Linking Discourse Studies to Professional Practice 9781783094080

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Linking Discourse Studies to Professional Practice

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Series Editor: John Edwards, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada Multilingual Matters publishes books on bilingualism, bilingual education, immersion education, second language learning, language policy and multiculturalism. The editor is particularly interested in ‘macro’-level studies of language policies, language maintenance, language shift, language revival and language planning. Books in the series discuss the relationship between language in a broad sense and larger cultural issues, particularly identityrelated ones. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found at http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS: 160

Linking Discourse Studies to Professional Practice

Lubie Grujicic-Alatriste

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto

To Roger T. Bell, my first professor in linguistics, and Leslie M. Beebe, my doctoral advisor, with appreciation

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Linking Discourse Studies to Professional Practice/Edited by Lubie Grujicic-Alatriste. Multilingual Matters: 160 Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Discourse analysis—Study and teaching (Higher) 2. Business communication—Social aspects. 3. Vocational guidance—Social aspects. I. Grujicic-Alatriste, Lubie, editor. P302.L57 2015 401'.41–dc23 2015009746 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78309-407-3 (hbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2015 Lubie Grujicic-Alatriste and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Techset Composition India (P) Ltd, Bangalore and Chennai, India. Printed and bound in Great Britain by the CPI Books Group Ltd.

Contents

Figures

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Tables

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Contributors

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Foreword Martin Bygate

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Acknowledgements

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Preface 1

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Framework for Application of Research Findings: An Introduction Lubie Grujicic-Alatriste

1

Part 1: Workplace and Business Settings 2

Institutional Identity Negotiations in Multilingual Workplace Settings Spencer Hazel

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3

English as Lingua Franca in Multilingual Business Negotiations: Managing Miscommunication Using Other-initiated Repair Joowon Suh

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4

Asymmetrical Aspects of Knowledge in Mediation Talk Santoi Wagner

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Family Conversational Storytelling at the Margins of the Workplace: The Case of Au-pair Girls Evelyne Pochon-Berger, Simona Pekarek Doehler and Clelia König

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Practical Genre Knowledge as Professional Competence: The Case of Managerial Meetings Pekka Pälli and Esa Lehtinen v

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86

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Part 2: Educational Settings 7

The Centrality of Communicative Purpose in Student Written Discourse Lubie Grujicic-Alatriste

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Narrative Discourse in the Second-Language Classroom Gabrielle Kahn

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Interpreter-mediated Parent–Teacher Talk Elena Davitti

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Part 3: Private and Public Settings 10 Tensions in Family Discourse: Expectations and Justifications Rebekah J. Johnson

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11 Positioning Selves with Physical Disabilities in Narrative Leslie Cochrane

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Part 4: Government and Media Settings 12 On the City Council Meetings’ Sidelines: Negotiating Changes in Citizen Involvement Kerrie R.H. Farkas

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13 Reframed News Discourse: The Manipulative Impact of Translation on News Making Liang Xia and Wei Wang

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14 Analysing Media Discourse on Same-sex Marriage Roger S. Frantz

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Afterword Charles Antaki

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References

315

Index

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Figures

Figure 9.1 Figure 9.2 Figure 9.3 Figure 12.1 Figure 12.2 Figure 12.3 Figure 13.1

Seating arrangement of Excerpt 9.1 Seating arrangement of Excerpt 9.2 Seating arrangement of Excerpt 9.3 City council agenda Council chambers Levels of public involvement A theoretical framework for news translation studies

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184 189 192 254 256 262 274

Tables

Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5 Table 7.6 Table 7.7 Table 7.8 Table 9.1

The schematic of moves and their descriptors Exemplar The order of steps in the CATS model Two schematic examples of repetitive move order in student discourse Banessa’s letter Reorganised moves and steps in Banessa’s letter Ajay’s letter Reorganised moves and steps in Ajay’s letter Inhibiting and facilitating factors in mediated PTMs

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137 139 142 144 145 146 147 148 195

Contributors

Leslie Cochrane, Visiting Assistant Professor of English (Linguistics Program), The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA; [email protected] Elena Davitti, Lecturer in Translation Studies, School of English and Languages, University of Surrey, UK; [email protected] Kerrie R.H. Farkas, Associate Professor of English, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA; [email protected] Roger S. Frantz, Principal Assessment Specialist – English Language Learners, Pearson Education, NY, USA; [email protected] Lubie Grujicic-Alatriste, Associate Professor of English and Applied Linguistics, City University of New York, College of Technology, NY, USA; [email protected] Spencer Hazel, Assistant Professor, Department of Culture and Identity, Roskilde University, Denmark; [email protected] Rebekah Johnson, Assistant Professor of English as a Second Language and Linguistics at City University of New York, LaGuardia Community College, NY, USA; [email protected] Gabrielle Kahn, Assistant Professor of English at City University of New York, Kingsborough Community College, NY, USA; [email protected] Clelia König, PhD Candidate, Centre of Applied Linguistics, University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; [email protected]

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Esa Lehtinen, Professor of Modern Finnish, University of Vaasa, Finland; [email protected] Pekka Pälli, Senior University Lecturer, Aalto University School of Business, Finland; [email protected] Simona Pekarek Doehler, Professor, Centre of Applied Linguistics, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland; [email protected] Evelyne Pochon-Berger, Scientific Collaborator, Research Center on Multilingualism, University of Fribourg/University of Teacher Education Fribourg, Switzerland; [email protected] Joowon Suh, Senior Lecturer, Director of Korean Language Program, Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University, NJ, USA; suh@ princeton.edu Santoi Wagner, Lecturer, Associate Director of TESOL, University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education, PA, USA; [email protected] Wei Wang, Senior Lecturer, Department of Chinese Studies, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sydney, Australia; wei.wang@sydney. edu.au Liang Xia, PhD Candidate, Department of Chinese Studies, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sydney, Australia; liang.xia@sydney. edu.au

Foreword

In 2008 most major Western economies experienced a financial catastrophe which led to significant individual and social suffering, to the collapse of some governments and to significant social unrest. Despite the specialist knowledge of thousands of financiers, bankers and economists, whole national economies were on the point of failure. Academics and their students are now arguing that academic courses in economics need refocusing on what economic agents actually do and the real-world problems that ensue. But despite the extent of the disaster with its real-life serious consequences for the ‘real people’, it seems that theoretical priorities still prevail. Ha-Joon Chang and Jonathan Aldred (2014) write: Challenged to [. . .] introduce the study of the actual behaviour of traders in financial markets, academics defending the status quo reply that, first, their models can already capture the behaviour of ‘rational’ traders, and second, the descriptive study of the actual behaviour of traders is a subject for sociologists, historians or psychologists. [. . .] However, students need to learn more about the real world. They need to know about the world economy, the history of capitalism [. . .] and some details about specific contemporary economies. They note that: many academic economists seem to have an [. . .] ivory-tower view of the world: ‘pure’ research is more prestigious than applied or policy-relevant research, and research is more important than teaching. So, the more detached from the real world your work is, the higher in the intellectual hierarchy you are. As a result, undergraduate economics courses are designed to prepare students to do further study leading to an academic research career, when in fact less than 10% of them intend to pursue one. No wonder the students and their future employers find the economics course unfit for purpose. (Chang & Aldred, 2014) xi

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Yet ‘what economists learn in their degree influences what they do later when making policy decisions that fundamentally affect our lives – financial deregulation, welfare cuts, gas prices and healthcare reform’ (Chang & Aldred, 2014). All is not well in the economics academy. When put against this ‘economic backdrop’, the potential impact of applied linguistics might seem less dramatic. But the issue of its real-world relevance is just as central, as is made clear in one of the standard definitions of applied linguistics: ‘the theoretical and empirical study of real world problems in which language is a central issue’ (Brumfit, 1995). As with the study of real-world economics, applied linguistic issues have their impacts. In the UK, recent research at Kings College London reveals that 20% of care workers in nursing homes and homes for the elderly in the UK are migrants, and often lack adequate English language skills. This matters. Hugh Muir (2014) notes that it can be a problem ‘when a service provider – in a shop or institution, or at the end of a phone line – can’t understand or make themselves understood’. This also matters, yet such issues are not in fact treated as realworld language problems that could be systematically addressed. Indeed the current UK government (as of 2014) cut back on ESOL funding for 100,000 people. Indeed, up until the late 1980s there were several world-class teacher development programmes for EFL and TESOL, attracting hosts of high-quality students qualified to deliver second language education at primary, secondary and tertiary levels as well as in the adult sector. Research included a key focus on teacher development, curriculum and materials development, classroom practice and classroom language learning. However, government recognition was withdrawn from those programmes on the grounds that ESOL was not a content subject within the UK curriculum and hence did not have scheduled programmes to justify the TESOL teacher development programmes. At a stroke, the specialism underpinning the language support was removed for migrant residents, workers, parents, carers, children, professionals, retirees and the elderly in the UK. So too was public awareness of the need for language support, and the respectability of providing it. The departments hosting those programmes fairly quickly lost the specialist staff which ran them, and concern for language capacities within society became the responsibility of the individual and not a duty of the wider community. Of course, in the process of dismantling this provision, the context for the development of motivated and grounded EFL/ESL research was also removed. That of course is specific to the UK. But given our definition of applied linguistics, one might suppose that the real-world orientation of applied linguists worldwide would nonetheless ensure that applied linguists would continue to work for the world outside the academy. However, at the time of the demise of EFL/ESOL within UK teacher education, many applied linguists had other concerns, notably seeking to establish the reputation of their discipline as a social science on an equal footing with disciplines such as

Foreword

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sociology, psychology, linguistics and economics (e.g. McLaughlin, 1987). Attention increasingly focused on the accumulation of robust empirical methodologies, and on developing a canon of empirical research. Arguably, the growing number of specialist applied linguistic groupings and associations (poetics, SLA, lexicography, language awareness, forensic linguistics, speech and language therapy, corpus linguistics, literacy, and many others) which Brumfit already noted (2001: 167) are testimony to the tendency of scholars to concentrate on developing methodologies and accumulate findings relevant to their specialist sub-areas. Added to this tendency towards research specialisation has been the growing pressure from universities and governmental agencies on individual academics, on departments and indeed on whole disciplines to maximise their peer-assessed output. Whatever the cause, there is now undoubted pressure on researchers primarily to address their research communities, a pressure which has become almost impossible to resist. As Elaine Tarone (2013), in a published version of a recent address to the American Association for Applied Linguistics, writes: It seems clear at a conference like this [AAAL 2012] how valued and rewarded SLA researchers and theorists are. Presentations usually orient to one or another theory, and present research data; and at the publishers’ exhibits, the SLA books most on display focus on theory, research studies, and research syntheses; presentations and publishers represent a world of abstract ideas where we align ourselves, often in adversarial ways, with one or another SLA theory. We can be very adversarial in promoting, comparing, supporting, or disproving a variety of universalistic principles, theories, and claims about the way humans become multilingual. (Tarone, 2013: 358) This pattern suggests that our prior concern is not our impact on society or the wider communities within which we live, but rather the impression we make on our peers. There is, however, an alternative view of the future of applied linguistics. The terms of our definition of applied linguistics offer a clue: ‘the theoretical and empirical study of real world problems in which language is a central issue’. The focus on ‘real world problems’ suggests that we should seek to start from the problems of the real world, of non-applied linguists, rather than ‘research problems’, ‘theoretical problems’ or methodological problems and instead focus on problems identified and ratified by non-academics. This means defining our research agendas by reference to the wider community rather than to the research community. It implies more than simply identifying problems identified by communities worldwide, but further, seeking to understand the very terms in which the issues are perceived by non-specialists, and in particular the ways in which they are seen as problematic, and the kinds of solutions which they would endorse. Our aim then becomes one

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of seeking ways of resolving them, whether by reframing them, or by identifying potential responses. From this perspective, the real-world community becomes a key informant at several points of the research: in initially locating real-world problems; in helping to define them; in providing clues for potential ways of studying them; in helping to evaluate and ratify responses deriving from the research; and in identifying potential issues for further exploration. Tarone has herself contributed studies which illustrate the ways in which empirical research can be productively grounded within the community. An example is Tarone and Kuehn’s (2000) study of how a second language speaker coped with the standard US social services interview. The real-world problem concerned the extent to which the language of client and social worker might have affected the outcome of the interview. Benefits from the research included insights into how the social services could valuably revise their interview protocol, and how second language speakers might be usefully prepared for the language of that type of encounter. Other studies that highlight real-world problems and the possibilities to address include research into the impact of bilingual interpreters in the courtroom (Berk-Seligson, 2002), language and ageing (de Bot & Makoni, 2005) and of the mother tongue classroom (Mercer & Hodgkinson, 2008). Given this background, the present book is a most welcome contribution to the development of applied linguistics. The chapters individually and collectively show some of the many domains in the real world in which problems arise in which language plays a central role. The collection illustrates some of the myriad ways in which applied linguistic research can engage with the wider community: to raise awareness; to explore reactions within the community; to identify possible responses; and to cross-check and seek interpretation and ratification for their findings. Of course, not all problems in the world are problems of language; but problems of language can and do seep into them. An applied linguistics of the future needs to define itself firmly within this perspective. The editor and authors who have worked to assemble this volume merit the attention, appreciation and emulation of the wider world of applied linguistics, so that, paraphrasing Chang and Aldred (2014), applied linguistics programmes and research are genuinely fit for purpose. Or do we need a revolution in the way we teach applied linguistics? Martin Bygate Professorial Research Fellow St Mary’s College, London, UK

Acknowledgements

I am honoured to have collaborated with many people throughout this project. I wish to express my gratitude to the contributors who worked hard (and over many manuscript changes) on incorporating the Framework for Application I have developed for this volume. As one of the contributors, Roger Frantz, ‘famously’ stated, this indeed was a big paradigm shift from one’s doctoral training and the way most were trained to think about data. They all agreed that it was a considerable but welcome challenge to look at research from such a vastly different perspective: one of application and reflexivity with the outreach to professional practice. I feel equally indebted to the superb Multilingual Matters team in the UK whose members have been consistently supportive, helpful and very reachable! My appreciation first goes to Tommi who recognized the importance of the subject I was proposing, and to John Edwards, the series editor, for his vision and courage to move the idea of applied linguistics and its impact beyond theory into the real world issues. To Kim Eggleton, the commissioning editor, I say: many thanks for your ideas, shared vision and excitement about this topic, and the desire to see application in many domains of real life practice in the future. Of course, I am much obliged to Laura Longworth, acquisition editor, Sarah Williams, production manager, and Elinor Robertson, marketing manager, for their expert guidance through the publishing process, and to Hannah Turner at Techset Composition Ltd and her great team of proofreaders for helping with the editing process. To my family, Bill, Angelica Scarlett Stella and Joshua-Keats Milan, I want to say: thank you for being there through struggles and joys! Lubie Grujicic Alatriste New York City, June 2015

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Preface

Linking Discourse Studies to Professional Practice is envisioned as an inspirational volume for analysts, researchers, academics and students in various programmes including, but not limited to, applied linguistics, discourse studies and communication studies. It aims to raise awareness of the importance of considering research findings within the broader life framework by reaching out to stakeholders in the places of professional practice. The volume is seen as a bridge needed to link the end of research and the onset of praxis because creating collaboration with the places of practice is often complex and complicated, so providing a map can help analysts move forward with dissemination, collaboration and even intervention (to achieve praxis). Analysts form Australia, Europe and the United States were invited to consider their original research findings in (for them) a new way: how to begin to disseminate their work in real-world settings (or ideally in the settings where they originally collected the data). Chapter 1 provides the theoretical background for the volume and describes the components of the ‘Framework for Application’. Each of the remaining 13 chapters generally opens by stating the key findings, presents a brief theoretical overview and description of the original research study, and then showcases the key excerpts from a larger body of discourse data. Most significantly, the authors engage the Framework for Application by presenting a plan for dissemination and the tools for gauging research relevance and, in some cases, by reporting the initiatives already taken towards outreach to the places of practice. The chapters include studies done on spoken and written discourse, using conversation analysis (CA) in combination with other methods, genre analysis in combination with other methods, and critical discourse analysis (CDA). Contributions are loosely grouped by setting and include the following: workplace and business settings; educational settings; private and public settings; and government and media settings. At the onset of this project in 2010, I could not have imagined the road ahead. We discovered that the process of creating a plan, or an outline for the dissemination of research findings, was a bigger challenge than first anticipated. As the project moved along, it became clear that the outlines for the dissemination of findings provided in this volume would need to be tested xvii

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out in order to illustrate the process but also to show its results. A number of contributors are starting the second stage by reaching out to the places of practice and trying to establish relationships with various stakeholders. We plan to report the results of dissemination in a separate volume in the near future. As a discourse analyst seeking collaboration and relevance in the real world of language use, I was inspired by the work of Bygate (2004) to pursue the answers to ‘what happens to our research findings?’ and by Antaki (2011) to engage the places of professional practice. I hope that others will be motivated by this eclectic and dynamic volume to ask similar questions and seek their own answers. Lubie Grujicic-Alatriste

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Framework for Application of Research Findings: An Introduction Lubie Grujicic-Alatriste

This volume aims to assist analysts whose discourse research findings are amenable to the application in their places of practice, in reaching out to stakeholders, disseminating their findings and if possible negotiating future research, collaborative projects, intervention and ultimately change. Specifically, the contributors are interested in the practicalities of how one goes from considering to doing application in their field of study. The Framework for Application was created in order to offer clear steps for the dissemination of findings and tools for generating stakeholders’ feedback in the places of practice. Stakeholders are in this volume all parties involved in research processes, from participants and clients to institutions and lay people. Each chapter uses the framework as a point of reference, reporting different levels of engagement with it due to the volume’s diverse settings. Some authors are already well engaged in reaching out to the places of practice, while others are at the initial stages. In those chapters where the author is both the analyst and the practitioner, the dissemination is by the very nature of this duality more immediate. The variability in the level of engagement with the framework and the position of authors towards ‘the impact’ their work may have – from raising awareness to intervention – illustrates a realistic range of success on the application continuum.

Arriving at Application in This Volume The need to make application more central to applied linguistics and studies of language in the real world is not new. In his contribution to AILA titled ‘Some current trends in applied linguistics’, Bygate contends that the field [of applied linguistics] is at the point of needing to ask a range of questions, including the following: ‘What happens to the results of our research’ (Bygate, 2004: 18). Bygate’s question refers to the research done in education, 1

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but the same question, we feel, is still relevant a decade later to most domains of applied linguistics (here meant in the broad sense of the term and clarified a little later in this chapter). Although not all the research in the many fields of applied linguistics is directly amenable to application in the real world of practice, a fair amount of it could be and perhaps should be. We would like to suggest that doing application where it seems natural or possible is a healthy step forward for the field as a whole. To provide a background to Bygate’s question, we presume that most readers are familiar with the tendency in our field’s many domains to conclude research in academic journals, in books or in masters or doctoral dissertations by stating that the reported research findings may have potential for application. This in itself is neither strange nor irrelevant. However, even a random attempt to follow up and see what has happened to those often important published findings seems to be, more frequently than not, nothing specific. In other words, the recommendations for practical applications, or the stated implications for application, have a tendency to be more representative of rhetorical devices than of actual proposals with realistic expectations. Although some percentage of classroom-based research may eventually find its way into practical application such as textbooks and graduate courses on methodology, and by extension the actual classrooms, as might health and social service related studies, many other types of research may not. This is truly a loss for the existing completed analysis which, if dealing with world communication problems or language use, may be useful in places other than academia. Similarly, it is seen as a loss for the researchers who could broaden their work’s domain and impact if they were to find ways to apply their findings in the world of practice. Finally, instances of groundbreaking discourse work which could have significant applications – such as research of the type performed by Heritage and Robinson (2011), but within current practices – if the researchers are not part of a larger and more prominent group that is already doing application and intervention (e.g. Antaki, 2011a), may remain dormant rather than actively directed towards application. Thus, more spotlight on the issue of the next step for many research studies can be a positive and needed present initiative. On a discipline level, the relative absence of stronger focus on application seems to reflect a still predominant theoretical preoccupation with its many applied areas. When considering applied sciences in general, the goal is ‘not [to] merely study [a phenomenon], but to intervene, and to propose directions for change’ (Bygate, 2004: 18). Thus, applied linguistics, as a social science, might need to provide more, or perhaps something else in addition to theory, basic research and pure knowledge (Knapp & Antos, 2011). There is no question that theory is both one of the goals of, and the necessity for furthering, the discipline, but there may be a need for more earnestly considering broader applications of theory and practice outside the academy. Reaching out into the world of practice has the potential to expand

Framework for Applicat ion of Research Findings : An Introduc t ion

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our understanding of the relationships that we commonly enter when collecting data in real-life settings and to open new areas of research and collaboration. When reflecting on applied fields of language study in particular, the question of relevance is hard to ignore. To echo Bygate, the temptation for some may be to wonder ‘what is so special about studying language within the real world problems if the only [ultimate] purpose is to use it as a stimulus for academic reflection’ (Bygate, 2005: 570, emphasis mine). This is not to say that academic reflection is not welcome. It is and it will always be a part of what we do. But adding application to reflection may make our field more versatile and visible, as well as useful to the people outside it. Without a stronger and perhaps more frequent engagement of application (and by extension praxis), we might remain, in many ways, a predominantly theoretical discipline. This theoretical insularity could result in missing out on further scientific and research developments facilitated by focusing on more setting-based application. Including real-world people and their views in our research, as Bygate suggested a decade ago (2004), continues to be pertinent and relevant today. Those real people we need to include are teachers, students, practitioners, clients, lay persons – all those who are stakeholders in the practical world. This is because ‘without real world input, the researcher develops a trajectory simply in terms of what resonates with the academy: applied in terms of what it focuses on, but without the commitment to the external endorsement of the problems it explores’ (Bygate, 2004: 18, emphasis mine). This particular point is noted in the present collection as the research placed within the framework of dissemination is already completed and available for application. The issue Bygate raises, though, about outside endorsement is considered relevant in those areas of study that engage real-life language use, including ours. But while we acknowledge this external endorsement we also address the challenges that come with trying to achieve it. It is the challenges that we encountered that have confirmed to us the need for a more formal way of beginning the road to application – hence the Framework for Application. The concerns with external endorsement coupled with the real-life hurdles when doing application have led us to espouse a very transparent approach towards our own processes and to report on the obstacles and challenges we have faced while putting this collection together. This, we feel, will help other analysts understand what to expect when starting out with their own projects based on similar aspirations.

