Prior Talk Research Articles

Formulations in French Emergency Calls Transferred to Physicians

ABSTRACT This article investigates a collection of 64 formulations delivered by physicians in French emergency calls. When a call is transferred from assistant emergency medical dispatcher (EMD) to physician EMD, the latter typically formulates a version of prior talk for the caller to confirm (e.g. alors votre mari euh il tremble c’est ça “so your husband uh he’s shaking, is that correct”). Formulations allow physicians to connect the current interaction to the previous one and deflect callers from launching into potentially extended new beginnings. Formulations allow physicians to move to key questions and instructions faster, as a formulation opens a restricted sequential slot for callers to either confirm or disconfirm. However, because of their selective nature, callers may use their responsive turn to alter physicians’ formulations—repairing, expanding, or pushing back against the terms of the formulation. Data are in French, with English translation.

A Question of Embeddedness: On Clausal and Phrasal Responses to Specifying WH-Questions in Danish Talk-in-Interaction

ABSTRACT Some WH-questions (e.g. “Where do you live?”) specify a particular piece of information that would count as an answer. This article is about the differences, in Danish talk-in-interaction, between two kinds of ways of providing that information: in a phrase (e.g. “In Copenhagen”) or in a clause (e.g. “I live in Copenhagen”). I show that phrasal responses align with questions in expansion sequences, orienting to them as part of an ongoing sequence and trajectory, whereas clausal responses align with questions in base sequences, treating them as independent of prior talk and asked with no prior knowledge. The differences between the response formats can be used as resources to claim and manage discrepancies in speakers’ knowledge, or in the trajectory of their talk. The analyses contribute to growing evidence for treating grammar as positionally sensitive, as well as to studies of degrees of minimality and grammatical parasitism. Data are in Danish.

From doing work on your own talk to doing work on others’ talk

Abstract Research on L2 interactional competence (IC) has become increasingly focused on how L2 speakers develop and recalibrate linguistic resources to do interactional work, i.e., how L2 speakers develop a grammar-for-interaction (Pekarek Doehler 2018). In this paper, I use interactional linguistics to track one L2 German speaker’s IC development over 11 months by analyzing her use of German also (English ‘so’) in formulations (see Deppermann 2011; Heritage & Watson 1979, 1980). In initial months, the L2 speaker uses also exclusively to do work on her own prior talk, e.g., in upshots, consequences, and unpackings. The L2 speaker’s initial also uses contribute to moves that maintain intersubjectivity by ensuring her co-interactant’s understanding of her own talk. In later months, the L2 speaker diversifies her uses of also, including uses oriented to co-interactants’ prior talk that address manifest problems of intersubjectivity: to preface an other-correction of an incorrect candidate understanding, and to preface turns addressing a co-interactant’s problem of understanding. The L2 speaker’s changing also uses demonstrate her ability to contribute to interactional organization in increasingly diverse ways, evidencing a developing grammar-for-interaction. I end by calling for more research on the L2 development of linguistic resources that primarily serve interactional functions, such as particles.

What affects you? A conversation analysis of exploring emotions during reflection sessions in Dutch general practitioner training.

