar partner while completing a collaborative referencing task and with a researcher between task trials. Outcomes & Results: All participants used verbal play. However, significantly fewer episodes were initiated in sessions with amnesia participants (312) and by participants with amnesia themselves (187) than in sessions with comparison participants (572) and by comparison participants (395). No significant group differences were observed for interactional forms, resources, or functions. Qualitative differences were also observed in amnesia sessions (e.g., more rotely produced episodes, lack of thematically linked episodes). Conclusions: These findings suggest that hippocampal amnesia disrupts the creative use of language in social interaction and accord with our previous work pointing to impairments in language‐and‐memory‐in‐use more broadly. These findings highlight the interdependence of language and memory especially in the interactional aspects of communication.

An Analysis of Conceptual Flow Patterns and Structures in the Physics Classroom

The aim of the current research is to characterize the conceptual flow processes occurring in whole‐class dialogic discussions with a high level of interanimation; in the present case, of a high‐school class learning about image creation on plane mirrors. Using detailed chains of interaction and conceptual flow discourse maps—both developed for the purpose of this research—the classroom discourse, audio‐taped and transcribed verbatim, was analyzed and three discussion structures were revealed: accumulation around budding foci concepts, zigzag between foci concepts, and concept tower. These structures as well as two additional factors, suggest the Two‐Space Model of the whole class discussion proposed in the present article. The two additional factors are: (1) the teacher intervention; and (2) the conceptual barriers observed among the students, namely, materialistic thinking, and the tendency to attribute “unique characteristics” to optical devices. This model might help teachers to prepare and conduct efficient whole‐class discussions which accord with the social constructivist perspective of learning.

Scientists’ Habits of Mind as Evidenced by the Interaction Between their Science Training and Religious Beliefs

The science education literature suggests that the public and students often hold narrow stereotypical views of scientists and science. Here we argue that it is important that students and the public understand the basis on which scientists make scientific claims. The inquiry sought to develop an understanding of the scientific mind, explored through Gauld’s (2005) notion of ‘habits of mind’. The vehicle used to explore these ideas consisted of an inquiry into how scientists rationalise conflicts between scientific theories and religious beliefs which are not in agreement with consensually‐accepted scientific theories. Twenty scientists from different scientific disciplines and levels of seniority were interviewed using as a basis an instrument containing a series of religious‐based item statements that a panel of scientific and religious experts considered were in agreement with a variety of religious doctrines yet in disagreement with current scientific thinking, or for which there is at present no supporting evidence from a variety of scientific disciplines. These statements acted as an interview protocol and formed the basis for interactive discourse, which was audio‐taped, transcribed verbatim and participant‐validated. These data provide a window into scientific thinking as practiced by modern scientists, and helps develop a picture of these scientists’ ‘habits of mind’. The findings suggest that these scientists, unlike their stereotype, hold idiosyncratic views of what constitutes good scientific evidence and sound, credible testimony.

Discourse particles: Where cognition and interaction intersect—The case of final particle ey in Shishan dialect (Hainan Island, P.R. China)

Based on spontaneous dyadic and multi-party conversation data, we examine final particle ey in Shishan, a dialect of Lingao (Tai-kadai language family) through the multiple lenses of: tense/aspect, stance marking, interpersonal interaction, and evidentiality. In order to explicate the semantic–pragmatic functioning of Shishan ey, 2 2 Particle ey occurs utterance-initially, utterance-medially, and utterance-finally, though instances of utterance-initial and utterance-medial ey are much less frequent. The cognitive-interactional functions of the particle differ according to placement. The current paper addresses ey only in utterance-final position. we provide brief comparisons with the aspectual/interactional functions of Mandarin le, the interactional functions of Mandarin final particles ou and a, and Cantonese final particle wo. We analyze the Mandarin and Cantonese particles from the points of view of the multivariate facets of speaker stance and compare them to Shishan ey. We note that in interactional discourse, the linguistic expression of evidentiality of Shishan ey is triggered by an external, interactionally-based signal. Specifically, when the particle emerges in collaboratively-built talk, it serves to signal the speaker's instantaneous discovery of a speaker–hearer epistemic mismatch and to simultaneously re-gauge the hearer's orientation toward evidence that emerges in the immediate context. By illuminating the semantic and pragmatic meanings of this form, we hope to advance the study of interactional particles as essential grammatical components of linguistic systems.