Challenges and the need for a framework Specifically in this collection, we discovered that addressing application, however much desired on our part, was neither simple nor straightforward.

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In part, this is because the researchers and analysts who are contributors to this volume (although we can imagine this pertaining to others in the world of scholarship) had minimal or no training or instruction in how to orient their work towards application. Some may find this surprising for ‘applied linguists’, but in fact upon reflection we realised that it was to be expected. The graduate and doctoral courses the contributors had taken, and now their current work environments, have not focused, and are not typically focusing, on application per se. This realisation concurs with the observations of other analysts who have pointed out that the focus for most researchers is just the narrow domain of their own sub-field of their own methodology, having the publication of their work in a research journal as the end goal (although a worthy one at that, but not ‘applied’ enough). Particularly relevant is the observation that ‘newer generations for whom narrow specialization has become the norm, [find it] increasingly difficult to see the wide-ranging practicalities and possibilities of the field’ (Candlin & Sarangi, 2004a: 7). The same will probably ring true with many readers of this collection. It is the ‘wide-ranging practicalities and possibilities’ that we wish this volume to bring to the fore and to make central to the readership. But how one comes to the ‘wide-ranging possibilities’ may be a fair question here. In our case, we initially thought the most obvious way to begin with ‘practicalities’ was to start with the dissemination of our research findings by reaching out to practitioners and other parties in the original research settings, if they are still there and reachable, that is, with the information about the completion of the research studies. For many contributors, this was no longer an option, so the very first step, which is the identification of the places for outreach, became an obstacle. It appeared hard for many to begin to reorient their thinking and their work towards application. We concluded that even at this early stage, a set of tools was needed in order to plan the sharing of findings and to assist in collecting the feedback. These initial challenges resulted in the creation of the Framework for Application, a concrete set of steps and tools for the application of findings. Next, it was apparent that an understanding of institutional practices and the goals of the stakeholders was needed because practicalities, in part, depend on the intimate connection with the values, procedures and knowledge base of those with whom we seek to explore those purposes (Cicourel, 2003). If the analyst conducted her or his work without such connections with the places of practice, then revisiting, reaching out or offering to share feedback might not be immediately feasible, or could be significantly more challenging. A bridge was clearly needed in order to assist the crossing over from a pure analyst role to a collaborative role at the places of practice. The Framework for Application was constructed with an intent to address the above-presented needs and concerns. It facilitates the top-down model of application (or a model that is researcher/analyst initiated not practitioners and stakeholders initiated), because it was the most obvious starting point for

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the already completed and ready-for-dissemination studies featured in this volume. Since the movement towards collaboration with professional practice favours a bottom-up approach, we are aware that our choices may be seen as an excuse for more analysts’ ready-made answers to [their] perceived problems in real settings (Candlin & Sarangi, 2004a; Edwards, 2010). Such concerns are valid and should not be disregarded, but in this volume we firmly support the necessity of the ‘the first step’ for all those analysts who have completed their analysis but have nowhere to go with the findings. We offer that blueprint in our own chapters. Additionally, the aforementioned initial contact with the places of practice is regarded as a direct opportunity that might lead to the ‘external endorsement of applicability’ (Bygate, 2004) or, further down the road, an external identification of real-life issues that need researching so that praxis could ensue. The latter is in some ways a continuation of the first effort (the initiation of contact with practice), because in the natural order of things the analysts first need to reach out to the places of practice, establish relationships by sharing their data and interest, and then start negotiating future projects that would be externally endorsed and validated. Thus, we contend that any volume that engages application must, from the onset, acknowledge these complexities and the challenges lying ahead. It may not be sufficient, it seems, to ‘just’ promote application; one needs to know how to go about doing it. This we see as the main aim of the present volume.

A note on terminology in this volume Implicit in the focus on application are questions about the definition and scope of applied linguistics, so they are addressed here, although by no means in any extensive way. Since Corder (1973), the discussions about applied linguistics have abounded and many scholars have engaged the topic with passion and expertise (see Brumfit, 1997; Bygate, 2004, 2005; Cook, 2003; Crystal, 1981, 2003; Davies, 1999; Gass & Makoni, 2004; Grabe, 2004; Grabe & Kaplan, 1992; Hall et al., 2011; Knapp & Antos, 2011; Myers, 2005; Sealy & Carter, 2004; Simpson, 2011; Widdowson, 1979, 2000). The most widely cited definition of applied linguistics comes from Brumfit, who described it as ‘the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-world problems in which language is a central issue’ (in Brumfit et al., 1995: 27). This definition appears broad enough to encompass diverse engagements of the areas he outlined. However, this very array of issues has also been seen as having ramifications, the main one being that ‘practically everything in life poses a problem in which language is central’ (Simpson, 2011). Or, to borrow Greg Myers’ words, ‘It is hard to think of any “real-world” problems that do not have a crucial component of language use’ (Myers, 2005: 527). By all indications, these debates are just as relevant today as they were a few decades back and seem sure to continue.

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With strict regard to terminology, there have been different interpretations of the meaning of ‘applied’ in applied linguistics, and there have been suggestions that we should use two terms, ‘linguistics applied’ and ‘applied linguistics’, in order to facilitate the notion of application (e.g. Roberts, 2003; Widdowson, 2000). Furthermore, there have been discussions relating to the domains and classification of areas of applied linguistics, most frequently with an eye to the place of discourse analysis in it – see, for example, Edwards (2010), for an overview and criticism of discourse analysis, or Widdowson (2004), for critical issues in the context of discourse analysis. Also noted here are some more recent movements towards divisions within discourse analysis, the obvious one being the argument for the exclusion of conversation analysis (CA) from discourse analysis (e.g. Stivers & Sidnell, 2013), the questioning of the role of CA in linguistics (Fox et al., 2013), and suggestions for the separation of discourse analysis from applied linguistics. Some discussions go as far as suggesting that perhaps the term ‘discourse analysis’ has outlived itself (see Cook, 2011: 440). Without a doubt, these are weighty topics and we recognise their importance. We do not mean to simplify, minimise or otherwise render irrelevant arguments relating to the purpose, scope and divisions of applied linguistics. Instead, we feel that more recent publications (e.g. The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics by Simpson, 2011) engage these issues with great focus and expertise. While we acknowledge both the continuous presence of the abovementioned debates and their significance for the field of applied linguistics and its future, as the title of this volume suggests, we are not directly interested in pursuing or recapitulating the existing discussions, debates, reviews of terminology or inner divisions. Rather, we are interested in offering ways to answer the question of ‘what next’ to do with research findings. Simultaneously, we are committed to providing concrete examples as to what can and should happen next. We hope that our approach will not weaken but rather strengthen the prospects of future work within the area of applied linguistics and discourse studies. Discourse studies is the term espoused in this volume to refer to studies of spoken and written discourse, in line with Bhatia, Flowerdew and Jones (2008) and their refreshingly inclusive collection entitled Advances in Discourse Studies. The inclusive stance creates the potential to move beyond the debates on what applied linguistics, or discourse analysis, is or is not, and to focus on what it does, ‘with whom [it] does the doing, for what purpose, and with what anticipated outcomes and impacts’ (Candlin & Sarangi, 2004a: 2). In short, the inclusive stance could aid the application movement across the entire field. To summarise, the first section of Chapter 1 provides an informative overview of the developmental stages of the present volume. It also introduces and justifies the need for the Framework for Application with the

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intention of helping the readers understand the rationale for putting this collection together.

All Roads Lead to Application As it has been well established, the movement towards application grew stronger at the turn of the millennium, ranging from calls and theoretical suggestions for change to the actual attempts to engage real-life settings, and even initiate intervention, action and change in the places of professional practice. Many voices have been raised and different agendas have been put forward. The following review is neither exhaustive nor is it meant to be. It specifically discusses the ideas as they relate to this volume’s theme. The tides of change towards application and real language use within the field of applied linguistics can be traced back to Brown and Yule’s (1983) ground-breaking statement that ‘the analysis of discourse is necessarily the analysis of language use’, where use is really the focus. At around the same time, Stubbs (1983) noted that linguistics had left the study of language use in specific areas such as education, medicine, law, forensics, etc., to other disciplines. This, in his view, was in need of redress. In his discussion, he identified issues that are still relevant today to application, applied linguistics and practice. Among them are the relationship between the analysts and practitioners and their perceptions of each other. These relationships, according to Stubbs (1983), can affect the way application can be approached and carried out. His stand thus signalled a more outward-looking perspective that advocated for the analysts needing to engage views other than those of their own within the broader world of language use. The possibility of going into other places to gather data (e.g. business, law, medicine), was realised by quite a few researchers within the domain of CA. A shift from ‘ordinary conversation’ to institutional conversation occurred almost at the same time as did the work of Stubbs, Brown and Yule. Strides were evidenced in the work of Atkinson and Drew (‘Order in court’, 1979), doctor–patient interaction (Heath, 1981, 1986), and news interviews (Clayman, 1988, 2013; Clayman & Whalen, 1988; Drew & Heritage, 1992a; Greatbatch, 1988). Since then, there has been an ever-growing range of settings where analysts were collecting and describing data. Listed here are only some research domains and types of data: emergency calls, medical issues presented from the doctors’ and patients’ points of view, trials, jury deliberations, police interviews, border customs interaction, foster care, homeless shelters, and many more. (For more examples, see Candlin & Sarangi, 2011; Heritage & Clayman, 2010). In the domain of critical discourse analysis (CDA), Luke’s (1995, 2004) work was on the frontier of application, advocating for the application of CDA in education (see also Rogers et al., 2005). Similarly, early arguments

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were made for using CDA specifically in college education and reading and composition classes in order to raise awareness of the politics of language in media (e.g. Alatriste, 2003). There was growing criticism that CDA is divorced from real-world application and that it refuses to be reflexive (e.g. Edwards, 2010; Grabe, 2004; Rogers, 2008), but there were also voices defending CDA (Haig, 2001). More recently, proposals were made to restructure CDA, thus balancing its originally descriptive and theoretical nature with more possibilities for research (e.g. Wodak & Meyer, 2009). However, for some scholars the field has not gone far enough, or the ‘early’ calls have not been sufficiently headed. For example, Edwards lamented that ‘Many early insights are yet to be bettered and have inappropriately fallen from general view’ (Edwards, 2010: 287). Addressing the early insights related to education may still loom large and in that respect we concur with Edwards, for how often does a researcher, or an analyst, go into the classrooms to help solve problems perceived by the practitioners, i.e. teachers themselves? In education, the movement towards application, or the use of the findings, is still very much analyst driven, or top-down, although there have been some attempts to use surveys and other electronic tools to tap into the problems as the practitioners see them (e.g. Matsuda et al., 2013). Commendably, in professional research domains, the calls seem to have resulted in studies that reflect relationships between the analyst and the practitioners. The collection that particularly stands out in that regard is Applied Conversation Analysis (Antaki, 2011a), with chapters that showcase what seems to be the closest collaboration between the analysts and the places of practice, covering, among others, childbirth helplines (Kitzinger, 2011), care staff working with people with intellectual disabilities (Finlay et al., 2011), and doctors’ and patients’ use of some/any (Heritage & Robinson, 2011). This particular study by Heritage and Robinson illustrates the profound importance of language and shows that a simple word, when used differently in conversation, may have significant consequences on the successful early diagnosis and medical help. Their study is one of the most valuable examples of research done in a place of practice that can make linguistic work both relevant and highly useful and helpful to the real-world language users – the patients and doctors. It also shows how intervention to improve communication and its positive outcomes can be done. All the above-mentioned efforts in diverse fields of enquiry informed each other and led one to the other – in a word they are implicitly interconnected. Also of relevance to this volume is the launching of the Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice (the expanded version of the Journal of Applied Linguistics). In a series of four editorials in 2004, Candlin and Sarangi engage the questions of how and why research done within applied linguistics should be mediated through meaningful and relevant practice. A year earlier, Roberts (2003), in the paper aptly titled ‘Applied linguistics applied’ warned against applied linguistics researchers becoming distanced

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from their reflexivity. Candlin and Sarangi (2004a: 3) echoed the concern, stating that, ‘What we need is a model where the applied linguist takes responsibility for what is researched and how the research findings can embody relevant application’. Clearly, the issue of purposeful practice is central to applied linguistics (and we extend this to discourse studies), and to the ‘so what’ question. In fact, building on the work of Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992), Brumfit (1997), Cicourel (2003) and others, Candlin and Sarangi identified key areas of concern for analysts, and they argued for a larger role for professional practices. Two elements are underscored: (1) the relevance of the analyst’s work in the settings of practice; and (2) collaboration with practitioners towards the practice-based analysis of professional, organisational and institutional settings. Within relevance, the following questions are considered: with whom one does the research, for what purposes, and how relevant and useful the analysis and the findings will be for the audiences and participants in professional practice (Candlin & Sarangi, 2004a: 2–4). Both overarching questions are related to ‘motivational relevance’ or what initially motivates the researcher (Sarangi & Candlin, 2001). At this juncture, the question that arises is how one gets to mediate the process of analysis and the needs of diverse audiences in the places of practice. For discourse analysts, language-related problem identification (Brumfit, 1997) is the first stop in research considerations and thus language-related issues constitute motivational relevance. But those language-related problems need contextualisation, and that is where the mediation with practice needs to happen. Candlin and Sarangi (2004c) list three questions as a guide for those who wish to pursue relevance: (a) where to look for contextualisation; (b) in this looking how many contexts to accommodate; and (c) how to balance the perspectives of participants and analysts in this reflexive endeavour. All three of the questions listed here are used as a foundation for the Framework for Application. Notably, they also embody ‘inter-relationality’, or an obligation placed on researchers and practitioners to consider, among other matters, ‘how and in what ways the impact of research is to be appraised in terms of its practical relevance’ (Candlin & Sarangi, 2004c: 227), thus going beyond the motivational relevance that initiated the study. They continue to explain that the inter-relational dimension involves ‘the negotiation of research findings and their potential for applicability with target audiences as [both] sources and recipients of data’ (Candlin & Sarangi, 2004c: 227). Therefore, analysts need to go beyond mere pattern seeking in their methodology (which is their initial motivational relevance embedded in the field’s need for the description and expansion of the knowledge base) and address questions of social, personal and institutional relevance. Creating and sustaining those relationships with the places of, and participants in, practice are obviously essential for the future of praxis.

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Following the initial four editorials in 2004, the ripple effects of these and similar ideas were felt across many publications (e.g. Finlay & Sarangi, 2006; Hall et al., 2006; Mooney & Sarangi, 2005; Sarangi et al., 2005). Since then, over the past decade, quite a number of volumes have been published that have ‘application’ or some related word as their focus or title (e.g. applied, applying, doing, action, real world, real use), possibly signalling an engagement of the notion that analysts need to be doing something within ‘the real world domain’ (here listed are a few examples: Behrens & Parker, 2010; Heritage & Clayman, 2010; Mahboob & Knight, 2010; van Leeuwen, 2008). Similarly, since 2004, there has also been an outburst of single-setting research focusing on workplace, courts and medical institutions, or on issues such as gender discourse, disability discourse, work discourse, etc. We here offer a mere sampling (Frignal, 2009; Gunnarsson, 2009; Hale, 2004; Koestler, 2010; Mullany, 2007; Williams, 2011). In sum, the awareness of language in use as the rich field of enquiry in the real world has been gaining ground.

Framework for Application The review section above has presented a number of theoretical aspects of the discussion related to applied linguistics and the application of research findings. However, the theoretical overview also illustrates an obvious lack of concrete guidelines or helpful maps as to how to achieve application in the reality of everyday research. Although some analysts will have collaborative invitations from the very researchers who have been engaged in achieving higher levels of application and intervention (e.g. Antaki, Clayman, Drew and Heritage come to mind), many other researchers (particularly junior ones) who work isolated in their departments or countries may find it hard to begin to engage application. It is not just the anecdotal evidence that has shown how distant the analysts really are from the questions and considerations of application, but the general absence of such discussions at many conferences or other formal and informal venues clearly attests to the lack of this consideration beyond the circle of the few leaders and their followers. This is where we see the strong rationale for this volume. Our framework outlines the dissemination of findings and the elicitation of relevance (or practice-based feedback). It includes steps from the very first consideration of one’s findings on the part of the analyst to the collaborative plans with those in relevant places of practice. As a reminder, it incorporates three questions: (a) how do analysts begin to consider application; (b) how do analysts go about disseminating their findings; and (c) how do analysts then engage in negotiations of relevant application and/or possible future praxis? In other words, the framework reflects the need to engage the relevance of the analyst’s work in the settings of practice (as already established by Candlin & Sarangi, 2004a).

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Framework elements The framework’s constitutive elements are thought to be in this order with implicit chronology: • • • • • • •

identification of real-word settings where the findings may have relevance; consideration of types and available modes of dissemination of results; strategies for approaching the practitioners and/or participants in those places of relevance (i.e. settings); tools for sharing the findings with participants and practitioners; development of tools for feedback elicitation; employment of feedback tools; collaboration in planning future negotiated research or application based on elicited feedback and disseminated findings.

Although the above steps are not numbered, following the sequence may aid the process of engagement with the places of practice. Each step in the framework has an important role in assisting the initial phase (or Phase 1), and is thus explained further here for those analysts who may need additional elaboration because doing application can feel challenging at its initial stages.

Outreach tools In terms of the actual ways of establishing the initial contact, the following materials can be prepared as tools for outreach (to be sent out): • • • • •

basic reports (short and concise, presented via mail or in person in workshops); simplified data set printouts with generally accessible explanations; short data set printouts (not simplified); short written guides; manuals (preferably co-constructed, although they may be first presented as the analysts’ drafts and then collaboratively adjusted).

These tools should be made as user friendly and concise as possible. Similarly, if feasible, a more lay-person language should be used to make the information more accessible to different stakeholders, including practitioners.

Feedback tools There are a few obvious vehicles for feedback elicitation, serving also as member check opportunities, or adding to triangulation of data (if in the very same settings where the research was conducted). Those vehicles or

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tools are listed here to guide researchers and they have been referred to in most chapters in this volume. The tools include, but are not limited to: • • • • • • •

surveys of participants’ experiences during data collection; interviews with participants to gauge their responses to the findings; creation of questionnaires to gauge levels of relevance of the findings; open discussion sessions that invite constructive feedback; opinion-based questions for elicitation of suggestions for addressing other place-based existing needs; or short handouts with samples of discourse (‘sites of triggers’) aiming for participant’s feedback; and recorded segments or playback.

The steps in the framework have two basic goals: first to identify and then to approach the places of practice where the results may have practical relevance. The dissemination tools will allow for the following to happen more smoothly: (a) raising awareness about the findings, and (b) making analysts’ discoveries available for further review and consideration of both their consequences and their relevance for practice and actual use. Naturally, dissemination is a form of raising awareness since when one shares results one makes others aware of their existence. Hence a note on the role of awareness raising in this volume is needed. In this collection, raising awareness is seen as one of the central goals because any progress in any field or area of advancement has frequently occurred via awareness raising. Although it may appear to be an obvious approach to the dissemination of findings, we hold that one cannot imagine progress being made without promoting the importance of being aware of the existence of a discovery, practice or treatment (e.g. cases in modern times are early intervention awareness for social and other problems at home or school, health issues awareness, educational early start awareness, and many more).