In Dutch training for general practitioners (GPs), reflection on professional practice is key to their training. Such reflection is considered beneficial for professional development, especially when it entails discussing the emotional dimension of practice experiences. In the GP context, invitations to share the emotional side of things, such as "how did that make you feel?" are considered functional; yet, they are also sometimes viewed by participants as 'grilling', 'just too much' or 'too intimate'. Put shortly, putting emotions on the table is institutionally embedded in the GP reflection context, but not always straightforward. Thus, we ask: 'how do teachers and GP residents invite talk about emotions in educational reflection sessions?'. In this study, we explored the Dutch phrase 'raken, geraakt worden' (being affected) as one interactional practice used to initiate emotion talk. We conducted a conversation analytic collection study of instances of this phenomenon based on 40 video recordings of hour-long 'reflection sessions' at the Dutch GP specialty training. During these sessions, approximately ten GPs in training discuss recent experiences from medical practice under supervision of one or two teachers. We found that participants orientated to the relevance of 'being affected' as a topic for discussion. Variations of the form 'what affects you now?' may contribute to putting emotions on the table; they can project a stepwise exploration of the emotional dimension of an experience. The 'what affects you now', often done in interrogative format doing a noticing, in combination with a request, is a powerful tool to instigate transformative sequences. The form is less effective to put emotions on the table when the topic shift it initiates is not grounded in previously presented personal stakes or displayed emotion. The study's findings show how detailed interactional analysis of one sequentially structured practice can benefit education and contribute to theory on emotions and reflection. The mobilizing power of 'what affects you' can serve institutional purposes by doing topical work in relation to educational aims, while its power can also be deflated when prior talk does not project the relevance of unpacking the emotional dimension of an experience. Its interactional workings may translate to other helping contexts as well.

Newsmarks as an Interactional Resource for Indexing Remarkability: a Qualitative Analysis of Arabic waḷḷāhi and English really

Abstract This paper presents a study of Arabic waḷḷāhi (lit. ‘by God’) and English really when they are used interactionally as newsmarks. The literature has claimed that the role of newsmarks in conversation is to treat prior talk as news, to open up a slot for further talk, to express doubt or disbelief, and to implement requests for confirmation. A close analysis of waḷḷāhi and really shows that they do not necessarily follow the patterns described by previous research. Instead, the data suggest that newsmarks primarily contribute to the construction of prior talk as remarkable, that is, tellable and noteworthy; and that some previously described functions are epiphenomenal of this more basic property. The data are recordings of naturally occurring everyday conversations in British English and Egyptian Arabic, with English translations.

Formulaicity and contexts: a multimodal analysis of the Japanese utterance-finaltteyuu

AbstractThis study investigates the use of the utterance-finaltteyuu[ʔtejɯː], a combination of the quotative particletteand the verbyuu(‘say’). Although its lexicalized status and utterance-final occurrence are commonly observed, we still know little about its real-time functions. The analysis of 120 examples in varied contexts shows its general usage to clarify something expressed in the prior talk, which is a type of repair practice. More importantly, the analysis reveals how the participants’ understanding of the ongoing speech activity and multimodal cues affect its use and interpretation. Furthermore, some specialized usages appear to motivate activity-bound pragmatic inferencing, leading to emergence of a new construction. The findings demonstrate that even those expressions that arefixedin one context are in flux; their functions and structures are always subject to negotiation and change through frequent use in new contexts. The study contributes to the understanding of a dynamic interplay between linguistic formulaicity and contextual factors.

Towards an interactional grammar of interjections: Expressing compassion in four Australian languages

ABSTRACT Words classified as ‘interjections’ tend to be treated in descriptive grammars as outside of morphosyntax, too contextually bound to warrant a systematic description of their syntagmatic relations. In this paper we argue that if one takes grammar to include recurrent patterns in conversational turns that are routinely connected with particular interactional functions, such as assessments and acknowledgements, then the grammar of interjections can indeed be incorporated into language description in ways that show the systematic relationships between form and function. We use a comparative corpus of conversations in four typologically distinct Australian Aboriginal languages (Garrwa, Gija, Jaru and Murrinhpatha) to illustrate how such an analysis may be developed. We focus on forms which have been described as ‘compassionate interjections’, which express that the speaker takes a compassionate affective stance towards something described in prior talk or evident in the situation. Despite differences in the morphological properties of these words in the languages we compare here, they display remarkable similarities in where they occur within conversational turns, and the functions they serve in different turn-related positions.

A conversation analysis of therapist repeats in open dialogue network meetings.

Writings on Open Dialogue approaches to working with families experiencing mental distress emphasize the importance of the therapist repeating the family's words back to them verbatim. Repeats are theorized to display the therapist's listening and to encourage elaboration without imposing the therapist's own interpretations or conclusions on the family. These recommendations have not been subjected to rigorous interactional investigation. In this study, we used conversation analysis to analyze 160 examples of therapists repeating the prior talk of the family from 14h of video-recorded Open Dialogue sessions. We found that these repeats had similar functions to those previously described in conversation analysis research such as initiating repair, marking receipt, and requesting elaboration as well as examples of therapist repeats occurring in overlap with the talk of the client. Open Dialogue writings thus present an oversimplified account of how repeats are utilized in clinical Open Dialogue sessions. Consistent with dialogical writings, repeats can elicit elaboration with limited input from the therapist, however repeats reflect selectivity and function to direct and guide the conversation to some extent. So, while therapist authority can be mitigated by repeating clients' words, when a therapist chooses to employ a repeat actively shapes the direction of the interaction.

Variation and change in the sociophonetic variable ing in format ties

Abstract Format ties, “partial repetitions of prior talk” (Goodwin & Goodwin 1987, p. 207), are interesting from an interactional perspective with respect to their functions relating to, for example, (dis-) agreement/alignment or humour, and for scholars of Language Variation and Change because they offer uniquely comparable phonological contexts in naturalistic speech. The present paper investigates the distribution of the sociolinguistic variable ing in format ties in a set of dyadic interviews of six speakers from the North-East of England who were recorded two or three times throughout their twenties – those career-building years during which we often see a change from the predominant use of the alveolar variant (“in’”) to the velar (“ing”). The analysis offers possible interactional and stylistic explanations for the community-level stability and the speaker-level variation and change of ing by focusing on contexts in which speakers format tie. It shows that the use of the highly frequent and thus less marked alveolar variant tends to occur in aligning contexts, while the few velar cases occur in moments where speakers disalign on some level. This argument contributes to work combining interactional and variationist endeavours, in particular with respect to the variable ing.

”SO YOU’RE TELLING ME . ”: PARAPHRASING (FORMULATING), AFFECTIVE STANCE, AND ACTIVE LISTENING

ABSTRACT Paraphrasing is one of the core practices associated with active listening. While its use is widely advocated, research on its efficacy shows limited results. Paraphrasing-like actions have been studied extensively in conversation analytic research under the term formulations. Building on that tradition, this article features a conversation analysis of the affective stance that paraphrasing turns display toward their referents. Primary data drawn from a podcast series, Conversations with People Who Hate Me, are supplemented with instances drawn from mediation and a medical interview. Affiliative paraphrases feature components such as positive assessments, empathy displays, and shared laughter. Neutral paraphrases withhold markers of positive or negative orientation to their referents. Disaffiliative paraphrases restate what was said before in ways that convey skepticism or leave the prior talk vulnerable to criticism. Ambiguous paraphrases may reflect both affiliative and disaffiliative components; responses provide evidence for how recipients orient to their stance. Affiliative and neutral paraphrases may most closely approach the spirit of active listening. Greater understanding of how stance shapes paraphrasing can enrich research and practice in active listening.

“I don't mean extradimensional in a woo-woo sense”: Doing non-explanation in discussions of unidentified aerial phenomena

In everyday talk, speakers commonly provide explanations that “make plain” or “make intelligible” prior talk. Little work, however, has examined talk in which speakers offer no explanation for what is being described. We consider talk about “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAPs) from news media interviews. Interviewees distanced themselves from accountability for explaining UAPs or proposed multiple candidate explanations. Interviewers tabled their own potential explanations. Participants’ talk did not “make plain” or “make intelligible” phenomena being discussed. These findings show that explanations are a participants’ concern. These interactions allow discussion of topics of broad public interest, thereby “doing news”.