Framework: Phase 1

So, what are then the analysts’ options in the planning stages of application? The outreach can be planned to target the actual original setting of research (this would be an ideal situation), a similar setting in professional places or, more generally, related to places with stakeholders and practitioners who may be interested in the findings. For example, in this volume (Chapter 10), Johnson’s findings on family discourse of adult children and parents may be of highest interest to the real families out there. But, in order to reach the final target – actual families – other steps need to be employed first: dissemination on a general level (professional conferences as standard vehicles), and more specific institutions that work with families either by doing family counselling or by educating families about relationships and

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conflict. For example, Ackerman Institute for the Family in New York City is one such institution that has contact with thousands of families and thus may be a good place to try to initiate the contact. From there (e.g. Ackerman Institute), once the places of potential relevance have been located, the analyst can begin to consider modes of dissemination, such as a summary of research findings attached to a letter of interest sent to a stakeholder deemed interested in the findings. Concurrently, the researcher needs to design forms or materials for feedback, such as surveys and/or questionnaires. A survey would typically include questions about the enclosed findings, or data sharing. In other words, the analyst selects the key findings or the most pertinent data from the pool of data. Within a discourse segment, the findings are highlighted and included in the survey. The questions on the survey could also address relevance, i.e. how relevant for ‘your place of practice’ is the following finding? Or the survey can ask the stakeholders in the places of practice, be it practitioners or other participants, to record their responses to the analyst’s data interpretation, or to evaluate how relevant the findings may be to their life or to the lives of others. Similarly, one may want to use segments for a playback method. Preparation of segments for playback can start once the initial contact with the original research setting or, more broadly, a similar place of practice, was made and was accepted. Because of the variety of discourse studies’ settings in this volume and in life, there will be a very broad range of initial places of contact and diverse methods will be utilised for reaching out to the settings and creating tools for feedback. This stage of application may be more or less involved or problematic, depending on the nature of the research setting, as our volume illustrates. Researchers/authors are likely to show different levels of engagement with application because some settings are by nature more approachable (e.g. educational or professional business settings, or one’s own case studies settings such as the classroom or the home) and others are less so (e.g. the national or international media and news production institutions). An important consideration here is the question of representativeness that would allow for gauging data objectivity (Scollon, 1995), including the following: member generalisations, individual experiences of analysts and participants, and levels of neutrality. In other words, analysts need to consider ecological validity (Cicourel, 2007) that looks at interrelationships between ‘thick participation’ and the attempt to minimise the ‘analyst’s paradox’. The member check is seen in this volume as very important and, and in general, needed to be utilised in research much more – even always to be required. For the framework and for the purposes of this volume, since the authors have completed data collection and analysis, one way to do the member check is during the dissemination stage, when the analyst is sharing the data with the likely stakeholders or practitioners in the places of practice where the findings are deemed relevant.

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The use of playback responses has been promoted in the literature and in this volume (see, for example, Davitti; Suh; Wagner) as one relevant strategy. For example, analysts can select some of their recorded data to play it back in the places of practice (preferably the actual real settings where the data was collected, or other pertinent settings). Although this is not always possible, there are successful accounts of this model quoted in the literature that can serve as both a member check and the sharing of findings (e.g. Kitzinger, 2011, working with childbirth helpline workers). Kitzinger ran grouptraining workshops for helpline workers, introduced them to her recordings and presented some analysed data. She reported that the workers were very appreciative of this opportunity. In the field of work, and in professional and business settings where the communication with public or clients is central, this type of member check is more likely. As suggested in the literature, workers value the opportunity to listen to the recorded data of professional encounters and then reflect on practices and possible improvements (Kitzinger, 2011: 104). Kitzinger’s work illustrates an effort to share the findings and obtain feedback, as well as to raise awareness. It might be safe to say that such initial steps can bring collaboration and possible intervention down the road, although Kitzinger herself is cautious. Other efforts that report more direct engagement with the places of practice upon obtaining certain research findings are more of the interventionist type (Antaki, 2011a; Antaki & Wilkinson, 2013). However, as with most things related to research and places of practice, there can be roadblocks and challenges ahead. Institutions have their own agendas and interests and, in some, politics or privacy clauses can stand in the way of this type of sharing and collaboration. The more challenging cases we encountered in our volume are those of international business negotiations, mediation, news translations and media (in chapters by Suh, Wagner, Xia and Wang, and Frantz, respectively). In those instances, raising awareness with stakeholders who play the role of ‘clients’ or recipients of those services or news appears to be the first step and the more realistic path, although it is possible to challenge those assumptions by attempting to undertake an ‘educational intervention’ first. Intervening in the way we train future journalists or mediators or social workers could affect the way they conduct their practice down the road.

Framework: Phase 2 So far, we have dealt with the steps for conducting Phase 1 of the application process. But the natural progression would be to consider the results of the efforts made in the first stage of application by moving on to the next stage. Thus we propose that upon the completion of Phase 1, the second phase of application includes the following steps for engagement with future praxis, intervention and collaboration:

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identifying possibilities for negotiating the next phase of future (joint) research; starting a joint research project; based on joint findings, identifying areas that may need intervention or change; taking joint action with practitioners in institutional settings to set in motion such changes; obtaining feedback on the usefulness of change.

Although this volume was planned to engage Phase 1, the results of the first phase naturally lead to conducting Phase 2. Each chapter shows the beginnings of the process, in which praxis is implicit and is seen as both possible and desirable in the long run. From Phase 2, intervention, collaboration and possible applied benefits are to ensue. Both phases put together have the potential to move the research towards reflexivity and praxis, as promoted by Sarangi and Candlin (2010). Joint research efforts by analysts and practitioners could lead to the ultimate goal of transformation and change. The transformation, however, is never a matter of the analyst taking ‘unilateral action to change the nexus of practice in a way that is more to their liking’, but it needs to reflect joint action (Norris & Jones, 2005: 205). In this joint action, they see participants on an equal footing with analysts. However, some relationships will be equal from the onset, whereas others may just involve the sharing of findings and discussion of their relevance or potential for application, and thus are not on an equal footing. The negotiations of joint collaboration may open opportunities for an equal footing, though, in the future.

Challenges and limitations In addition to the questions of the appropriateness of dissemination tools presented and discussed in the section above, there are other concerns, such as obstacles or limitations to application. They are acknowledged here in general, and taken up individually later on in a number of individual chapters. Although the analysts may present the sites of triggers in their data, or suggest to practitioners what to look for when utilising the tools listed above, it is ultimately up to the practitioners to decide what is applicable (Roberts & Sarangi, 1999). We recognise this reality and feel that anyone who endorses application initiatives needs to be aware of such issues. Next, there could be open rejections in those cases where practitioners may not want the analyst’s help. There could also be cases where the analyst comes into a place of practice excited to share his or her findings only to discover that the practitioners are well aware of those issues and already have their own mechanisms to deal with them (Bygate, 2004). Realising that one’s research findings have turned out to state what the practitioners have known from

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experience may render the analyst’s input useless, or even lead to the analyst being viewed as preposterous (see also Stubbs, 1983, for similar comments). This could be both personally disappointing and publicly unpleasant. But even when things do go right, and we achieve collaboration, ‘in this consultative relationship one has to face up to the sometimes uncomfortable possibility that our findings may be part applied and part ignored, or even misapplied’ (Candlin & Sarangi, 2004c: 227). Analysts need to be ready for this reality, too, equipped with personal strategies to deal with such outcomes. With all these concerns taken together, what we suggest here is a gradual move towards doing praxis and engaging it in ways that are possible for both the analysts and the practitioners. It is likely that it will take time and that it will be time consuming because any kind of engagement with application, even on the most basic level, will place new requirements on the analyst’s time and available resources. The actual success of the movement as a whole may well rest on these practical concerns and issues.

This Volume The participants in this volume are researchers using different methods to analyse spoken and written discourse data. The chapters are loosely organised around work, school and family/home environments, following the idea that ‘social life is largely a matter of discourse [as are] family, school, and work’ (Potter & Wetherhall, 1987). To these settings we added media and government as institutions of practice. The volume utilises unobtrusive announcements of the settings for each new group of chapters. Business and workplace settings includes Chapters 2–6 (Hazel; Suh; Wagner, Pochon-Berger, Pekarek Doehler & Clelia König; and Paäli & Lehtinen, respectively); educational settings are represented in Chapters 7–9 (Grujicic-Alatriste; Kahn; Davitti); private and public settings include chapters by Johnson (Chapter 10) and Cochrane (Chapter 11); and government and media settings house chapters 12–14 (Farkas, Xia & Wang, and Frantz, respectively). Although methodology is not an organising principle per se, chapters do reflect groupings around base methodologies. Announcing the methodologies in the Contents was intentionally avoided in order to illustrate the application of a wide range of studies in different settings, rather than to centre one’s attention singularly on methodologies, although methodology does play a role in levels of application and in planning the dissemination. We are aware that including eclectic methods and settings may invite either concern or disagreement, but as is the case with most issues in our field, the views are many and often conflicting (see, for example, issues related to micro-level analysis in Edwards, 2010). In truth, the relevance of micro-level will depend on the settings and goals of individual research projects. We here concur with

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Goodwin’s (2007a) recognition of micro-levels of analysis as ‘ways of seeing’, marking and documenting professional practices and things that hold such practices together. In line with Goodwin, Candlin and Sarangi consider that ethnographic insights are ‘central to our understanding of professional practice [so] we pay equal attention to both front stage and backstage professional activities (Candlin & Sarangi, 2010: 4). Some chapters in this volume use singular methodology, whereas others use mixed methods. In broad strokes, these are the methods used: strong CA base (Hazel, Chapter 2; Suh, Chapter 3; Wagner, Chapter 4); interpretation and multimodal CA (Davitti, Chapter 9); CA with narrative interpretation (Pochon-Berger, Pekarek Doehler & König, Chapter 5); social-constructivism and CA (Kahn, Chapter 8); a combination of CA and spoken and written genre studies (Pälli & Lehtinen, Chapter 6); spoken political discourse in action using CDA (Farkas, Chapter 12); and news and media interpretation using CDA (Xia & Wang, Chapter 13; Frantz, Chapter 14). Cochrane used positioning in narratives and storytelling in Chapter 11, and GrujicicAlatriste used written genre analysis (Chapter 7). We are aware that current trends across the field seem to favour eclecticism, although there are voices of purism, too (see, for example, Sidnell & Stivers, 2013, advocating for pure CA). No doubt both eclectic and purist preferences will continue, as will ongoing discussions in the field related to methodological relevance for the places of study (e.g. Candlin & Sarangi, 2010). Each decision to present either a single-method volume, or to include diverse methods, arguably serves different purposes. We bring on board analysts from Europe and Australia, as well as the United States, thus making the volume international in scope but thematically unified. Each chapter has a showcasing section that utilises close descriptions of discourse. Those short sequences are considered as sites for interaction where important communicative moments occurred: either triggers of miscommunication or misunderstanding, or triggers of other problems, or places that show weaknesses in discourse, or points of conflicting interests (the term ‘triggers’ is here understood as used by Gardner, 2008: 237). The reporting of what happened in these sites provided grounds for consideration of places of relevance. All chapters end with ‘Concluding thoughts’. The authors seem to have pursued a number of avenues when applying the framework. It should be underscored that there is a considerable range in the levels of dissemination of one’s findings. This is because, as stated earlier, some settings are more accessible to the analyst (e.g. one’s own classroom or family) while others are less so. The appearance of application and the researcher’s own role as an analyst and a professional is in some ways more of a product of the study setup than the actual level of achieved praxis. Other settings, particularly those that require strict participant anonymity or those that related to international news and media institutions present a bigger challenge for outreach and dissemination.

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In our volume the approach to application roughly falls into two categories: one is considering places and institutions that may be open to data sharing and may be collaboratively inclined; the second is considering concrete steps the analysts and the places of practice can take and even, in some cases, showing that they have been taken (e.g. Hazel; Cochrane; Davitti). Most chapters see their application through the prism of problem-solving (e.g. Suh; Wagner; Grujicic-Alatriste; Davitti). These analysts directly engage the question of the problems they have identified in discourse and make concrete suggestions as to how such problems might be remedied or solved. Some chapters are more focussed on the dissemination of the findings within the standard places such as academic institutions (courses and classrooms) where the analysts can have access to current and future researchers who can then be trained to do application (see Pälli & Lehtinen; Kahn; Johnson). For three contributors’ work on application, collaborative efforts with certain stakeholders have already begun (Davitti; Cochrane; Hazel) and they are presently working on those projects. Some authors make an attempt to map out ways for them to incorporate ‘personal identities and social experiences of practitioners’ (reflecting Layder, 1993). For example, Cochrane’s account of participants with disabilities and Johnson’s chapter on family identity, or Kahn’s chapter on classroom narratives would fall under this category, engaging the experiences of the analysts and the narratives of the participants on an equal footing. Finally, some chapters take a more philosophical approach, seeing other parties and forces as determining the outcomes of applicability. For example, Frantz argues that a lot depends on the news writers, newspaper readers and media consumers. Each needs to engage applicability from their own perspective. This is true of Wang and Xia too, as they discuss ways to bring awareness to the issue of international news translators and their role in ‘news casting’ in China today. The work of Frantz, Wang and Xia may be in part more challenging, as by its nature the application of news analysis involves multiple parties, from news writers, editors and producers to corporations, business executives and many other professionals who might be stakeholders in news preparation and dissemination, each with their own agendas.

Individual chapter summaries Hazel’s Chapter 2 is set within a university international office help desk. His findings show how in a university international office linguistic repertoire and competences are implicated in members’ institutional positions. The institutionally assigned and used categories such as ‘incoming’ or outgoing’ students, or references pertaining to the nationality of clients, influenced strategies adopted by participants to adjust their positioning. Hazel engages application as the dissemination of findings to relevant parties, particularly the staff in such offices, via presentations and workshops for human

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resources where there is an ongoing drive for internalisation. He also favours ‘participatory innovation’, where analysts team up to produce innovative manuals or materials. Suh’s Chapter 3 reports on the triggers of miscommunication in international business negotiations. Using CA, she focuses on segments where repair management in English as lingua franca (ELF) negotiations is central to success. Her findings about the importance of other-initiated repairs can be of value to practitioners, novice negotiators and researchers. She sees raising awareness as the first level of application. Thus, sharing the findings via tools such as manuals that can provide step-by-step guides to interactional troubles, as she discusses in her chapter, can open up avenues for collaborative efforts. Audio recordings of the ‘sites of triggers’ are held as a way both to train novice negotiators and to conduct role-play training for professionals. Overall, Suh sees the strongest application via using naturally occurring (recorded) data for future engagement with the professional field. Wagner’s Chapter 4 is situated in the context of community mediation. She examines how mediators and disputants manage asymmetries of knowledge and the moral dimensions of knowledge claims in their interaction while engaging in the institutional task of dispute resolution. In tying her specific findings to potential applications in mediation practice that can be disseminated to stakeholder groups, her approach to application is primarily top-down. However, in looking forward, Wagner identifies bidirectional relationship building as key in pursuing joint collaborative efforts with mediation practitioners/scholars. Chapter 5 considers family workers on the margins of the workplace. Pochon-Berger, Pekarek Doehler and König examine the accounts of minding children and problem sharing of au-pair girls (family workers), parents and children at the dinner table. This is a rare insight into the world of home employment and thus has potential application for the organisations that negotiate such work contracts as well as for employers who engage help at home. But the larger application is seen in raising awareness (via diverse vehicles of press, outreach, manuals) about the importance of the storytelling mode of interaction in other places of business such as nurse stations or office coffee stations, where sharing of work-related experiences and issues may improve performance or provide critical pieces of information. Sometimes, as they note, such sharing can fill in the missing information that was not recorded in the computer or care notes. Continuing with the overarching work environment, in Chapter 6, Pälli and Lehtinen use their study on managerial meetings to gauge institutional talk and interaction. Using ethnomethodological CA, they examine the genres of proposal and disagreement. Pälli and Lehtinen see application most effectively via teaching future analysts and training future business professionals. They suggest that the use of real-life transcripts can help raise

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awareness about genre knowledge for practical purposes. Real data sharing and reflection are essential for both analysts and students in order to understand the future relevance of their work. Finally, they propose using data excerpts and possibly videos to engage practitioners in the consideration of these particular findings. However, they caution that the approach may require some convincing of the practitioners that it is worth their time. Also, researchers may need to know more about local practices and professional rules. Thus, for Pälli and Lehtinen the overarching goal of application is to help practitioners better understand their own practices, not to ‘teach’ them about language or genres. In Chapter 7, Grujicic-Alatriste engages the less researched written discourse of novice student writers who were asked to respond to a university entrance test by writing in a genre new to them. Using the step and move framework, the author analyses discourse for evidence of the moves students utilised to achieve a particular genre purpose – here, persuasion. Based on discovered ‘sites’ of discourse problems, Grujicic-Alatriste shows how such problems can be worked through with students. She develops a plan of application that includes different stakeholders, starting with students as a general audience for instruction, university assessment offices as places to be reached for awareness raising and, ultimately, the teacher training grounds in academic programmes that may need to overtly teach genre purpose and its importance in written communication. With Kahn’s contribution in Chapter 8, the ‘school’ setting is moved into a community college language classroom. Using CA informed by sociocultural theory, she identifies important parts of classroom narrative discourse where both students and teachers engage in tasks and their interpretation. Awareness and training are key aspects of application, particularly involving teachers in the discussion of their future needs and ways of giving teachers stronger voices when choosing classroom methodologies. This chapter sees application in raising awareness about the importance of students’ discovery of meaning, particularly in the age of testing, thus rounding off the volume’s theme. In Chapter 9, Davitti presents the thus far neglected role of interpreters in parent–teacher meetings. Hers is a school setting too. Interpreters have the power to expand, promote or play affiliates to parents or teachers. Davitti sees application first in raising awareness of the interactional dynamics and features of the meetings, and then developing effective coping strategies. In her consideration, she includes transcripts and videos as key tools for sharing her findings, as well as training sessions for future practitioners. Johnson informs us in Chapter 10 how the identity of an adult child is still being formed in the relationships with parents during the time spent at home. This rare study of adult children is done using interactional sociolinguistics informed by CA. Johnson engages in a lengthy problematisation of the application of her work for families in general and for the places of practice such as family institutes and counselling centres in particular.

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She sees two possible routes: one is general dissemination via more traditional vehicles such as professional and educational organisations, mostly doing awareness raising via papers, presentations and workshops; the second is creating materials for outreach and seeking feedback directly from professionals. In Chapter 11, Cochrane reports on the narrative accounts of individuals with physical disabilities and how they position themselves in conversations with able-bodied interlocutors. The key aspect of application, for her, is the dissemination of information about disability to a wider, non-disabled audience so as to achieve relevance in both communities of people with disabilities and of able-bodied people. Cochrane has already engaged in action and intervention by positioning herself in the community of people with disabilities to help them raise awareness about their experiences, and hopefully change the (negative) perceptions of people with disabilities. She does the same with her classes, with colleagues and with broader groups, using online communication as the main vehicle. Farkas’ Chapter 12 is an activist-driven study of citizens’ participation in city council community hearings. Her findings that the citizens who have access to city council meetings are actually routinely assigned minimal or no time to express their views, or are marginalised for participation, have a large potential for application. She sees informing citizens as the most urgent action. Raising awareness first via multiple modes of information dissemination, and then meetings with various public advocates and watchdog groups will follow. This raising awareness is her job – she sees this as a bottom-up action where she will be initially disseminating her findings in the settings where she collected her data. The second leg of the effort would be via educational and other institutions that can rally stakeholders, such as students, scientists, journalists and public officials, to attempt change. Farkas is already working on the next stage, building questionnaires and surveys. In Chapter 13, Xia and Wang take on the question of translation and manipulation of international news transmission related to modern-day China. They have found that news is routinely manipulated by translators and is modified and interpreted to suit specific purposes. They see application in the outreach to international news agencies, professional organisations of interpreters and international media professionals and their organisations. Educational settings have a role to play in training future translators. Chapter 14 questions the role of media in reflecting sociocultural practices related to the issue of gay marriage in the United States. Frantz follows The Advocate magazine and its coverage of the gay marriage polemic over two decades. The application, for Frantz, is in educating consumers and news writers. However, he sees the initiation of application as the main job of the consumers and producers, not analysts. Similarly, praxis is in the ‘court’ of the producers and news publishers.

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Concluding Thoughts Overall, this Introduction has as its goal mapping out the Framework for Application and explaining how the analysts have interpreted it and applied it to their individual chapters. Clearly, we do not claim to have provided all the answers related to ‘what next to do with research results’, but we do feel that these discussions – engaged in our collection – should encourage with more frequency and honesty other analysts to pose the same or similar questions related to their research findings. At the same time, this is not to say that suddenly our academic worlds are no longer needed or relevant. This collection reaches out to academic audiences but proposes an outward look towards the places of practice. We will continue to share our work with colleagues and those researchers and analysts who espouse more theoretical motivations and goals. But for those who have been wishing for more application, for those who have been asking how we can make our work more relevant in the places where the data was gathered, the results more applicable or even activist, we hope this volume may be a helpful way forward.

Part 1 Workplace and Business Settings

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Institutional Identity Negotiations in Multilingual Workplace Settings Spencer Hazel

Workplace settings around the world have increasingly come to be characterised by communities of transnationally mobile staff and clientele, and the resulting cultural and linguistic diversity that this entails. One consequence of this is that parties to these settings may be required to coordinate dynamically fluctuating participation frameworks (Goffman, 1981; Goodwin, 1981, 2007b) and their contingent language scenarios (Mortensen, 2010) as part of their ongoing daily workplace activities (e.g. Hazel & Mortensen, 2013; Torras, 2005). This in turn requires those involved to remain prescient to the diverse linguistic identities that they encounter as they go about their daily affairs, in order to respond appropriately and efficiently to each new linguistic situation as it arises. Some workplace settings have institutionally regulated policies pertaining to which language is the designated medium-of-interaction through which members should carry out their business dealings. Such language policies may be drawn up to address the internationalised make-up of a particular institutional setting, be it for example a multinational company, a tourist attraction or a particular institutional programme within an organisation. However, the related policy decisions may not reach all parties within the related community. In the case of an institution for higher education with an international profile, for example, students, cleaning staff, canteen employees, language teachers and administrators may each have different levels of access, lines of communication or levels of investment pertaining to the organisation’s stated language policy. In addition, individual members may also maintain their own ideological positions with regard to the relative value of different languages within a setting, or language requirements relating to institutional positions within a particular workforce. In sum, back-room language policies are not necessarily implemented or adhered to across all settings within a workplace community, and this necessitates members to pay round-the-clock attention to the dynamics of such transient multilingual settings (Goebel, 2010). 25

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In linguistically dynamic interactional environments where language choice is then not predetermined, selecting or negotiating a medium-ofinteraction may become a relevant activity in which interlocutors must engage (Auer, 1984; Hazel & Mortensen, 2013; Torras, 1998). Within established groups, these practices can of course rely on prior experience and knowledge of other members’ linguistic backgrounds (Bonacina-Pugh, 2012; Spolsky, 2007). One draws on one’s prior encounters with colleagues to determine which language to use with them, or which bilingual mode (Gafaranga & Torras, 2001) to adopt; or one may switch to a designated corporate language for undertaking particular activities, such as business meetings (Lønsmann, 2011) or student project group activities (Mortensen, 2010). However, in encounters where participants have no prior experience of interacting with one another, participants must work together to alight upon the medium which best suits the parties involved (Heller, 1982; Torras, 1998). Furthermore, this language selection must be negotiated at as early a place as possible during the opening stages of an encounter. The current chapter will present a number of findings from a study of social practices at a university international office help desk, and discuss how such findings may inform professional development in the setting in question, as well as in similar settings elsewhere. Specifically, I offer an account of how linguistic identities are indexed against members’ institutional positions in particular socially situated settings and are implicated in how members come to settle upon a medium for interaction for the encounter. Drawing on conversation analysis (CA; Goodwin & Heritage, 1990) and membership categorisation analysis (MCA; Hester & Eglin, 1997), the findings refer to a study which investigated particular organisational practices for engaging in institutionally oriented encounters at a university international office, and showed how members topicalised linguistic identities that went against normative expectations. The study went on to highlight a number of strategies adopted by participants to circumnavigate such explicit orientations to normative non-compliance. With the current volume focusing on more formal properties of a CA study, I will attempt to foreground the ways through which the research outcomes are used in an applied sense, and hope that the reader will turn to the relevant literature to find support for the findings claimed here (see Hazel, 2012, 2015; Hazel & Mortensen, 2014; Mortensen & Hazel, 2014).

Methodological Approach Within the social sciences, there have emerged a number of lines of investigation characterised by a focus on situated social action and interaction observed in their natural everyday habitat. Early ethnomethodological (EM) approaches (see Garfinkel, 1967) have inspired a number of such lines of

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research, most notably CA (Sacks et al., 1974) and MCA (Hester & Eglin, 1997; Sacks, 1972). Both approaches take as a central concern that sociality must be investigated from the viewpoint of the participants engaged in social life: CA in describing the systematic practices oriented to in the sequential organisation of social interaction; and MCA by explicating the procedures through which members associate particular activities or characteristics – predicates – with particular categories of people. EM/CA lines of investigation have been particularly strong in applied research, highlighting the situated nature of social action, with a growing body of interaction analytic research exploring such institutional sites of engagement as educational and instructional settings (e.g. Goodwin, 1994; Greiffenhagen & Watson, 2009; Hindmarsh & Heath, 2003; Hindmarsh et al., 2011; Mondada, 2011; Mori & Hasegawa, 2009; Mortensen & Hazel, 2011; Nishizaka, 2006), healthcare (e.g. Brassac et al., 2008; Goodwin, 1995; Heath, 2002; Koschmann et al., 2011; Mondada, 2003; Robinson, 1998), scenes of collaborative workplace practices (e.g. Goodwin & Goodwin, 1996; Hindmarsh & Heath, 2000a, 2000b; Luff & Heath, 2002; Murphy, 2005), business meetings (e.g. Deppermann et al., 2010; Markaki et al., 2010; Streeck & Kallmeyer, 2001), public space milieu (e.g. Hindmarsh et al., 2005; Mondada, 2009b) and public broadcast media (e.g. Raudaskoski, 2010). Such research strands build on notions of a ‘linguistic realisation of institutionality’ (Kurhila, 2006: 7), treated in the CA literature as ‘talking an institution into being’ (Heritage, 1984a). From this perspective, institutional interaction is constituted through participants’ orientations to how they attend to the setting, and the particular participation frameworks (Goffman, 1981; also Goodwin, 1981, 2007b) upon which the interaction is contingent, including how institutional identities are worked up in situ. The present study was carried out in line with this research orientation, seeking to investigate what implications the widespread internationalisation of higher education presented to the participants, including the interactional competencies required to navigate these workplaces. One salient area of internationalisation of a given workplace that impacted on the participants was the intersection between institutional identity and a member’s language repertoire. It is to this that we turn now.

Membership Categories and Their Linguistic Predicates A number of resources are available to previously unacquainted parties embarking on an interaction in a linguistically diverse setting, and these may facilitate them in settling on an operational medium through which to conduct their business. These relate to the kind of membership categorisation

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work with which participants engage in everyday interactions with unacquainted others, and through which they may project certain expectations pertaining to the language competencies and preferences of their incipient partners-in-interaction. Membership categories such gender and/or age group may be entirely irrelevant to the linguistic identities of the conversational partners-to-be: whether one is a man or a woman, 16 years old or 60, these categories are irrelevant to whether the person is a proficient speaker of Hebrew or Hindi. Other membership categories – for example, those pertaining to ethnic or racial background, geographic residence or institutional identity – may, however, be called upon as one resource for calculating the probability for possible language preferences or competencies on the part of the other. A person with a Latin American appearance may be deemed less likely to have proficiency in Japanese than someone with an East-Asian appearance; it may be more surprising to find a proficient German speaker in Indonesia than in The Netherlands; there may be a higher expectation that a UN diplomat has a working level of English compared to her compatriot working as a fisherman back in the Nile delta. However wide the margin of error in these cases, we will always seek to reduce the levels of complexity when faced with human sociality in all its diversity. One way in which we do so is by categorising the members we encounter, and drawing on normative expectancies regarding membership categories and their associated characteristics and features (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998). Aside from such ‘transportable identities’ (Zimmerman, 1998) as those described above, social identity constructs which participants co-construct as they go about their everyday lives may provide further cues as to the appropriateness of this or that medium-of-interaction. Here, identities are brought about discursively, with participants working up respective relational identities as part and parcel of the interaction in which they are engaged (for example, father, rocket scientist, geek, goth, swinger). People have any number of social identity constructs such as these, which may be made relevant while going about their social lives. One may indeed be a father, a rocket scientist, a geek, a goth and a swinger, and have a host of other membership categories one identifies or is identified with, yet not all are of course relevant all of the time, for each moment of every engagement in social life. As with the transportable identities noted above, these membership categories too entail associated expectations, e.g. a particular dress code for a goth, a particular liberal outlook perhaps for a swinger. These category descriptors are, as such, relevant matters, but only when the particular social identity is relevant to the business at hand. Here, as with the ‘transportable identities’, particular membership categories may also imply particular linguistic implications, including preferences for language choice in a particular setting, and linguistic competencies. Hence, it may be deemed entirely appropriate to converse with a scholar of Romance languages in French or Italian in a conference presentation setting, while addressing her

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in your first language when speaking privately later, where the social identities of lecturer and audience member are perhaps no longer relevant. A supermarket manager may choose to attend to a customer in French during working hours, while resorting to Luxembourgish when they happen to come across one another in the local park later. In the study reported here, membership categories that were alluded to in the data were overwhelmingly connected to a participant’s institutional position within the wider organisation, and to the setting situated relationship vis-à-vis one another within institutionally oriented activities in which they were engaged locally. In this way, participants who are engaged at the international office help desk would invoke categories such as those pertaining to the nationality of the clients, or to whether clients were international or local full-degree students, ‘incoming’ or ‘outgoing’ exchange students, European or from outside the European Union (EU). In addition, participants oriented to situated institutional identities such as client and service provider, clerk, or counsellor. It is the institutional identity constructs in which we are interested here, specifically the way in which membership categories imply particular language repertoires. In what follows, I will discuss how linguistic repertoire and competences are implicated in members’ institutional positions within their workplace, show how this can lead to members being treated as deviating from their institutional position, and offer a number of examples of strategies adopted by participants to circumvent this positioning. These findings will be complemented with examples sourced from the data set. The discussion will lead to suggestions for feeding these findings back into the community featured in the study and workplace settings further afield.

Findings from the Study This section will present three co-related findings from the study. First, it will demonstrate how the openings of the encounters are organised in such a way as to afford the client the right to select the particular language in which the encounter shall be conducted. Next, we will see how a member of staff can override this if he or she is unable to carry out the business at hand in the candidate language (this is treated by participants as deviating from normative expectations pertaining to their institutional identity). And finally, a number of strategies are discussed through which staff members are able to circumnavigate such episodes, thereby offsetting the adverse positioning that this entails. Each of these will be complemented with the presentation of an illustrative example from the data set, with the two strategies also including further discussion of how these findings can be used to assist stakeholders in the settings where the study was carried out.

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Participants are afforded asymmetrical rights regarding language choice In a data set of 90 video-recorded service encounters at a Danish university international office help desk, a particular recurrent pair of practices for entering into an encounter displays a particular organisation of affording the client the right to select one of a number of languages to serve as mediumfor-interaction, here Danish or English. This in turn displays categorisation work on the part of the participants, who at this early stage are able to display within their turn organisation an institutional orientation, where there is an asymmetrical distribution of interactional rights and obligations, with one participant the service provider and the other the client to be served. The two – related – practices are represented in the following examples:

Example 2.1 LTSH-day8-SE-1223 STA-staff; CLI-client 19 20 21 22

STA: CLI: Ps: CLI:

hej≈ ≈hej (0.6) øhm vi er tre der lige har fundet et udvekslingsophold

Example 2.2 LTSH-day8-SE-1205 STA-staff; CLI-client 18 CLI: 19 STA: 20 21 CLI:

hi hi (0.9) um I got a question I received this letter

In these examples, we note a canonical adjacency sequence of greeting tokens, here respectively ‘hi’ or ‘hej’, a subsequent hesitation marker (for example ‘ehrm’ or ‘øhm’) which acts as a pre-speech indicator, following which the client starts formulating the reason for the visit. Although a Danish greeting ‘hej’ and an English ‘hi’ can sound distinctly different, in these settings there is both a great deal of variation in how this greeting is vocalised, and there are participants, visiting students for example, for whom the Danish ‘hej’ and an English ‘hi’ may sound very much alike, with the linguistic code at this stage therefore ambiguous. The ambiguity of the greeting token allows for participants to treat one another’s greeting as aligning with their own preferred medium for the encounter, without requiring to engage in an explicit negotiation regarding which language is in operation. In both patterns, the post-greeting slot is taken by the client, who is then always the party who is in the last position to treat their interlocutor’s greeting as being produced in the client’s preferred medium-of-interaction. Here, the client is always the person who is afforded the right to produce the next

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slot, proceeding to the next turn where the medium becomes disambiguated, either as Danish as in the first example, or English as in the second. This therefore evidences a practice where the client is granted the final say on the preferred medium. Pertinent to the study here, the membership categories of client and member of staff are linked with particular category-bound associations relating to language repertoires. In particular, the category ‘international office staff member’ is as a consequence of the above practice oriented to as having the linguistic arsenal to deal with a client in whichever language the client selects (from the collection consisting of Danish and English). This assumption is not, however, always corroborated, and this has consequences for how the staff member is positioned apropos his or her professional identity. It is this that we turn to now.

Members can be categorised as deviating from a norm regarding linguistic repertoire Routinised practices such as those described here pass off in an unmarked – seen but unnoticed – fashion, as has been described for normatively appropriate social conduct in general (Garfinkel, 1967). Where reality intervenes and expectations are uncorroborated, work is undertaken to recalibrate the misalliance between expectation and actuality. Analyses of cases that deviate from the regular interactional patterns can provide us with a useful second level of analysis. These instances provide us with further insight into what normative expectations are present, according to which parties orient themselves in the particular setting at hand. Deviant cases can be identified through participants displaying an orientation to the particular conduct/action prompting repair, or being marked in some way or other. By looking at the ways the participants treat these interactional moments, an analyst can get at the underlying norms (see Heritage, 1984a, for discussion of deviant case analysis). In what follows, we will explore this further, and demonstrate how such sequences of misalignment between institutional and linguistic identity may act to undermine the institutional position of a member of the community. In the data there are a number of such deviant cases, where the step-wise move into this business at hand is momentarily suspended. In the following excerpt, a client approaches the help desk counter and he and the staff member initiate the canonical sequence described above. However, the encounter hits trouble when the staff member initiates medium repair (Gafaranga, 2000) from Danish to English.

Example 2.3 [LTSH-day4-1201] 17 KAJ: 18

hej/hi↗ (1.1)

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19 TOM: hej/hi 20 (0.3) 21 KAJ: eh #jeg kan godt tænk mig at eh: (.) eh I’ve been thinking about eh Figure #a 22 tage til Island going to Iceland 23 (0.3) 24 femte semester≈ the fifth semester 25 TOM: ≈eh sorry i huhuh i ⌈don’t⌉ #speak much 26 KAJ: ⌊ oh ⌋ Figure #b 27 KAJ: #eh:: i ⌈would like⌉ to go to Iceland (0.2) 28 TOM: ⌊danish ⌋ Figure #c 29 TOM: #yeah≈ Figure #d 30 KAJ: ≈for the fifth semester

We note here then the canonical opening sequence described earlier (lines 17–19). The participants here, however, negotiate an explicit repair of the medium-of-interaction (Gafaranga, 2000) from Danish to English. Furthermore, the initiation of the repair is produced in a dispreferred format (e.g. Pomerantz, 1984; Schegloff et al., 1977): it is delayed, disfluent, includes hesitation markers, with an explicit apology and account for the repair

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initiation on the part of the staff member (lines 25–28). It is furthermore, compact in a body visual way, with postural instability, gaze aversion, physical withdrawal, and grooming of objects, projecting the service provider’s disengagement from the initiated activity. Taken together, this appears to orient to an understanding of a staff member’s Danish language proficiency being a valid expectation on the part of a client. As a consequence, its absence is treated as a deficiency on the part of his membership in the category relating to his institutional position. The staff member is therefore oriented to by both parties as not type-fitting the membership category relating to his institutional identity, on account of his Danish being accountably absent.

Implications for members of staff

This example shows that additional interactional work is required when normative expectations concerning categories are not met and need to be recalibrated. Rather than a smooth transition into the encounter, an extended insertion sequence is required in order to renegotiate the terms of the transaction, with the staff member’s language preference ultimately overriding that of the client. The upshot of perturbations such as that featured in this example is that the staff member is oriented to by both the client and the staff member himself as deviating from the normative expectations pertaining to the category ‘international office staff member’, with regard to his linguistic identity. We note that this is not treated explicitly as problematic on the part of those who come into contact with him. However, the repeated occurrence of this situation will be an ongoing feature of his everyday interactions with clients, with each occasion flagging up the misalignment between the institutional position that he holds and his linguistic repertoire. This in turn may act to undermine his institutional identity as a fully competent member of staff, and as such these sequences as played out as normative components of service encounters may indeed bring about a marginalisation of particular members of the workplace community. Of course, this does not imply that there is no resistance to this happening. Indeed, in what follows we see how particular strategies are developed to circumvent these episodes.

Members Adopt Strategies for Avoiding Explicit Medium Repair Sequences In order to avoid such interactional trouble at the start of an encounter, issues that point to misalignment between a particular institutional identity and the expectations regarding associated features of the category, the staff member may develop particular strategies for circumventing the very canonical greeting sequence and language negotiation that is so common in this setting. I will

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describe two practical practices identified in the current data set, both demonstrated by the same member of staff featured in Example 2.4.

Strategy 1: The pre-emptive strike We observed previously how a particular sequential organisation for entering into a service encounter at an international office afforded the client superior interactional rights to select a language to serve as medium-of-interaction. A staff member privileging his or her own language preference, where this is in conflict with that of the client, can lead to the staff member having to account for their inability to align with the client’s language choice. One way in which a staff member can avoid this (and as we shall see, not always successfully) is by constraining the client’s language choice from the outset, with what I’ll term a pre-emptive strike. This strategy acts to disrupt the sequential pattern observed previously, and results in the client opting for a medium-of-interaction that might not be in line with their preferred choice. Moreover, it does so without having to occasion language alternation at a later stage, and the explicit accounting work that we have seen this incurs. An example of this is represented in the following excerpt. Here, two Danish students are waiting at the help desk counter while the staff member is occupied with another client. As they wait, they chat in Danish (lines 1–9).

Example 2.4 LTSH-day4-SE-1222 STA-staff; Tom & Erik-clients (Section omitted) 1 TOM: si’r ik’ 2 si’r ikke som det er og 3 det er præcis det samme 4 ⌈xx xx⌉ 5 ERI: ⌊ja det kan v-⌋ det ⌈vi ik’ ⌉ 6 TOM: ⌊vi sagde bare⌋ som det var og så 7 (0.8) 8 ERI: ja 9 hvad hedder det (.) skal vi prøve Staff returns to the counter 11 STA: so may I help you 12 (0.5) 13 TOM: yeah 14 (0.3) 15 TOM: er danish or english 16 (0.2) 17 STA: er n- english 18 (0.2) 19 ERI: heh heh alright

Inst itut ional Ident it y Negot iat ions in Mult ilingual Workpl ace Set t ings

20 21 22 23 23 24 25

TOM: ERI: TOM: STA: ERI: STA:

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english (0.7) vil du (.) ⌈jeg vil xx xxxx⌉ ⌊heh heh heh ⌋ well we came up here actually to to hear about the exchange student programme yeah

When the staff member approaches the two Danish students, we note that he skips the greeting sequence observed elsewhere, producing instead an offer of assistance (line 11). This is done in English, and this acts to constrain the available language choice for the response, indeed occasioning a language alternation on the part of the clients, who were up until this point using Danish. By changing the step-wise trajectory discussed earlier as the routine practice for entering into a service encounter at this international office help desk, the clerk is able to bring about a sequence in which he is afforded superior rights to propose a language for the interaction. In contrast with the previous examples, it is he who here produces the first turn that is recognisably English, and we see in the example that Tom opts to respond in the same language. This points to him having adopted the staff member’s language preference in formulating the second pair part response to the clerk’s offer. If Tom were now to insist on Danish as a medium-of-interaction, it would now be he who would have to account for this alternation himself, rather than the staff member. Although an efficient way to avoid having to perform subsequent medium repair sequences, this is not wholly successful. Although Tom accepts the offer of assistance, he still follows it up with an insertion sequence (Schegloff, 1972) in which he, in English, enquires after the staff member’s preferred medium-of-interaction. The dispreferred format of the staff member’s response in line 17, ‘(0.2) er n- english’, evidences again an understanding that his language preference goes against that of the client, and that this violates the norm described earlier – client has the right to select. It therefore flags up the accountable absence on the part of the staff member of expected linguistic resources.