Pseudo-cleft-like structures in Hebrew and French conversation: The syntax-lexicon-body interface

In this study, we set out to shed light on cross-linguistic consistencies in the grammaticization of projecting constructions and on the interface of embodied conduct and complex syntax. We present a multimodal interactional linguistic analysis of Hebrew clauses opening with ma she- ‘what that’ and French clauses opening with ce que ‘it that’ in what has been traditionally considered to be part of pseudo-cleft structures. Based on recordings of naturally occurring conversations, and in line with recent research on social interaction, we argue that, rather than being part of a bi-clausal structure, the Heb. ma she- / Fr. ce que clause functions as a projecting construction, often occurring in conversation without any syntactic link to subsequent talk. We combine quantitative and qualitative analysis to show that these projecting constructions are characterized by lexico-semantic, syntactic, and prosodic consistencies and have become sedimented for specific interactional purposes in a similar fashion across the two languages: they project further talk by the same speaker and frame it either (1) as reporting an action, event, or paraphrasing prior talk, or (2) as displaying the speaker’s stance. We further document that the embodied conduct of speakers employing these projecting constructions manifests some convergence across the two languages as a function of the particular sequential contexts in which they occur, thereby uncovering cross-linguistic consistencies in how syntax, lexicon, and the body interface in social interaction.

Turn design in talk-in-interaction in a foreign language – Collaborative turn constructions and ellipses in casual conversations among German high-school learners of English

Abstract This study explores the ability of advanced adolescent German learners of English to optimize turn design for talk-in-interaction, focusing on collaborative turn constructions and ellipses. Data deriving from recorded conversations conducted in the foreign language among German learners of English are compared to conversations between native speakers of British English and integrated into a diagnostic approach that helps identify deficits in the field of interactional skills. The results show that the two syntactic formats occur less frequently in learner conversations, which indicates that learners are less likely to use syntactic resources to bind their contribution immediately to prior talk or to the situational context. It is argued that this has a negative effect upon the sequential fit of turns and that conversational practice targeted toward a syntax for conversation would help learners achieving a more fluid interplay of conversational moves.

Echoing Retorts in Hárbarðsljóð and Lokasenna

Echoing Retorts in <i>Hárbarðsljóð</i> and <i>Lokasenna</i>

Re-apprehending misapprehensions: A practice for disclosing troubles in understanding in talk-in-interaction

The potential for misunderstanding is ever-present in interaction, making it necessary that interactants have means for identifying and remediating troubles in understanding should they appear. These include not only practices for remediating others’ misunderstandings, but also for remediating one's own misunderstandings. Using English and Dutch data, we analyse a practice that participants use for remediating misapprehensions on their part of some prior talk or given state-of-affairs, where the speaker first indexes a change-of-state and then explicates their misapprehension with "I thought (that) X" or "ik dacht dat X". In doing so the speakers disclose themselves to have misapprehended some talk or state-of-affairs and by so doing 're-apprehended' the 'actual' talk or 'correct' state-of-affairs, while also accounting for any action or conduct predicated on that misapprehension.

Offering an Interpretation of Prior Talk in Everyday Interaction: A Semantic Map Approach

ABSTRACT Sometimes in interaction, a speaker articulates an overt interpretation of prior talk. Such moments have been studied as involving the repair of a problem with the other’s talk or as formulating an understanding of the matter at hand. Stepping back from the established notions of formulations and repair, we examine the variety of actions speakers do with the practice of offering an interpretation, and the order within this domain. Results show half a dozen usage types of interpretations in mundane interaction. These form a largely continuous territory of action, with recognizably distinct usage types as well as cases falling between these (proto)typical uses. We locate order in the domain of interpretations using the method of semantic maps and show that, contrary to earlier assumptions in the literature, interpretations that formulate an understanding of the matter at hand are actually quite pervasive in ordinary talk. These findings contribute to research on action formation and advance our understanding of understanding in interaction. Data are video- and audio-recordings of mundane social interaction in the German language from a variety of settings.