The pre-emptive strike: Implications for praxis

In this example, the staff member is able to avert a situation in which a language is selected which would lead to a subsequent medium repair sequence, and the kinds of accounting for the absence of Danish proficiency that this incurs. He is able to do this by drawing on a number of resources. Knowledge of the clients. Prior to the staff member becoming actively engaged with the clients, he would have been able to overhear them conversing in Danish. This would have allowed him to assign a certain membership category to them, i.e. Danish nationals, with associated assumptions (‘their preferred language is Danish’). With this knowledge at hand, he is able to opt

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for a strategy that circumvents the probable language selection of Danish, by pursuing a different line of entry into the encounter. Managing the entry into the encounter. In the examples offered earlier, the staff members hold off from explicitly proposing a medium-of-interaction. We noted that the particular sequential organisation adopted by participants allowed for the client to be the first to disambiguate the language of the opening sequence. In this example, however, rather than waiting for the clients to offer Danish as the medium-of-interaction, the clerk short-circuits the normative opening sequence described earlier, bypassing the linguistically ambiguous greeting sequence and moving immediately to the service activity request. He then elicits this in what is recognisable as English, his preferred medium-of-interaction here. Constraining the client’s choice of medium. Whereas in the examples described earlier the staff members keep the choice of medium open until the client displays a preference (here the clerk draws on a normative preference for the maintenance of the same language across turns at talk), to prompt the client to adopt the clerk’s preferred language as medium-of-interaction. Should the client still choose to proceed in Danish, then he would be performing a dispreferred next action, and would need to account for this in how he formatted his turn, in much the same way as we saw the staff member do so in Example 2.3. The way in which the member of staff controls entry into the encounter with the client, and the resources he draws on here to accomplish this, demonstrate an interactional competence developed through having experience in the setting. In terms of the applicability of these findings, this knowledge can be extracted, described and shared with other stakeholders entering similar work-related settings, feeding back into the workplace community. I will return to a discussion of how this is being done for the current study towards the end of the chapter.

Strategy 2: Embedded medium repair The pre-emptive strategy discussed above relies on the staff member being able to draw on the resources at hand, including overhearing the clients talking beforehand, in order to be pro-active in managing an adoption of English, his preferred choice. Resources such as these are not always available, and the member of staff may, rather than prompting the preferred selection of medium-for-interaction, be required to manage a switch of medium in response to a particular language being selected. The following details a strategy that allows for this to be brought about without causing an explicit insertion sequence to highlight the staff member lacking a working language. Although a particular member of staff may lack some or other relevant working language in his or her repertoire, this does not necessarily entail that she or he may be entirely incapable of grasping the initial exolingual

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talk. A number of resources may be drawn on in order to secure enough understanding to be able to respond to an opening turn. You may, for example, lack productive skills in a particular language, but still have receptive competence. You may have competence in a related language, for example a related Romance or Scandinavian language, through which you are able to catch the gist of a speaker’s talk, and respond appropriately. Additionally, resources drawn from the local setting or the activity may provide some framework of understanding of the type of service encounter being initiated. Clients often carry documentation that relates to the topic of an enquiry, and this may serve as a visual resource for determining the topic of talk; they may alternatively draw attention to some or other feature of the setting as they initiate a topic. Finally, as discussed by Kidwell (2000), a recognisable framework of a projected course of action, for example a front desk business transaction, can also provide participants with a useful blueprint through which interlocutors with reduced shared linguistic resources are able to coconstruct understanding. Being able to draw on additional resources such as those outlined here may allow members of staff to provide an initial response to a client, but in doing so, they are also able to perform what Gafaranga (2010) has described as embedded medium repair. This serves to occasion a similar language alternation as described in Example 2.3, while drawing less attention to the interactional trouble in the process. In the following extract, the staff member achieves the switch from Danish to English through such a strategy.

Example 2.5 LTSH-day4-1142 STA-staff; Mimi-client 17 MIM: #hej/hi↗ 18 STA: hej/hi↗ Figure #1 19 (0.3) 20 MIM: har i ikke ↑lukket nu↘ aren’t you closed now 21 *(1.8) *Mimi looks down at the sign on the counter front #2 *Staff takes a step in the direction of her gaze #3 22 STA: no (.) it’s (.) it’s open 23 MIM: okay↘ 24 STA: yeah °yeah° 25 MIM: o⌈kay⌉ 26 STA: #⌊it’s::⌋ this is special (.) week Figure #4 27 (0.4) 28 MIM: ah ⌈okay ▵ ↑ well I have some questions▵⌉ concerning er:m:

38

29 30

Par t 1: Workpl ace and Business Set t ings

STA: ⌊°xx xx xx°⌋ MIM: an application for erasmus (1.1) exchange

In this sequence, the choice of Danish again turns out to be problematic for the staff member, who occasions a switch to English. Here, he is able to achieve this with a second pair part answer to her question in line 20 (which itself was in Danish). He is able to rely on enough receptive competence in Danish (possibly through a working knowledge of a different Scandinavian language), in combination with other visual resources (the student looking at the sign that states the opening hours of the help desk) to be able to produce a response to her question. He does this in English, which then acts as an embedded medium repair initiator (Gafaranga, 2010; see also Hazel & Mortensen, 2013). Gafaranga has shown how an interlocutor can occasion language alternation by responding to a first pair part of an adjacency pair in another, preferred language. This language is then taken up by the initial speaker in third position, which thereby ratifies the medium repair. The encounter subsequently proceeds in English, the preferred choice of language of the staff member. Where one participant selects a medium-for-interaction that proves problematic for another, we see that medium repair is subsequently initiated, and a transition to an alternative medium is negotiated. In this case this is accomplished without the introduction of the kind of insertion sequence where participants explicitly attend to the interactional trouble source, i.e. the absence of Danish on the part of the staff member. The strategy adopted in this encounter then allows for the language alternation to take place without explicitly flagging up any misalignment between the institutional and the linguistic identity of the member of staff.

Embedded medium repair: Implications for praxis

In the above example, a staff member was able to occasion a switch away from the client’s preferred language to his own, without this norm violation receiving explicit attention in the kind of insertion sequence witnessed in

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Example 2.3. In the example, the member of staff was able to draw on a number of resources in order to achieve this, and we in turn can explicate these strategic resources to inform best practice in the workplace. We have noted that the member of staff was able to respond to the client’s initial question, and by composing the response in English was able to switch the medium-of-interaction from Danish to English. A number of resources were drawn on in order to be able to do this. I will discuss four here. Receptive multilingual competence. Knowledge of the language used, or of other related languages (even though this staff member was himself not Scandinavian, he had lived in Scandinavia for quite some time) could be drawn on here as a resource for accessing the gist of the client’s talk. Hence, understanding that you do not need to be able to speak a language in order to gauge some of what is being said is an important tool. It can prepare members of staff to attend to exolingual talk of clients as one source for being able to manage a switch from the dis-preferred language to one’s preferred language, and to do so without explicitly having to attend to one’s lack of proficiency in the client’s preferred choice of language. Normative practices for the activity-at-hand. Knowledge of the normative sequential organisation of the opening stage of the particular type of institutional encounter can act as a resource to project what type of turn-at-talk is in progress. An understanding of the unfolding action sequences that people orient to as normative procedures for entering into a particular institutional encounter provides members of staff with a framework within which types of action (e.g. greeting, pre-sequence, business disclosure) are embedded. Knowing what kind of action is in progress provides support for priming the staff member to listen for certain types of information relevant to the action being produced. In Example 2.5, the student’s suspension of her trajectory to the help desk counter constitutes a breach of the normative trajectory, and can be subsequently used by the staff member to listen out for a different type of turn. Had the student continued her approach, the relevant next action would be for her to produce the reason for the visit (Mortensen & Hazel, 2014). The member of staff is now in the position to recalibrate what type of action the approaching client is producing, as she looks down at the front of the counter and starts speaking. A third set of resources that can benefit a strategy for bringing about embedded medium repair is drawn from artefacts in the surround. In Example 2.5, the client orients explicitly to a sign on the front of the counter as she speaks, and the member of staff can draw on this contextual configuration (Goodwin, 2000) to gauge the topic of her talk. This demonstrates how the setting and the properties that constitute the setting are materials with which meaning can be generated in interaction. A social environment rich in material and graphic resources may allow for these tools to be taken up in the negotiation of meaning. This stresses the importance of design considerations in developing designated areas for particular types of social encounter.

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Materials relevant to the activities afford participants a wider range of ways through which they can generate meaning in interaction (see also Hazel, 2014; Hazel & Mortensen, 2014). Following on from the third point, it is possible that clients could be primed to expect a certain medium-of-interaction through the linguistic makeup of the artefacts imported into the setting. In the setting where these current data were generated, signs were all printed in Danish and English. This provides a visual key into the working languages of this particular institutional department. Should one choose to prepare clients to expect to adopt a particular range of languages, then this can be highlighted in the design of the space. We started this chapter with a discussion of how language competencies are indexed against particular membership categories, including those related to professional or institutional identities. The subsequent analysis focused on a recurrent practice for entering into a service transaction at a help desk that features a nationally and linguistically diverse population of staff and clients. Here, language choosing is a relevant activity to engage in at the start of an encounter. The organisation evidences a particular interactional norm, where the client is afforded superior rights to select between the local language, Danish, and a lingua franca, here English, as medium for the ensuing encounter. The implications of this norm are that the client should be able to select one of those languages, while the member of staff should be able to deal with both. As such, a particular category-bound predicate associated with the institutional status of those staffing the help desk is bilingual competence in Danish and English. Where this is not the case, as in Examples 2.3 and 2.4, participants display an orientation to this non-observance (Spolsky & Shohamy, 2000), treating the member of staff as deviating from normative expectations relating to their membership category, and therefore not conforming to his or her institutional identity. We finally observed that, in order to avoid a topicalising of the staff member’s ‘deficient’ language repertoire in this way, he or she is able to draw on a range of resources to micro-manage the trajectory into the service encounter. Doing so allows the staff member to forestall the adoption of a ‘problematic’ language as medium-of-interaction, or alternatively to prompt the client to switch to the staff member’s preferred medium. Furthermore, this is done without occasioning an explicit language negotiation sequence, where the staff member’s language competencies are flagged up as being at odds with normative expectation.

Concluding Thoughts: Situating the Research Within a Framework of Application The overriding theme for the current volume relates to the dissemination and application of discourse analytic research (in its broader understanding)

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to the settings being studied. In the current chapter, I have sought to demonstrate how empirical accounts of situated practice can highlight strategies developed by parties to the interactions who must cope with particular challenges relating to normative expectations and deviations from these. The particular emic perspective developed through CA- and MCA-inspired analyses is especially useful here, as it allows for researchers to develop empirically grounded accounts of the interactional competencies required of particular social situations, including accounts demonstrating best practice. Discourse analytic research such as this is subsequently in the position to feed such findings back into the settings from which they were derived, generating suggestions for awareness and skills development for others in similar institutional positions, faced with similar normative expectations. In the case of the current study, two channels have been opened to date, in pursuing avenues through which to apply the findings to the workplace featured in the case study, and other similar workplace settings elsewhere. These two channels pertain to training and language policy development. In the former case, the researcher has been working with a language teacher who was engaged by the university featured in the study, as well as other universities elsewhere, to offer supplementary English language classes to administrative staff. Although resources for dealing with internationalisation of higher education have often focused primarily on the impact on the transnationally mobile student and teacher, universities are of themselves made up by additional auxiliary staff cohorts too. These members of staff are also faced with increasing demands for operating within an internationalised work environment and, recently, more resources have been made available for supporting professional development. The current collaboration between the language teacher and the researcher involves the development of materials which draw on recurrent and salient scenarios identified in the data and subsequent analyses. These scenarios may relate to particular communicative issues observed in the data, issues that clients and staff members are faced with, but also the creative strategies observed for securing understanding between participants, best practices for maintaining interpersonal relations, and resources for carrying out the institutional business at hand in an increasingly linguistically and culturally diverse setting. The findings included in this chapter have been used to demonstrate a number of the issues listed here, as well as being used as a starting point for developing a better understanding of the practices through which professional identities are brought about, affirmed and contested, and the linguistic considerations that are implicated in this. Secondly, the findings included in the current chapter have also been used to encourage a more nuanced understanding of how setting-situated practices evidence their own logic, rather than always reflecting back room policy decisions and understandings. These practices are part and parcel of what brings about the institutionality of a setting and, more specifically, an

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internationalised workplace setting. This has implications for those charged with developing internationalisation policies or language policies within an organisation, managing diversity within the workforce or working at the level of human resources, or simply being the line manager of those at the rock face. In line with this, the findings here have been included in presentations and workshops organised for the benefit of, for example, HR managers, diversity managers, departmental managers and researchers working with or within organisations where there is an ongoing drive for internationalisation. With the findings furthermore sourced from the practices, displayed orientations and strategies of those who work in the settings, this flow of knowledge from the setting to the policy makers has the added potential of democratising language policy procedures as they are developed. Situating the study within a framework of application, as discussed by Grujicic-Alatriste (this volume), research output is here not constituted as a single type of entity – research findings – but rather as taking different forms. Each of these incarnations is able to nourish one or more of a diverse set of stakeholder communities, be they for example those participants featured in the research, or those one step removed at a managerial level, or teachers, or perhaps a relevant academic community. The challenge for the researcher is to envisage those ways through which the findings can be transformed into useful tools for a particular group of stakeholders, be that through, for example, research articles, training materials, workshop activities or tailoring relevant discussions for the benefit of particular sets of stakeholders. Where appropriate, these points where research output intersects with the users are also worthwhile meeting points for the researcher to engage others’ feedback, with a view to strengthening the research in subsequent rounds. As an example, the current study has attempted to show how a number of results that were generated from a study of social practices in multilingual workplace settings shed light on one set of practices through which institutional identities are negotiated and contested, and the strategies adopted by members to circumvent such sequences. The chapter then discussed how these findings were used to generate different kinds of training materials, both for those working in the settings themselves, and for those responsible for managing these and similar settings in other workplaces.

3

English as Lingua Franca in Multilingual Business Negotiations: Managing Miscommunication Using Other-initiated Repair Joowon Suh

With the rapid increase in the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) and the ever-increasing globalisation and interrelationships in the world economy, the ELF business negotiation encounter continues to be a prevalent communication activity for nonnative speakers (NNSs) from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Coupland, 2003; House, 2003; Jenkins, 2003, 2006, 2009; Pakir, 2009; Seidlhofer, 2009). Nevertheless, the interactional aspects of ELF business negotiation, wherein interlocutors with conflicting interests from different cultures attempt to communicate with limited linguistic resources, are undoubtedly a more complex and diverse process than that of domestic or intracultural business negotiation. As Gerritsen and Nickerson (2009) point out, ELF business communication tends to be marred by a lack of comprehensibility due to lexicosyntactic errors and cultural differences. Misunderstandings and subsequent repair attempts tend to occur more frequently in NNS–NNS interactions, when compared to native speaker– native speaker (NS–NS) or even NS–NNS interactions. However, this does not necessarily imply frequent communication breakdowns in ELF interaction. Interactional troubles do occur, which might lead to momentary misunderstanding or miscommunication and sometimes possibly communication breakdown. NNS interlocutors, more times than not, are able to successfully resolve misunderstandings through the use of repair strategies within various interactional situations. In order to avoid complete communication breakdown, something not common in ELF business negotiation, it is essential for interlocutors to be able to initiate repair and provide repair in a prompt, clear and accurate manner. 43

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In this sense, repair becomes one of the interactional loci where the communicative competence of NNS interlocutors is most procedurally salient and analytically relevant within talk. This study aims to provide step-by-step guidelines for NNS interlocutors regarding how to deal with interactional troubles occurring turn by turn in ELF business negotiation. When a communicative difficulty occurs, whether between NSs or NNSs, the interlocutors usually address the problem in order to proceed with the main interactional business. Competent interlocutors, while momentarily halting the main line of interaction, open the side sequence of repair. Knowing how to repair talk, that is, to locate the trouble, remedy it and move on, is key to interactional success. The ability to manage repair sequences, however complex they might become, is clearly a necessary condition for NNS interlocutors to fulfil in order to become competent members of any discourse community. Using conversation analysis (CA) as a methodological framework, this chapter presents the most complicated type of other-initiated repair (OIR) within naturally occurring international and multilingual business meetings. By illustrating in detail how NNS interlocutors actually resolve intertwined communicative troubles over a lengthy stretch of talk, this chapter aims to offer insights into interactional repairs and communication enablers and to expand the CA notion of repair. This chapter also addresses an existing gap between research and practice by discussing how to share the findings obtained through a micro analysis of repair operation with practitioners engaging in international business negotiation. Particularly with the rise of applied CA (Antaki, 2011; Heritage & Clayman, 2010; Richards & Seedhouse, 2005), self-reflection on the application of language-related findings in business ELF (BELF) discourse has steadily increased. As Thomas (2007) urges, making practical contributions to the international business community is not only crucial but also essential to increase the credibility and meaningfulness of any type of research. By offering turn-by-turn blueprints of how to repair interactional troubles, it is possible to raise awareness of both researchers and practitioners that repair is not something that should be avoided entirely but is instead an essential interactional resource for any business professional. Both NSs and NNSs need to be equipped with this resource in order to be effective, efficient and competent professional negotiators. In what follows, I first briefly review the state of BELF and present selected data that illustrate the most complicated and delicate repair cases within ELF business negotiation. Then I engage real-life applications to the field of international business negotiation.

Background The two key characteristics of ELF interaction in general and BELF discourse in particular are complexity and diversity. NNS interlocutors’ varying

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levels of proficiency in English and diverse lingua-cultural backgrounds present not only analytical difficulties but also practical challenges for the application of research findings to real-world interaction. Dealing with such linguistic complexity and diversity, ELF researchers working within a discourse analysis framework have paid special attention to describing the linguistic characteristics of (B)ELF discourse, including lexicosyntactic variations and idiosyncrasies (Bulow, 2009; Harris & BargielaChiappini, 2003; Kankaanranta & Planken, 2010; Meierkord, 2004; Ranta, 2009). Research on international business within a conversation analytic framework has contributed greatly to a better understanding of interactional aspects of business negotiation discourse. A wide range of interactional features employed in BELF, including workplace discourse and business negotiation, have been examined in detail: backchannels (Bjorge, 2010); phone openings and closings (Haegeman, 2002); embodied orientations (Markaki & Mondada, 2012); small talk (Planken, 2005; Pullin, 2010); and repair (Firth, 1990, 1996, 2009; Pitzl, 2005). Due to the complexity and diversity in the linguistic and cultural characteristics described in the literature discussed above, one might easily assume that there are a great number of interactional troubles, which all eventually cause communication breakdown, in ELF business negotiation. When examined from a discourse analysis perspective, however, ELF business interactions have often been described as cooperative and collaborative in nature, wherein interlocutors anticipate interactional troubles and communicative difficulties and deal with them proactively (House, 2003; Kaur, 2009, 2011; Mauranen, 2006). Kaur (2009), examining repair strategies used in ELF interaction, notes that NNS interlocutors manage problems and communicate successfully by employing various repair strategies in a pre-emptive and remedial way. In her study of ELF academic discourse, Mauranen (2006) also finds that misunderstandings are not ‘as common as originally expected’ and that there is ‘considerable effort invested in preventing misunderstanding’ (Mauranen, 2006: 146), such as through self-repair. In his series of studies on repair organisation in ELF business negotiation, Firth (1990, 1996, 2009) observes that deviant, deficient, irregular and anomalous forms of communication do not hinder mutual understanding. Firth (2009: 137) further argues that intersubjectivity is accomplished ‘in the strategic use and incorporation of “non-standard” language forms, in the ways in which miscommunications are pre-empted and dealt with’. Pitzl (2005) also discovers this high degree of cooperation and successful communication in repair used in managing misunderstanding and non-understanding in ELF business negotiation. These findings do not imply or suggest that ELF communication operates exactly the same way as NS–NS or NS–NNS interactions or without any difficulties. As discussed before, ELF interaction tends to be complicated and disadvantaged due to the interlocutors’ diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. However, as Kankaanranta and Planken (2010)

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convincingly argue, particularly in ELF business negotiation, the shared task (i.e. getting negotiation done) and professional knowledge among NNS interlocutors work together with their shared nonnativeness (i.e. high tolerance and anticipation of lexicosyntactic idiosyncrasies). In the section below, I first describe the study, data and method used, followed by the analysis of repair organisation, focusing on the repair complex, the most complicated repair type found in the data set. Then, I engage the question of relevance of the findings for the practitioners in the field of BELF, and I lay out possible steps towards negotiated application.

Data and Method The data showcased here are drawn from 10 hours of audio-recorded naturally occurring international business meetings involving negotiations among multilingual speakers,1 collected over a one-year period. The participants in the excerpts in this chapter are five Korean sellers from Wha Sung,2 located in Seoul, South Korea, and seven buyers from three different countries, Finland, Hong Kong and Italy, all of whom are NNSs of English. All the participants are involved in international trade business dealing with specific types of capacitors and oscillators which are used in various kinds of electric appliances. All of the participants are male except for one Hong Kong buyer. All the meetings were audio-recorded by the sellers from Wha Sung without the researcher’s presence as an observer because of the sensitive nature of the information discussed and shared in the meetings. Since no participant observation was conducted, there is little information about the physical setting and visual aspects of the interaction. The audio-recordings were transcribed employing the notational system proposed by Jefferson (see Appendix).3 The analysis was conducted within a CA framework. It should be noted, however, that applying conversation analytic methods to NNS talk can often be risky and occasionally problematic. For example, the grammatical choices made by NNS interlocutors may not be made in the same way as they would be by native or native-like interlocutors.

Repair Repair is one of the most crucial analytical frameworks developed in CA. In CA research, repair refers to practices to deal with any problems or troubles that emerge in speaking, hearing and understanding talk (Schegloff et al., 1977). In this definition, repair basically addresses a great range of interactional problems with ‘a virtually unlimited array of sources or causes’ (Schegloff, 1992; 1341), from simple mishearing to problems of understanding.

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A repair sequence, whether it is initiated by self or other, consists of three main elements – trouble source, repair initiation and repair outcome (Schegloff et al., 1977). OIR can be completed by either the trouble-source speaker (i.e. other-initiated self-repair; OISR) or someone other than the trouble-source speaker (i.e. other-initiated other-repair; OIOR). OIRs, unlike self-initiated repairs, tend to require multiple turns to be accomplished. The sequential trajectory of OIR can be presented as follows: Speaker A (Turn 1): Speaker B (Turn 2): Speaker A (Turn 3):

Trouble source (TS) Other-initiation (OI)/Other-repair Self-repair (SR)

When dealing with repair organisation occurring in ELF business negotiation, the following two aspects need special attention: delayed OIs and multiples. First, most repairs initiated by someone other than the troublesource speaker occur in the next turn following the trouble source, which is termed next turn repair initiations (NTRI). Occasionally, repair initiation is delayed from next turn position. When this happens, it usually implies some interactional actions other than just simple repairing. As Wong (2000) convincingly argues, in the case of delayed OIs, both NS and NNS interlocutors are oriented toward a greater possibility for miscommunication and misunderstanding and the subsequent effort to remedy them. Secondly, OIRs are primarily designed and governed by the type of OI techniques employed. According to Schegloff et al. (1977), the techniques for OI should be examined in terms of their capacity to identify the trouble source in the prior turn.4 Furthermore, Schegloff et al. (1977) identified multiple other-initiated repairs, or simply multiples, which refer to repairs initiated by someone other than the trouble-source speaker through the deployment of more than one other-repair initiator on a single trouble source. The most complicated type of OIR found in the data set has been identified as the repair complex. The repair complex, a term specifically coined for this study, is defined as a series of OIRs involving multiple trouble sources that are concerned with one overarching problematic talk and are within relatively close sequential proximity. It is, to a certain extent, comparable to Shen’s (1998) repair cluster, Egbert’s (2004) repair activity, and Pitzl’s (2005) negotiation cycles. As Pitzl (2005: 53) accurately points out, the length of an OIR sequence tends to ‘correspond to the gravity and depth of the understanding problem’.

Multifacetedness of Trouble Source For this chapter’s purpose, I identified two excerpts to showcase repair complexes, in which separate OIR sequences interplay with one another,

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involving multifaceted and multilayered trouble sources. Such trouble sources can be broken down into sub-trouble sources. Also, within a repair complex, more than one trouble source can emerge over a stretch of talk. These multiple trouble sources usually need to be addressed together as one overarching communication problem in order for the OI speaker to complete his or her understanding. These findings are central to practice and of relevance to all stakeholders in ELF communicative business settings. Trouble sources inevitably occur in ELF business interaction, and thus it becomes crucial for the NNS interlocutors to accurately identify and fully grasp the complex nature of the trouble source and to devise strategies to tackle the multilayered trouble source(s), divide and conquer, for example. The first excerpt is meant to illustrate the true complexity of OIR – something not commonly realised in theory or practice. In it, the Korean seller, Yoon, and the Finnish buyer, Kuna, clarify the delivery issues, involving four separate trouble sources, three separate OISR sequences (lines 1–9, 10–16, 18–24) and an OIOR sequence (lines 17–18), surrounding one overarching trouble. Each OIR sequence targets slightly different, but very closely related, aspects of the trouble source, that is, the delivery service offered by the Finnish buyer’s side, which has been developed turn by turn through the repair complex sequence:

Excerpt 3.1 [Finland: 50: 6] 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Kuna:

TS¹

Yoon: Kuna: Yoon:

→¹ R¹ →²

Kuna:

R²/ TS²

Yoon: Kuna: Yoon: Kuna: Yoon: Kuna: Yoon: Kuna: Yoon: Kuna:

→ R TS³ → R TS4

I think it takes two days (.) lead time to (.) foreign countries (0.5) From your country? OISR (1) Ye- yeah so Sweden or or ( ), [yeah [Inincluding uh uh any u::h (0.5) Including one day of u:h (.) making the:: (.) transpor[tation and one day lead time from= [U:hmm (0.7) =from ( ) OISR (2) (1.3) Normally is uh uh transport (0.7) by uh uh By truck or by train? By truck. Only by (.) [truck= [Yeah, and then they [go: truck= [Mhmm =and then they go by boat [and then ( ). OISR (3)

English as Lingua Franca in Mult ilingual Business Negot iat ions

23 Yoon: 24 Kuna: 25 Yoon:

→ R

49

[Mhmm by boat? Yeah, so it’s the truck goes to boat. Mm ↑ hmm

Prior to this excerpt, the Finnish buyer, Kuna, asserted that one of the best services his company can provide for customers is a one-day delivery service. As the excerpt begins, Kuna points out that it usually takes two days to deliver to overseas customers (lines 1–2). The trouble-source utterance of the double OI sequence (i.e. two OIs on a single TS) can be broken down into two separate elements: (1) it takes two days to deliver the products; (2) from Finland to foreign countries. In line 4, the Korean seller, Yoon, initiates a first repair by proffering a candidate understanding. In lines 6–7, Yoon initiates a second repair on the same trouble-source turn. Kuna’s repair turn in lines 9–10, explaining that his company only requires one day lead time and one day for transporting products, becomes the second trouble source, which elicits a single OISR sequence (lines 9–16). Yoon, in line 15, initiates repair by soliciting an answer relating to a proposition beyond the trouble source (i.e. normally it takes two days to deliver to foreign countries by what?). In line 18, Kuna subsequently rejects Yoon’s candidate transportation (‘or by train?’ in line 17) by repeating his prior utterance (‘By truck’), which triggers a double OIR sequence occurring back to back. First, Yoon initiates repair in line 19 (‘Only by truck’). Kuna’s extended self-repair turn (lines 20, 22) then elicits another OI-repair sequence, composed of Yoon’s OI in line 23 (‘by boat?’) and Kuna’s repair in line 24. Through this repair complex, Yoon’s understanding of the trouble source has been elaborated, modified and expanded beyond what had first been presented by the trouble source. Excerpt 3.2, in which the Finnish buyer, Johan, and the Korean seller, Yoon, negotiate over the guarantee issue, also demonstrates the multilayeredness of the trouble source within the organisation of the repair complex. It is particularly illuminating in terms of the type of trouble source and the sequential distance between the trouble source and the first repair initiation (lines 1, 23). The third OISR sequence (lines 28–34) is clearly related to a repairable referent which is not a component of the trouble-source turn (i.e. Johan’s utterance in line 28):

Excerpt 3.2 [Finland: 50: 45–46] 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08

Johan: Johan: Yoon: Johan: Yoon:

TS¹

What about the the guarantee issue? (0.8) U:h(hhh) you said that it is possible to have the two. years guarantee. And now it’s something else we ju- u:h (0.7) we do not (design). Yes Yeah, if- so we have report to so: our uh uh maybe

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09 10 11 Yoon: 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Yoon: Yoon:

→

Johan: Yoon: Johan:

→ TS² → TS³

Yoon:

→

Johan:

TS4

Yoon: Johan: Johan:

→ R

finally to our president. (0.5) Because this is some very important, yeah. ((8 lines omitted)) That’s why it’s very ( ). (1.0) We have to consider carefully. (2.3) But you u:h need to support all items (1.3) or so uh [special items? [Uh for thi:s special items. Only for special items Yes. only for special items. (0.8) How can you divide ( ) huh huh it’s uhm (.) I think it’s (0.7) in case of your warehouse divides this item is uh for ( ), this item is ( ) [your ( ) [It is divided, yes. (0.5) Divide area? [distinction? it’s divided? [Ye:s Yes

Excerpt 3.2 begins with the Finnish buyer Johan’s question regarding ‘the guarantee issue’ (line 1). It should be noted that although the question becomes the trouble source, the Korean seller Yoon’s OI turn does not occur immediately after the trouble source, but far later in the discourse, in a delayed position past next turn to the trouble source (line 23). In response to Johan’s question in line 1, Yoon begins to explain the company policy concerning the product guarantee in detail (lines 5–6, 8–9, 11–19). Following a rather long and uncomfortable 2.3-second gap (line 22), which may signal an interactional incongruence between these two interlocutors, Yoon finally initiates repair through the use of an alternative question format (you mean ‘you u::h need to support all items’ in line 23 and ‘or so uh special items’ in line 25). At first, it seems odd that Yoon even initiates repair after having already explained the guarantee issue posed by Johan in line 1. Since it is clear that Yoon understood Johan’s utterances in lines 1 and 3–4, it might seem logical to assume that the trouble source that Yoon attempts to repair in lines 23 and 25 would be located somewhere else. I suggest that the real communicative trouble for this particular repair complex originates not from the propositional content of Johan’s talk but rather from the pragmatic or illocutionary force of his talk. Johan’s utterance in line 1 can be interpreted, not as a

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request for an explanation of Wha Sung’s guarantee policy, but as a request for Wha Sung to take appropriate action to guarantee certain products provided for Finnish customers. It is only in line 23 when Yoon, realising the implied action of Johan’s utterance from line 1, launches the OIR sequence in order to clarify Johan’s request. Johan verifies Yoon’s interpretation of the pragmatic force of his prior utterance and repairs the trouble source by answering Yoon’s alternative question in line 26. It is Johan’s repair turn in line 26 that elicits the second OI-repair sequence. In line 27, Yoon initiates repair (‘Only for special items’) by attempting to confirm Johan’s answer. Johan then repairs with the combination of a confirming yes and the repeat of the trouble source in line 28. Yoon again initiates repair by questioning the basic method of dividing the warehouse area for special items (i.e. how can you divide your warehouse area for special items and regular items in lines 30–33). Johan, in line 34, reaffirms that the warehouse is divided into two separate areas. In line 36, Yoon initiates repair by providing three slightly different expressions for divided (‘Divide area? distinction? it’s divided?’). Johan self-repairs by simply saying yes (lines 37–38). Both excerpts point towards the necessity for the practitioners in ELF business negotiation to understand the different types of trouble sources that can occur within the interaction and the importance of ‘timely’ repair initiation (i.e. initiating repair as early as possible). As seen above, it may take several turns for the NNS interlocutor to realise the source of the misunderstanding. The sequential distance between the trouble source and the OI can sometimes make it difficult for the trouble-source speaker to pinpoint where the communicative trouble really lies. In ELF business negotiation, such a delay can result in a sequentially delayed repair initiation and subsequent communication breakdown which may lead to a rather serious impact on the business transaction. Note also that the communicative trouble is sometimes rooted in a misunderstanding of the pragmatic force or the intended meaning of the utterance, not necessarily in the content of the talk or any apparent linguistic errors.

Structural Complexity The following excerpt, involving the enquiries sent by the Finnish buyers to the Korean seller side before the buyers departed for Asia, illustrates the structural complexity of the repair complex. Since the repair complex is accomplished through an extended stretch of discourse requiring a number of turns and exchanges, the relationship between each element that comprises a repair segment (i.e. trouble source, repair initiation, repair, and response to repair) becomes less structurally bound, in comparison to multiple as well as single OIR sequences. In Excerpt 3.3, a separate OISR sequence

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can be inserted within another OISR sequence. In this case, the relationship between the elements composing the main – or outer, if you will – OISR sequence can become structurally unrestrictive. Accordingly, an additional interactional device may be required in order to compensate for such structural looseness:

Excerpt 3.3 [Finland: 50: 11–12] 01 02 03 04 05

06

07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Johan: Yoon: Johan:

So uh the big big big matter in Hara is [also the= [Mhmm =price. and uh uh this is uh you get thi- this inquiry. ↑ Mhmm

Yoon: Yoon:

TS¹

Kuna:

→¹

Yoon: Johan: Kuna:

TS² →

Johan: Yoon: Johan:

→² R TS³

Johan: Yoon: Yoon: Kuna: Yoon: Kuna: Johan: Yoon: Johan: Kuna: Johan: Yoon: Johan: Kuna: Yoon:

→ R

→³ R

(0.5)

Yes yes. And this I receive answered (.) except three items. (1.5) When? (1.3) I already answered, yeah? [[Uh huh Insertion Sequence (1) [[You already answered? (0.5) No, when did you answer? Maybe this time is uh (1.3) last Friday. Uh huh, okay. so we’v- we already left. (0.3) [[( ). [[Uh huh uh huh Insertion Sequence (2) (0.8) You started leaving last Friday? So last Friday, (1.5) we left the office. Ah ↑ ha Maybe five or six o’clock. And also we went Sunday though [(into the office). [Mm hmm So we [( ) [But there was no email. There was no. Mm hmm (0.5) And [( ) [Did you send it to: Dacal add[ress. [Yes

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In line 3, Johan asks Yoon whether he received the enquiries. In a slightly delayed position, in lines 7–8, Yoon responds to the question (i.e. I received the inquiries and answered all except three). Apparently, Yoon’s response becomes problematic to the buyer side. Kuna initiates repair by employing the question word, when (line 10). Following a 1.3-second gap (line 11), which seems to indicate Yoon’s reluctance to repair, Yoon opts not to repair. Instead, he simply repeats part of the trouble-source utterance, adding new elements, already and yeah in line 12. This repeat elicits Kuna’s OI in line 14. It is the other buyer Johan’s OI in line 16 (‘when did you answer?’) that successfully elicits Yoon’s repair in line 17. I suggest that Johan’s OI turn in line 16 accomplishes dual functions: to elicit Moon’s repair (line 17) and, at the same time, to other-correct Kuna’s OI in line 14 by repeating Kuna’s question originally posed in line 10. Johan, in line 18, realises why he did not receive Yoon’s response in time. This utterance by Johan triggers Yoon’s OI in line 23, which is slightly delayed from next turn position to the trouble source. Kuna subsequently repairs by confirming their schedule (line 24). Here, another single OISR sequence (lines 18, 23–24) has been inserted. In line 25, Yoon finally realises what happened to the response that he sent to the Finnish buyer side. Kuna and Johan, jointly, continue to explain why they did not receive Yoon’s response (lines 26–27, 29–31). What makes this excerpt particularly interesting is Kuna’s turn in line 35. There, he initiates a third repair on the original trouble source posed in lines 7–8 (‘Did you send it to Dacal5 address?’). Yoon subsequently self-repairs (‘Yes’ in line 36). It is this OI sequence that completes the triple OIR sequence, composed of the trouble source (lines 7–8), the first OI (line 10), the second OI (line 16) and the third OI (line 35). The sequential trajectory of the repair complex occurring in Excerpt 3.3 can be streamlined as follows: Johan (lines 3–4): Question Yoon (lines 7–8): TS (1) Kuna (line 10): OI (1) Yoon (line 12): Kuna (line 14): Gap (line 15):

Inappropriate repair → TS (2) OI on TS (2) No repair on TS (2)

Johan (line 16): Yoon (line 17):

OI (2) (on TS 1) Repair TS (1)

Kuna (line 18): Yoon (line 23): Kuna (line 24): Yoon (line 25):

Response to repair → TS (3) OI on TS (3) Repair Response to repair

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OI (3) (on TS 1) Repair

Kuna (line 35): Yoon (line 36):

As shown in the above excerpt, the sequential proximity between each element (e.g. NTRI) becomes less constricted, and the structural tightness grows loose and shaky. Even locating the trouble source can become difficult, let alone identifying each sequential move within a repair segment. In addition, occasionally in naturally occurring interaction, the distance between an OI and its trouble source can be as distant as several turns apart. When sequentially dislocated from its trouble-source turn, an OI cannot function as effectively as when it occurs close to its trouble source. When an OI and its trouble source are further apart than usual, separate OIR sequences can be inserted between them. Such insertion sequences can further disrupt and complicate the already loose structural orderliness of the OIR sequence, burdening the interlocutors in terms of the need to identify the trouble source and employ the most appropriate OI technique. This finding is seen as relevant for places of practice.

Actions Beyond Repairing In this section, moving slightly away from structural aspects, I will discuss two functions of the repair complex within this ELF business negotiation interaction, accomplishing disagreement and team work. OIR sequences are often employed to accomplish something other than a simple repair, such as disagreement (Egbert, 2004; Koshik, 2003; Schegloff, 1996, 2000; Schegloff et al., 1977; Svennevig, 2004; Wong, 2000, 2004) or disaffiliation (Heritage, 1984b; Waring, 2005). Excerpt 3.4 illustrates how disagreement can be accomplished through the repair complex, composed of one OIOR (lines 10–12) and two OISR (lines 14–17, 23–27) sequences. In this excerpt, the Italian buyer, Rossi, complains about three separate aspects of the business: the pending order, missing items and other recurrent problems in the business. I would suggest that all of the three separate OIR sequences employed in this excerpt can function as a mitigated disagreement rather than as a simple repair:

Excerpt 3.4 [Italy: 19: 1] 01 Rossi: 02 03 04 05 06 07 Rossi:

TS¹

Also because (.) I don’t understand this is the message of uh u:h Mr. Cann (1.3) that uh u:h okay this is okay, whatever you sold. but I have one two three se- seven items and you send an answer for four items. I don’t know why. (0.3) I don’t know why.

English as Lingua Franca in Mult ilingual Business Negot iat ions

08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Cho: Rossi: Cho:

→

Rossi: Cho:

TS²

Rossi: Cho: Rossi:

→ R →

Cho:

R

Cho: Rossi:

R TS³

Cho: Rossi:

→ R

Rossi: Cho: Rossi:

55

U:hh Mr. Rossi? Yes? U:h before you uh that’s asking me to uh ship all your uh total eight item, one two three four= Mhmm =and other four item but the four item only the clearly no pending order. No pending? Yeah [( ) [Okay, why not you’re saying the u::h no pending. Yeah (.) No [pending [And you can see that also uh there there missing items (.) Missing items? ↑ Yes (3.5) Mr. Cho Yeah I don’t know I need u:h two weeks for this kind of trouble. I- I don’t know (0.3) this is one (1.2) this

Excerpt 3.4 starts with the Italian buyer Rossi’s complaint regarding the pending order, in which four out of seven items have not yet been filled (lines 1–5). In lines 10–12 and 14–15, the Korean seller, Cho, other-corrects Rossi’s utterance in a heavily mitigated way with uhs and sound elongations (‘U:h before you uh that’s asking me to uh ship all your uh total eight item’). Cho’s OIOR turn thus clearly sets up the argumentative tone of the whole disagreement episode. Cho not only corrects the proposition of Rossi’s utterance, posed in lines 1–5 (i.e. the amount of the order is a total of eight items, not seven), but also challenges the legitimacy of Rossi’s complaint itself (i.e. this specific order should not be treated as a pending order). Rossi, in line 16, instantly initiates repair on the second part of Cho’s OIOR turn by repeating the trouble source. Cho simply yeah-confirms (line 17) without providing a further explanation. Rossi, instead of waiting for Cho to complete his self-repair utterance, challenges the validity of the content of the trouble-source turn itself (lines 18–19). These double OI utterances by Rossi can be understood, if you will, as an almost ritualistic form of repair, particularly since Rossi does not seem to need or expect the repair

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by the trouble-source speaker, Cho. It can be argued that the pragmatic force of Rossi’s OI utterances is not the repair, but is instead a request for further explanation by the seller. Seemingly aware that they are disagreeing with each other, neither of the interlocutors expects the repair resolution as the result of this particular repair complex sequence. Cho then repeats the OIOR utterance, confirming that he does not believe that the order should be treated as a pending order (lines 20, 22). In line 23, Rossi abruptly changes the topic by introducing a new complaint about ‘missing items’ in the shipment already sent to the buyer side. Cho, in line 26, initiates repair on this new topic by repeating part of the trouble source, to which Rossi responds with ‘yes’ (line 27). After a long 3.5-second gap (line 28), Rossi starts to complain, this time about general aspects of the transaction between the seller and the buyer side (lines 31–33). The interaction proceeds to more general problems and issues of the transaction and business, disagreement on missing items seemingly left unresolved without any agreement or concession. Subsequently, however, the main business of the interaction, directly following the above excerpt, returns to the issue of the pending orders. Such a topic flow suggests that this particular repair complex sequence is in fact employed to set up the agenda for the meeting (i.e. negotiation over pending orders). The following excerpt shows how teamwork is interactionally accomplished through OIR sequences with the involvement of the third participant, Chou. Chou’s involvement functions as a supportive and affiliative move for her team member, Leung. First, the buyer Chou’s repair in lines 9–10 resolves the trouble source on which the seller, Moon, had initiated repair, and which the buyer, Leung, was obligated to repair. By repairing that trouble source on behalf of her team member (i.e. Leung), Chou successfully assists her team. Furthermore, Chou’s OIOR in line 15 resolves the communication trouble that Leung was experiencing and that Moon failed to repair. Although OIOR is usually considered face threatening, Chou, in this case, performs a team assist efficiently and effectively by other-correcting her team member’s misunderstanding:

Excerpt 3.5 [Hong Kong: 66: 19–20] 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Moon:

TS¹

Leung: Moon: Moon: Leung: Moon: Chou:

→¹ →’6 →” R¹

This is for free. Okay? But it should be uh mail you know it should be sent by mail. by not DHL. Speed post, you mean [speed post.] [Speed post?] U:::h sp- = =Speed post is [okay. [What’s speed post. Speed [no[By airmail.