Turn-taking in collaborative storytelling

This conversation-analytic paper investigates the multimodal design and interactional functions of the connective et puis après (‘and then after that’) in a French-language corpus of video-recorded collaborative storytellings. Two similar, yet different, sequential positions are investigated: the juncture between subsequent story episodes and the space between extended side sequences and the return to the story-in-progress. Such juncture positions constitute recognizable moments at which both members of the telling party, i. e., the current teller and the co-teller, must determine the topic of the next story episode as well as its delivery. Thus, juncture positions provide a perspicuous setting for the analysis of how tellership is negotiated and how topic progression is achieved. The connective et puis après appears to be a resource for current tellers to establish spaces for coparticipation at juncture positions, closing prior talk and projecting continuation. The multimodal analysis shows that both its prosodic design and co-occurring changes of the embodied participation framework contribute to opening interactive turn spaces and to making telling-specific next actions relevant.

Responses within activities

AbstractLarge conversational activities (e.g., storytelling) necessitate a suspension of ordinary turn-taking rules. In the resulting constellation of main speaker and recipient, minimal displays of cooperative recipiency become relevant at particular junctures. We investigate this mechanism by focusing on the Egyptian Arabic particleʔāh‘yeah’ when thus used. We observe that tokens ofʔāhare mobilized by main speakers via the opening of prosodic slots at local pragmatic completion points. The prosodic design of the particle at these points is sensitive to prior talk and displays recipients’ alignment at the structural, action-sequential, and relational levels. This is done through variation of three prosodic features, namely, rhythm-based timing, pitch configuration, and prominence. The measure of alignment proposed byʔāhis implicative for the continuation of the turn. While smooth progression suggests thatʔāhis understood to be sufficiently fitted and aligned, expansions are traceable to a departure from the terms set by prior talk, which can be heard to indicate lesser alignment. We propose to viewʔāhresponse tokens as a subset of positionally sensitive responses to part-of-activity actions that are crucial for the co-accomplishment of a large activity.

Recipiency and peripheral participation in language brokering

In a multilingual situation where some participants do not speak or understand one of the used languages, the participants need to balance between the language choice and the restrictions it creates for opportunities to participate. In this conversation analytic study, I examine how participants manage differentiated possibilities of participation in asymmetrically multilingual interactions in instances of language brokering and to what extent does brokering draw the recipient into the conversation. The paper concludes, first, that participants’ embodied displays of recipiency toward a main speaker, whose talk they cannot (fully) understand, as well as embodied displays of disengagement from the conversation, can serve to “recruit” linguistic assistance from others. Second, the broker’s orientations to the recipient’s participation status are reflected in the content of the brokering turns. The study thereby demonstrates how participants multimodally negotiate forms of peripheral participation and their accountability. The study argues that, although language brokering is done only occasionally and includes great variation in terms of how prior talk is translated, these practices are not random but result from a systematic interactional organization of action and participation.

Turn Continuations and Gesture: “And Then”-Prefacing in Multi-Party Conversations

This article offers an analysis of turn-expanding practices with the connectiveå sen‘and then’ in Swedish multi-party conversations in which the participants discuss and assess works of visual art. The connective is recurrently used to introduce a turn continuation, i.e. a stretch of talk that is produced after a possibly completed turn-constructional unit (TCU). We identify three types of continuations: same-speaker continuations, occurring post gap or post-other talk, and other-continuations by the next speaker. Some of the “and then” continuations are clausal, syntactically free-standing, while non-clausal continuations have more in common with TCU increments. “And then” continuations specify, restrict or redirect the unfolding contribution while at the same time orienting to a collective interactional project. In same-speaker continuations, the speaker can introduce a new aspect of the established theme or offer an account. Other-continuations can be used to achieve a shift in footing to introduce a somewhat non-aligning contribution. Both grammar and embodied resources (especially hand gestures) are activated in the management of the completion of a prior turn unit, the initiation of a turn continuation and the recompletion of the speaker’s turn. The typical multimodal trajectory is: syntactic completion of a first unit + retracted gesture; link to prior talk and upcoming talk with “and then” followed by the core of the continuation +aredeployed gesture; and finally, syntactic completion of the continuing unit + retracted gesture to a rest position.