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11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Moon: Wei: Leung: Moon: Chou: Leung: Chou: Moon: Leung:

→² R²

57

Air mail, [yeah. [Mm hmm By- air [airmail means speed post. Right? [Airmail. U:h speed post is more expensive than airmail. Oh, I see. By airmail, [yeah.] [Yeah.] You also have to spend sligh- small money. Uh huh

Excerpt 3.5 begins with the Korean seller Moon’s suggestion that the samples requested by the Hong Kong buyer side will be sent not by DHL but by regular mail because of the high cost of the express mail service. The Hong Kong buyer, Leung, immediately initiates repair by proffering a candidate understanding of mail (line 4). This repair initiation prompts Moon’s other-repair initiation in lines 5–6, instead of his self-repair. Moon’s first OI (on OI), however, fails to elicit Leung’s self-repair. Instead, Leung continues his OI utterance on the original trouble source posed by Moon (line 7). Moon then initiates another OI (on OI), this time through the use of an explicit question (line 8). There are two separate trouble sources involved in this repair complex: (1) Leung thinks that ‘mail’ means ‘speed post’; and (2) Moon does not know what ‘speed post’ is. I found that the involvement of another Hong Kong buyer, Chou, makes this repair complex sequence structurally unique and unusually complicated. Chou repairs the original trouble source posed by Moon (lines 1–3), while completing the repair initiated by Leung (line 4): mail means air mail, not speed post, which is a type of express mail. The repair sequence becomes more complicated when Leung initiates another repair in line 13, while mistakenly regarding Chou’s repair utterance in lines 9–10 as repair on Moon’s OI from line 8. To a certain extent, it is understandable that Chou’s utterance is positioned sequentially next to Moon’s OI turn in line 8 (‘What’s speed post’), not next to Leung’s OI turn in line 4 (‘you mean speed post’). I would suggest that the buyer Chou’s repair completion for the seller Moon should be considered as a positive and affiliative move. In essence, Chou’s repair fulfils dual functions: (1) to prompt the original trouble-source speaker Moon to self-repair; and (2) to assist Leung in resolving the communicative trouble (i.e. his understanding of mail). It is upon Chou’s other involvement in line 15 that the mutual understanding between Moon and Leung is finally restored. Chou’s turn again accomplishes dual purposes by resolving both of the trouble sources which elicited Leung’s and Moon’s repair initiations: (1) airmail is not the same as using speed post – responding to Leung’s OI; and (2) speed post is a type of express mail which is more costly than airmail – responding to Moon’s OI. After Leung’s complete understanding (line 16), Moon finally moves on with the main sequence (line 18).

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The sequential trajectory of this repair complex can be presented as follows: Moon Leung

(lines 1–3): (line 4):

TS (1) OI (1)/TS (2)

Moon Leung Moon

(lines 5–6): (line 7): (line 8):

OI-on-OI (1) No repair OI-on-OI (2)

Chou Leung Chou

(lines 9–10): (line 13): (line 15):

OISR on TS (1) OI (2) OIOR on TS (2)

In this excerpt, the repair on both trouble sources is completed by the third speaker, Chou. In fact, the sequence of OI-on-OI may indicate an interactional deadlock (Waring, 2005) between the trouble-source speaker, Moon, and the OI speaker, Leung. Without Chou’s involvement, this particular repair complex sequence could have become even more prolonged or, worse yet, left unresolved. Furthermore, Chou’s other-repair completion in lines 9–10 reveals the significance of the sequential proximity of an OI to the trouble source. In this repair complex segment, based on the proximity of Chou’s repair (lines 9–10) to Moon’s OI (line 8), Leung rightfully mistakes Chou’s repair as repairing the trouble source which Moon’s OI aims to repair. In this excerpt, the interlocutors orient themselves toward the sequential proximity of the trouble source and the repair initiation. The repair organisation, demonstrated through repair complex sequences, for the ELF business negotiation can become far more complicated and much less orderly than what has been documented in mainstream CA research. The repair complex essentially consists of a misunderstanding episode caused by overarching problematic talk. Within a repair complex, several separate trouble sources are interconnected. On occasion, the trouble source can gradually grow to become more complicated and serious as the interaction progresses turn by turn. A misunderstanding can sometimes arise over turns. The repair complex may even involve the OI operating on the repairable which is not actually included in the trouble-source turn. The repair complex reflects the gravity and complexity of a misunderstanding. Furthermore, within the repair complex, the structural tightness among compositional elements grows less restricted. At times, when each element grows sequentially distant, other additional elements, such as the separate repair sequence, can occur between compositional elements, in turn prolonging the repair side sequence and making the structure unrestrictive. It should also be noted that within the ELF business negotiation of this study, OIRs are often found to be deployed to disguise such dispreferred actions as disagreement and to accomplish teamwork. These interactional

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functions of OIRs may be interrelated with the institutional characteristics of the business negotiation itself. Negotiating over such a sensitive and delicate issue as a financial transaction in a high-stakes setting can be enormously stressful and challenging. In this case, repairing a communicative trouble source can be considered a necessary, interactionally sanctioned activity. Thus, packaging a dispreferred response with this interactionally accepted and sequentially relevant action (i.e. repair) can be an effective and attractive option to minimise any expected discomfort caused by performing a dispreferred action. Secondly, business negotiation intrinsically involves interactions between two teams. Interlocutors who participate in business negotiation, in most cases, can be, first and foremost, viewed as either one of the buyers or one of the sellers, whose interactional roles and goals are in great conflict. Two parties can accomplish various kinds of teamwork, such as team assists, team corrections, or team takeovers (cf. Francis, 1986), by manipulating who initiates repair and who actually completes the repair.

Dissemination and Application What do all these findings mean to the real-world business community? As a researcher working within a conversation analytic framework, how do I impact the real-world business community? How can BELF researchers connect with professionals outside academia? As Ehlich and Wagner (1995) point out, the growing interest in business negotiation originates from three separate but intertwined perspectives: practitioners, novice negotiators and researchers. One of the shared goals among these three groups is, and should be, to improve professional practices, ELF business negotiation in the case of this study. Thus, any research that examines naturally occurring ELF business negotiation needs to be prescriptive to a certain degree by offering practical suggestions and advice to practitioners for the purpose of developing an effective negotiating style, identifying the key elements to successful negotiation methods and hopefully providing applicable training manuals. But, as pointed out in the Introduction (Grujicic-Alatriste, this volume), one has to start somewhere. In this sense, outreach becomes unequivocally central. Anyone working on disseminating these, and similar, findings needs to first identify the real-world settings where information can be shared and potentially used, or negotiated. I see two places: the training grounds (e.g. classrooms, workshops, training programmes, curriculum designers, materials developers); and the actual business world (e.g. business negotiation meetings, corporations, workplace training, the department of human resources). Secondly, based on the target of dissemination, the modes and strategies of sharing the findings need to be carefully considered and selected (e.g. reports, data set printouts, written manuals, in-house training sessions, professional workshops). Finally, the tools for eliciting feedback from the participants and

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practitioners in pursuit of continuing collaboration also need to be developed and implemented in order to complete the whole rounds of disseminating the research findings. For my work, first and foremost, it is imperative to help practitioners in the area of international business communication to raise awareness of the detailed organisational characteristics of repair necessary for smoother and more effective business negotiations. In order to do that, research findings must be presented to the real-life business world in a more approachable manner, with simplified and less technical language. For instance, international business professionals can refer to the following step-by-step guidelines, preferably co-written by the researcher and one of the negotiators from the data set, to cope with various sorts of interactional troubles and potential misunderstandings: (1) Identify the trouble source (as accurately as possible). (2) Initiate repair with the most appropriate other initiation for that specific trouble source (as early as possible). (3) Provide repair on the trouble source (as early as possible). (4) Resolve the potential interactional trouble and return to the main sequence. (5) Repeat the basic repair unit (1 through 3), as many times as needed. Although such a prescriptive format might seem too simplistic and narrow, this may be a realistic way to emphasise the significance of structural tightness of repair sequences for better communication. This way, the blueprint for interactional repairs and communication enablers presented in this chapter can be employed to train actual negotiators via workshops or other mediums of training. These types of guidelines can be presented and disseminated in multiple modes, such as written manuals, negotiator handbooks, online resources and in-house training session materials, along with the audio-recorded data segments, similar to the excerpts presented in the analysis section above. These types of guidelines can, and should, be revised based on the feedback from the practitioners involved in actual ELF business negotiations. This step should be accompanied by eliciting feedback from the practitioners and negotiators in the actual ELF business world. A questionnaire can be included that asks for direct feedback on the usefulness of guidelines and playbacks. A sheet with suggestions will be also included so the participants in the actual ELF business negotiation can provide concrete ideas as to what works, what may not, and also what they need. These suggestions will then be incorporated into a brochure, handbook or a course plan created by a team of researchers and professionals. These steps involving both researchers and practitioners should be repeated and continued in order to more accurately and properly reflect the needs of the real-life ELF business negotiators in the

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future research plans and projects. Such a relationship between these two groups of people needs to be established and maintained in order to make discourse analytic research such as my work more applicable, applied and thus meaningful in the real world. Disseminating the findings to the real-world business community is also via establishing contact with those who train future business negotiators on various training grounds. This needs to impact the way both business English teachers and business negotiation trainers understand the notion of researchinformed training and materials. By contacting these sites and teachers and trainers involved, playing back my data, and eliciting feedback from the trainees as well as teachers and trainers, the findings obtained from this type of discourse analytic research can be, and should be, in a true sense, disseminated to and applied for the real-world business negotiators in the ELF setting. International trading companies similar to the actual site of data collection for this chapter are seen as the first step towards reaching out to the real business world. One can send them a letter, introducing the insights from this study and, if a company responds favourably, a meeting is arranged. This is how a feedback is solicited on some or all of the data sets showcased here. More concretely, for these training grounds, the first step is always preparation of more learner–learner interaction-based classroom activities and curricula, based on the repair complex findings. This kind of focus is all but absent in ELF business teaching but it is so needed. In the area of English for specific purposes (ESP), business English is one of the most developed topics. However, business English classes still focus more on rather decontextualised vocabulary and expressions and simplistic representations of cross-cultural differences based on the ‘omnipotent’ NS model (El-Sakran, 2012; Faiza, 2013). Charles (2007) argues that in real-life ELF business interaction, NS-like proficiency might be unrealistic and unnecessary to accomplish the business at hand. In that sense, the data from this chapter can be used to illustrate actual examples of repair occurring between NNSs. Learners can also record their own simulated interactions. They may then analyse the discourse organisation and linguistic features of repair. Stoke’s (2011) proposal for the use of simulated interactions and CA-based role-play methods in training professionals in mediation can be an excellent model for this type of classroom activity. As such, the observations made by this study may help ESL/ EFL teachers and learners raise their awareness of the significant role of ELF communications in real-life situations, allowing learners to establish greater tolerance toward other NNS English varieties. Part of the dissemination is also reaching out to ESP specialists writing teaching materials as application includes the cooperation of all stakeholders. There is an urgent need to devise instructional materials based on naturally occurring interactions. Comparing disagreement and rapport management presented in business English textbooks and simulated ELF interaction, Bjorge (2012) found a substantial disconnect between the content taught in

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classrooms and actual learner performances. Such a discrepancy can be resolved by materials developed around actual business negotiation discourse. This is in line with proposals (e.g. Ehlich, 1992) that shifting from language for specific purposes to communication for specific purposes should be our ultimate goal in teaching languages. Hopefully this chapter will encourage such new orientation toward ELF communications in the field of teaching English. Finally, the steps for using the findings presented above all require some form of evaluation of their relevance in the real-life settings in consideration of the role of reflexivity in the dissemination of research findings. Evaluation here can be conducted on three separate levels: self-evaluation by practitioners; other-evaluation by institutional authorities; and post-evaluation by researchers. Given the fact that misunderstanding is an unavoidable and inevitable aspect of all types of human communication, knowing how to effectively manage repair sequences should be integrated into all self- and other-evaluation criteria. When practitioners evaluate their own performances in ELF business negotiation, they should view repair sequences not as negative moments that should not have occurred but as one of the most crucial communicative undertakings. Such awareness of the nature of repair as well as its detailed organisational characteristics may eventually promote a better understanding of the process itself and increase the tolerance of participants from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Another domain of outreach for this study is corporate and workplace performance evaluation. Every business organisation maintains some type of performance evaluation of its members. Into this high-stakes process, methods to streamline the negotiation processes through repair should be incorporated as integral measures for successful ELF business negotiators (Ehrenreich, 2010; Kankaanranta & Planken, 2010; Nickerson, 2007). BELF researchers also need to conduct post-evaluation on the actual impact of their findings after making suggestions and recommendations to practitioners. Without this process of obtaining feedback from the population we serve, there will be very little chance to improve future research itself and to maintain dialogue between researchers and practitioners.

Concluding Thoughts The purpose of this chapter was twofold: (1) to offer a better understanding of repair operation within ELF business negotiation through micro analysis; and (2) to demonstrate how to begin to disseminate and use the findings in the real-world ELF business community. Within this study’s ELF business negotiation data set, OIR is not only one of the most ubiquitous, but also one of the most essential, conversational resources employed to accomplish institutional and interpersonal, as well as interactional, tasks. In ELF business

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negotiation, where NNS interlocutors need to perform high-stakes institutional tasks, requiring professional caution and delicate interactional work, a high degree of connectivity, cooperation, and task orientedness has been observed in OIR sequences dealing with the most grave and complex instances of miscommunication (Canagarajah, 2007). This chapter subsequently highlights how crucial it is to maintain the structural integrity of a repair sequence in order to successfully negotiate misunderstandings and miscommunication emergent within naturally occurring ELF business negotiations. When considering the application of the findings just discussed, one must first consider limitations (as given in the Introduction, this volume), such as the lack of knowledge of the participants and other contextual factors. In order to better serve international business professionals, the need for multiple research methods should be underscored. Without the complemented information which other research methods (e.g. interviews, surveys, observation, statistical analysis) can provide, the ways to implement and disseminate CA research findings would stay too limited (Finlay et al., 2011; Heritage & Robinson, 2011; Kitzinger, 2011). This concern can be addressed through interdisciplinary research endeavours, such as a co-sponsored research opportunity for communication and discourse analysis scholars. When two separate but highly complementary disciplines can collaborate for the purpose of increasing the effective use of scholarly findings, the impact of research can be maximised on a true practical level. Furthermore, in order to make the research findings of this study more practically relevant, it is imperative to earn institutional cooperation and understanding, particularly in the execution and dissemination of possibly concrete real-world solutions within the setting of international business negotiation. After all, maintaining the balance between analytical robustness and substantial application should be the ultimate goal for all future applied linguistics research.

Notes (1) The original larger data set involves nine Korean sellers and 12 buyers from seven different countries (i.e. Finland, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Taiwan and Thailand). (2) The names of the participants and their associated companies have been changed in order to protect their identity. (3) All interactions were transcribed utilising the standard English orthographic system rather than the phonetic transcription system. Orthographic transcription was the natural choice over phonetic transcription due to the frequent nonnative-like pronunciation and intonational contours produced by the NNS participants in the data set (cf. Jefferson, 1996).

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(4) The five techniques can be graded from the weakest to the strongest: (1) nonspecific devices; (2) question words; (3) partial repeat of the troublesource turn plus a question word; (4) partial repeat of the trouble-source turn; and (5) you mean plus a possible understanding of prior turn. (5) Dacal is the name of the Finnish buyers’ company. (6) In this excerpt, →’ indicates OI on OI, and →” indicates the second OI on OI.

4

Asymmetrical Aspects of Knowledge in Mediation Talk Santoi Wagner

Conflict and resolution are ubiquitous in the give and take of everyday life. When participants in a dispute are unable to resolve a matter on their own, they may take an institutional route to find an agreeable solution. One such route is community mediation, ‘a process of dispute resolution in which one or more impartial third parties intervenes in a conflict with the consent of the disputants and assists them in negotiating a consensual and informed agreement’ (The National Association for Community Mediation, http:// www.nafcm.org/). In this chapter, I will explore the issues of application and dissemination of findings relating to asymmetries of knowledge from a conversation analytic (CA) informed study that examines the talk produced in a mediation session. To give the reader a sense of the findings, and how these are relevant to the practice of mediation, I will begin with a brief data sample from the mediation session. There are two disputants, Anthony and David. The mediator is summing up Anthony’s opening statement, and this sample begins with the mediator directing her talk to Anthony, with the ‘you’ in line 1 referring to Anthony.1

Sample data excerpt 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11

Mediator:

Anthony: Mediator: David: Mediator:

And uhm you also (.) at (.) the time h-had been introduced to David’s wife and ((mediator looks over to David)) °d-does your wife have-have a name?° (3.0) >°It’s okayas a mediator I am not a judgeI would like to be discussedAll righthis uh< (0.6) wife at the ↑time (0.6) was still (working) at the studio (1.0) a ↑great deal. Uh:m over the course of time we had developed a friendly relationship. Uhm: over the past two years (1.0) uhm (1.8) his wife and I had become friends also simultaneous↑ly (1.6) over the past ↑two years (1.6) and NOT BECAUSE >of my friendship whatsoever with (David y’know)I’m under the impression that< (0.6) they’ve had a a (.) a very LO:NG >history of problems (they’ve (.) separated) (and going) throughhis his soon to be ex-wife and I have a< a business relationship.

Given that he is not a party to the marriage, and thus does not have firsthand knowledge, any claim Anthony makes about it is open to question about the basis for his claim. Heritage and Raymond (2005) show that speakers tend to be cautious about making claims that imply access, and here we see Anthony qualifying the state of his knowledge as being an ‘impression’ (line 11) rather than certainty or fact. He also communicates his claim about the state of David and Rachel’s marriage through how he refers to Rachel. Before this point in the mediation session, Rachel has not been

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identified as someone relevant to the dispute. In mentioning her as someone relevant to the dispute, Anthony needs to take account of listeners’ varying states of knowing and unknowing, and make his choice of reference accordingly (Sacks & Schegloff, 1979) so that all participants understand who he is talking about. At the same time, he must take account of the moral sensitivities in his choice. For example, one can imagine the awkwardness if he refers to Rachel as my girlfriend. Unsurprisingly, then, Anthony struggles to produce a reference term for Rachel, ranging from ‘wife at the ↑time’ (lines 3–4), ‘his wife’ (line 7), and ‘his (1.4) >his his soon to be ex-wife’, (line 16). Later, in Excerpt 4.8, I will examine how this knowledge claim about Rachel’s marital status is challenged by David. The value of this excerpt for practice lies in demonstrating how the accurate representation and exchange of information may be complicated by moral concerns, and that morality is found in the interactional details of the talk. In the next excerpt, originally shown at the beginning of this chapter as a data sample, I show how the mediator understands and acts with reference to the moral dimensions of knowledge. Excerpt 4.7 takes place during the mediator’s restating of Anthony’s story. Although Rachel has been mentioned by Anthony (see Excerpt 4.6 above), her name has not yet been given.

Excerpt 4.7 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11

Mediator:

Anthony: Mediator: David: Mediator:

((lines omitted)) And uhm you also (.) at (.) the time h-had been introduced to David’s wife and ((mediator looks over to David)) °d-does your wife have- have a name?° (3.0) >°It’s okay word < < word > hhh .hhh ha, heh, huh [] = (1.4) (.) (word) ((tapping))

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continuing intonation abrupt cut-off prolonging of sound stressed syllable or word marked rising intonational shift marked falling intonational shift loud speech quiet speech quicker speech slower speech speaker out-breath speaker in-breath laughter overlapping speech latching of utterances length of a time gap in seconds micro-pause (< 0.2 seconds) doubt over transcribed speech description of non-speech sound or transcriber comments on contextual or other features.

(2) Anthony originally had filed a harassment complaint with the police. The police referred the complaint to the community mediation centre. Also, note that all names used are pseudonyms. (3) David was unaware that it is general mediation practice for the complainant to go first (Moore, 2003), a point confirmed by the mediator in a post-session informal interview.

5

Family Conversational Storytelling at the Margins of the Workplace: The Case of Au-pair Girls Evelyne Pochon-Berger, Simona Pekarek Doehler and Clelia König

This chapter addresses the question of the relevance of the findings of our study conducted on au-pair girls sojourning with a host family for an extended period of time. Au-pair girls’ sojourn is a common situation in Western countries but it is not really institutionalised as a professional practice, and therefore lacks operational benchmarks regarding the stakeholders’ practices. What happens in this context? How do the participants appreciate and handle issues regarding the childcare duties? How is the au-pair integrated in the family microcosm? Our study shows that storytelling is a pervasive practice which affords insights into the centrality of informal conversations occurring at the margins of the workday in this setting. These conversations embody the practices put to work by stakeholders to construct work-related knowledge and expectations and to manage their roles and relationships within the family microcosm. Hence, our findings converge with prior literature on storytelling in spontaneous family conversations (Blum-Kulka, 1997; Ochs et al., 1989, 1992a, 1992b) and workplace interactions (Bangerter et al., 2011; Hafferty, 1988; Orr, 1996) as a central vector in socialisation processes and in the building of one’s sense of belonging to a community of practice. The setting under investigation, and home employment more generally, constitutes a semi-professional context as it merges together features of home-based settings as well as workplace settings. The primary aim of a homestay experience for the au-pair girls is to have the opportunity to learn a second language by communicating on a daily basis with native speakers of the target language. However, the au-pairs also work for the host 86

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families, taking care of the children during the day (they bring them to school, play with them, help with their homework, prepare lunch, etc.). In the evening, they join in ordinary family life. We found that these interactions at the margins of the workday represented a somewhat hybrid context (see below) in as far as they are not part of the official work agenda, yet presented built-in occasions for the parties involved to address issues related to exactly that agenda. These interactions are thus reminiscent of chats occurring during coffee or lunch breaks in more standard workplace settings. In our findings, dinner table conversations in particular represented a recurrent occasion for the family members and au-pair girls to share their daily experiences. We observed that, in these interactions, storytelling was a frequent activity carried out by the host parents and the au-pair girls alike. Au-pair girls often told stories by means of which they accounted for their time spent with the children as part of their work duties, and thereby presented to the host parents how they deal with the children, i.e. how they accomplished the work that they were expected to carry out. The host parents’ stories, in return, and in particular the host mothers’, were a means by which they presented their own exemplary way of dealing with the children, thus offering a ‘model’ of what they saw as appropriate conduct for a caregiver. We found that such tellings generated a situation where storyteller and story-recipient shared and negotiated their experiential knowledge about the protagonist (i.e. the child), as well as about the practices or activities being reported, and where they implicitly assessed the protagonists’ conduct. In this chapter, we report how the findings about the role of conversational storytelling between au-pair girls and their host family can be applied in the real-world setting. The findings presented here are drawn from a larger study on au-pair girls’ interactions with their host families (see Fasel Lauzon & Pochon-Berger, submitted; König, 2013; Pochon-Berger & Pekarek Doehler, submitted). We propose a plan of action for this type of research and hope to show the relevance of our findings to other similar settings. Based on conversation analysis (CA), our analysis of recorded interactions involving an au-pair girl and the host mother shows the following: (1) Conversational storytelling between au-pair girls and their host family is an occasion where participants’ varied roles and identities as au-pair girl, child, parent or caregiver are talked into being, and shared expectations about what counts as appropriate conduct as a ‘good caregiver’ is (re)enacted and negotiated. (2) In the course of conversational storytelling, participants negotiate different types of knowledge, as well as entitlements to know, in a way that is central to the newcomer’s (i.e. the au-pair girl) becoming a member of the community of practice she is involved in.

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(3) Conversational storytelling is also a site where interpersonal relationships are locally managed; this is a central dimension of the process of getting acquainted with each other in a context such as a homestay sojourn. (4) Conversational storytelling extensively emerges in the context of chats taking place at the margins of the workplace, such as dinner table conversations. As we will show, the storytelling occurring between au-pair girls and the host parents shows important parallels to what has been documented for storytelling in a variety of workplace settings. Such tellings serve the sharing of experiential knowledge, they typically account for non-routine events (e.g. Bangerter et al., 2011; Orr, 1996; see below) and they are a means by which storytellers construct themselves as responsible social agents within a given professional situation (Bangerter et al., 2011). Hence, these tellings are instrumental in building professional conduct and being recognised as a professional within a community of practices.

Background of the Study Working for a host family: A hybrid social setting In this section we briefly describe the setting under analysis (au-pair girls working for their host families), and consider its relation to more standard workplace settings for which similar occasions for storytelling have been documented. Au-pair girls’ sojourning in a host family presents a semi-professional context that bears features of both informal and institutional settings. On the one hand, the social interactions occurring between the au-pair girls and the host parents are typically ordinary conversations (with the exception of more instruction-oriented moments). This means that neither the rights and obligations regarding the management of conversational interactions nor the conversational topics are defined in advance; rather, these emerge out of the course of interaction (see Sacks et al., 1974). Yet, the family is comparable to a political institution insofar as a hierarchy is observable in the distribution of knowledge, power and conversational control. As Ochs and Taylor (1992a) point out in their study of a large corpus of dinner table conversations in American families: Families are political bodies in that certain members review, judge, formulate codes of conduct, make decisions and impose sanctions that evaluate and impact the actions, conditions, thoughts and feelings of other members. (Ochs & Taylor, 1992a: 301)

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In the case of au-pair girls living with a host family, the picture is even more complex. Although the au-pair girls might have equal rights in the management of conversation, their very presence within the host family is also professional in nature (the au-pair girls being officially employed by the host parents). Storytelling episodes during dinner table conversations reflect these properties: they are conversational in nature, mutually coordinated and co-constructed, and hence they emerge out of the very course of the interaction. Yet, these stories are recurrently tied to the au-pair girls’ work agenda in as far as they are about the individual girl’s (or the parents’) dealings with the children, and are therefore a means by which the au-pair girls account for their workday, problematise issues related to their duties, receive feedback and negotiate both their own and the parents’ experience as caregivers. There is thus an asymmetry as to the nature of the experiential knowledge regarding childcare that can possibly be shared between parents and au-pair girls; yet, this asymmetry may be inversed when it comes to recounting specific events that were witnessed by an au-pair girl alone. Also, the au-pair girls are clearly ‘outsiders’ to the core family (Hess & Puckhaber, 2004). While often they may have limited access to the language of interaction, this is not the case for the data under analysis, in which the au-pair girl is an advanced speaker of French.

Storytelling within workplace settings The storytellings under analysis take place at the margins of the work agenda, namely during dinner table conversations. As such, they may be related to conversational storytellings that take place during coffee or lunch breaks within more classical workplace settings, or are interspersed within the work process itself (see, for example, Bangerter et al., 2011, for storytellings during shift handovers). Storytelling has been shown to play a key role in interactions at the workplace. Existing research points out its role in the construction and the maintaining of social relationships between members of the community and in the sharing and transmitting of experiential knowledge within a community of professionals. This has been documented in a diversity of workplace settings such as interactions between technicians for photocopier maintenance (Orr, 1996), nurses’ shift handover meetings (Bangerter et al., 2011) and interactions between medical students (Hafferty, 1988). One recurrent feature of storytelling in this context is that stories are not just about anything, but tend to report on significant or non-routine events; they are a means by which speakers depict their own (or others’) handling of those events (Bangerter et al., 2011; Morrow et al., 1994). Through the storytelling activity, the participants make sense of irrational or unexpected situations, thereby establishing a diagnosis of the problem at hand and of the required solution – or allowing for a collaborative establishment of these

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(Orr, 1996). Bangerter et al. (2011) suggest that storytelling in workplace settings, and more particularly the use of direct reported speech (DRS), is instrumental in the social agents’ ‘doing being professionals’ in a given community of practice, as well as for conveying, most of the time implicitly, expectations about what can count as valid and legitimate professional conduct within that community.

Showcasing the Findings In this section we present and discuss three excerpts from a much larger study of homestay interactions in French conducted in Switzerland involving au-pair girls and their host families (TRIC-L21). The three excerpts were chosen based on the distribution of storyteller–story-recipient roles among the au-pair girl and the host mother since they imply asymmetries in experiences with the host family’s children and childcare practices more generally. Excerpt 1 illustrates the case where the au-pair girl is the storyteller and the host mother is the story-recipient and Excerpt 2 illustrates the opposite configuration, where the mother is the storyteller and the au-pair girl is the story-recipient. These two excerpts show that, independently of who tells the story, the storyteller depicts herself as having acted as a ‘good caregiver’ when handling the child’s misconduct, to which the story-recipient reacts in a supportive way. These excerpts hence evidence participants’ expectations about what counts as a good conduct as a caregiver. Excerpt 3 provides an example of a co-telling of a story in which competing knowledge about the event as well as experiential knowledge are claimed and challenged by the host mother and the au-pair girl.

Brief description of the participants and the original study Julie,2 one of the au-pair girls participating in our research, is a 19-yearold advanced speaker of French L2 whose first language is German. She is staying with a French-speaking family in Switzerland as an au-pair girl for a period of nine months. The family comprises the parents and two children, a boy (Jordan) aged seven and a girl (Manon) aged five. The data consist of 20 dinner table conversations with an overall length of seven hours during which the au-pair girl interacts with the members of the host family, and especially with the host mother, Marie. The data were collected by Julie herself on a regular basis throughout her stay: Julie was given an audiorecorder and was invited to record her interactions with the members of the host family – with their consent. The data were transcribed according to conversation analytic transcription conventions and using the TRANSANA software (for symbols used in the transcripts see the Appendix to this

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chapter). The findings presented in this chapter are drawn from a prior study on the use of DRS in storytelling activities (see Pochon-Berger & Pekarek Doehler, submitted). While looking at the data, we discovered that storytelling was a recurrent phenomenon in the data, so it became our main focus. In this chapter, we showcase the places in the data where the phenomenon occurred and we explain how our findings can be relevant to future applications.

Excerpts, discussion and application In this section, we provide an analysis of three examples of storytelling activities in which either the au-pair girl or the host mother account for the day, telling each other what they have been doing with the children and whether it went well or not. We found that these stories often report on past interactions with the children, serving for instance to complain about a child’s misbehaviour. In these reports, speakers draw a subtle balance between two possibly concurrent issues: depicting the children’s ‘deviant’ conduct and maintaining a sense of appreciation and value with regard to them. By doing so, they enact – or rather, re-enact, in a way that that can be ‘witnessed’ by the story-recipient – their experience as caregivers. These depictions are furthermore recognised by the story-recipients who then affiliate3 or not to these implicit evaluations. In Excerpt 5.1, the telling is initiated by Julie, the au-pair girl, and addressed to Marie, the host mother. The excerpt starts with Julie’s (humorous) complaint about the boy, Jordan, who recurrently has to use the toilet before they leave home for school – hence potentially making them run late. To support her claim, she re-enacts some past interaction4 she had with the boy that she presents with a generalising value (lines 10–16) and which is affiliated by Marie (lines 17–18):

Excerpt 5.1 "pipi", Julie 23.03.2010 01

JUL:

02 03 04 05 06 07 08

MAR: (2.8) MAR:

°ah mais ts. jordan qui doit toujours faire au oh but Jordan who always needs to use the toilets dernier mome:nt=eh (.) (h) (ha) [(h) ou: (h)ais(h)] at the very last moment [(h)(...) ] (h) (h) ouais c’est un peu: (.) yeah it’s a bit +pis- pis lui il prend du temps lui and and it takes him a long time quand il le fait donc [euh: (hh) ] ((vibrating voice))+

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09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

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when he does it so ehm [°oui° (.)] yes >pis souvent il=dit< (.) j’ai fini=pis >°°je=disand often he says I’m done and I say °°t’as fait v↑ite.< oh that’s good youyou were quick (.) JUL: pis deux minutes après (.) .h +en fait euh j’ai pas encore: and two minutes later actually ehm I’m not ((slightly whispery voice))+ forcém(h)ent (h)fi(h)ni(h) .hh really done yet +je dois encore une fois ((slightly whispery voice))+ + aller: aux I have to go one more time to the toilettes.((low and creaky voice))+ toilet MAR: pis c’est marrant, ça c’est- depuis qu’il est and it’s funny this it’s- it’s since he was tout petit [c’est toujours la même chose a little boy it’s always the same thing JUL: [(ouais.) yeah JUL: ouais=.h mais cette fois après il s’est vraiment dépêché, yeah=.h but this time after he really hurried up il est- il est couru euh les escaliers en-bas, he he ran ehm down the stairs et il a pris sa vEste, et puis il était dehors. and he took his jacket and then he was out JUL:

While Julie reports on Jordan’s quote (line 10) in an unanimated matterof-fact fashion, the subsequent self-quote (line 11) that she uses to report on her own reaction is staged in a neutral register. The token ah (line 11) followed by a positive assessment c’est bien ‘that’s good’ (line 11), and the explicit comment t’as fait vite ‘you were fast’ (line 11), present Julie as having offered a positive response to the reported state of affairs. By contrast, Jordan’s reported next claim (lines 13–16) is proffered by means of a whispery voice and a slower tempo, ending on a low and creaky voice. In this way, Jordan’s reported hesitant and embarrassed avowal of still having to use the toilet is put into sharp contrast with his initially reported straightforward declaration of having finished with the toilet (line 2). By modulating her voice quality in the pieces of DRS, Julie implicitly critiques Jordan’s undecidedness. This depiction of the protagonists’ attitudes stage the typical conduct of a child and that of an adult caregiver: Jordan’s embarrassed voice is normatively related to the conduct of a child who knows that he is not behaving well and Julie’s calm voice and encouraging words are heard as being characteristic of a caring and patient caregiver. Consequently, the

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re-enactment of an interaction that took place between her and the boy is instrumental in making her interlocutor (i.e. the boy’s mother) ‘witness’ her own appropriate handling of a potentially troublesome event, thereby presenting herself as a good caregiver. Noteworthy in this excerpt is also the host mother’s reaction in her position as a story-recipient hearing about her own child’s misbehaviour. Marie joins in Julie’s gentle mocking of the boy’s bad habit with a generalising comment: Jordan does this since he was young (lines 17–18). The shared view of the boy’s behaviour creates a sense of complicity between the two women and possibly enhances their sense of sharedness of a set of norms or values as caregivers. At the same time, with her comment, Marie indexes her motherly longterm experiential knowledge, implicitly calling on the two women’s differential experience as caregivers and indexing their strongly asymmetrical status within the family microcosm (see also Macdonald, 1998). While in lines 1 through 19 Julie and Marie co-engage in reporting on Jordan’s routine conduct, in line 20 Julie initiates a short story about that day’s happenings. This allows Julie to counter Marie’s long-term experience by asserting the primacy of her knowledge over the day’s particular happening, which she was the only one to witness. There is, then, a subtle play on the sharedness of experiential points of reference being enacted across the conversational storytelling, which ultimately also puts at stake the possible limits of the co-participants’ belonging to a given community of practice, be it as caregivers or as members of a family. The second excerpt (divided into two parts) presents a case of a story told by Marie, the host mother, and addressed to Julie, the au-pair girl, by means of which the mother reports on her daughter’s outburst of tears that took place that same day. Just like in the prior excerpt, the child’s conduct is depicted as inappropriate – a conduct that the storyteller reports to have dealt with in a responsible way (see lines 57-60).

Excerpt 5.2a "elle a pleuré pour rien sur la tour", Julie 28.10.2009, Part 1 MAR: [on est allé sur we went on 02 la ↑tour avec ana maria(hh), the tower with ana maria 03 (0.6) 04 MAR: ((mange)) y a m↑anon mais elle a fait une cr↑ise, ((eating)) and then manon she had a fit 05 mais je pense qu’on a [dû l’]entendre dans tout ((localité)),& but I think that people must have heard her in all ((location)) 06 JUL: [ah ] oh 01

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MAR: &parce q↑ue en plus e- en ↑L’AIR comme ↑çA=(hh) because also in the air like this 08 (1.3) 09 JUL: °oh:=n↑on.° oh no [47 lines omitted about Manon and Ana Maria’s fight] 56 (0.4) 57 MAR: pis après je leur ai dit ↑ah: mais si vous voulez on va se then after I told them oh but if you want we can go 58 faire la tour.=>alors là< tout à coup elle a plus mal du tout, to the tower then there suddenly it didn’t hurt any more 59 (0.3) 60 MAR: ça allait très bien. it went very well 61 (0.3) 62 JUL: ((inspiration par le nez))=.hhh ((nose inhalation)) 07

Marie starts off the storytelling in lines 1–2 by reporting that she took her children and another girl, Ana Maria, to a tower. Her daughter’s (Manon’s) crying fit is immediately presented as an irrational conduct (see lines 5, 7). The telling culminates in her reporting on how she handled the situation (lines 57–60). The key element of this handling is presented by Marie’s re-enacting, through DRS, the words she had purportedly addressed to the two girls: ah mais si vous voulez on va se faire la tour ‘oh but if you want we can go to the tower’ (lines 57–58). In this piece of DRS, which is delivered in a matter-of-fact fashion, the host mother stages herself as a rational and experienced caregiver, who knows that to calm down a child who is crying for no reason, you have to distract that child. The success of her tactic is then overtly claimed through the positive assessment ça allait très bien ‘this went very well’ (line 60). Here, the host mother provides the au-pair with a good example – a model – of what is an appropriate conduct as a caregiver in the face of a child throwing a fit. This is then very much about the sharing of experience between a more and a less experienced caregiver. Hence this segment presents parallels with Excerpt 5.1 in the way the storytellers depict the protagonists of the reported story. They do so by staging the voices and words the protagonists said in a way that presents the adult caregiver in the most positive light, as a patient and supportive person (Excerpt 1) or as a calm and rational person (Excerpt 5.2). Through their storytelling they also provided evidence of the success of their handling of a (potentially) troublesome event (in Excerpt 5.1, the boy finally hurries up so to not run late for school; in Excerpt 5.2, the girls calmed down and stopped fighting).

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Particularly noteworthy in this second excerpt is the way Julie reacts to the mother’s telling (see lines 68, 74), as she strongly affiliates to the mother’s critique of her daughter’s exaggerated behaviour.

Excerpt 5.2b "elle a pleuré pour rien sur la tour", Julie 28.10.2009, Part 2 64 MAR: mais à peine (h)on (h)était- c’était comme si elle avait oublié but as soon as we were it was like if she had forgotten 65 pis tout d’un coup elle s’est rappelée qu’elle devait avoir then suddenly she remembered that she had to have 66 ↑mal.=alors +elle a an ache so she has 67 [commencé +de nou(h)veau(h) à crier(h) ((rire contenu))+]& started again to shout ((contained laughter)) 68 JUL: [A::::::H ↑NON: ] oh no 69 MAR: &(hh) (h) (h) [(.) °(h)° 70 JUL: [pour rien du tout. for nothing at all 71 (0.1) 72 MAR: vraiment pour rien. really for nothing 73 (0.3) 74 JUL: (h)↑ah:: (0.3) elle pleure souvent pour ri[en(hh) oh she often cries for nothing 75 JOR: [ana maria elle a ana maria she has 76 aussi tapé mais elle fait hyper mal=moi j’ai ditalso hurt but she can super hurt me I said 77 JU?: [(aussi-) also 78 MAR: [↑non↓ mais: c’est- c’est tellement (con) quand elle ↑pleure no but it’s it’s so stupid when she cries 79 comme ça [pour rien ]& like this for nothing 80 JUL: [(r::)e:::h] ((non-lexical)) 81 MAR: &et . ((bruit de fourchette))+ et ah::= and loud ((noise of a fork) and oh This second part of the excerpt contains the climax of the story (lines 64–67), where Marie reports on the girl’s second crying fit. What is depicted here as being yet another piece of irrational conduct is not only Manon’s crying fit in itself (which was very loud), but also the child’s contradictory behaviour: after having cried a first time, so the mother’s story runs, Manon

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had forgotten about the pain, but then remembered it and started crying again (lines 64–66). Julie, as the story-recipient, reacts by displaying increased affiliation with the storyteller’s stance (by contrast with an earlier downgraded reaction, line 9). Julie produces the strongly empathetic ah non ‘oh no’ (line 68). Julie here responds to the host mother’s implicit complaint with a matching affective stance, thereby demonstrating a ‘shared affectivity’ with the storyteller (cf. Selting, 2010), which is then further enhanced by her final assessment of the child’s crying as being unmotivated: pour rien du tout ‘for nothing at all’ (line 70). Mother and au-pair girl subsequently engage in a repeated display of mutual affiliation (lines 72–81) by producing one after the other stronger evaluations of the girl’s crying fit. The host mother finally formulates a critique of her daughter’s exaggerated crying fits (lines 78–79, 81). By converging in their evaluation of the child’s conduct as essentially exaggerated and somewhat chronic, both the host mother and the au-pair girl display to each other their orientation to a shared set of norms in the way their interpret the children’s conduct, and ultimately as to their expertise as caregivers. Moreover, by sharing their stance about the girl’s misconduct, the two women position themselves as united against a third party. This displayed solidarity contributes to consolidate their relationship. By contrast, and similar to Excerpt 5.1, the excerpt also shows competing authority and entitlement to know between the co-participants. With her general comment on Manon’s bad habit of crying fits (line 74) which is delivered as a complaint, Julie displays her experiential knowledge of the child as opposed to the anecdote (i.e. a one-time event) reported by the mother. 5 However, she observably refrains from affiliating with the host mother’s report on her own successful handling of the child’s fit, and thereby somehow resists accepting the host mother’s ‘model’ conduct as a caregiver. The subtle play on affiliation and disaffiliation during the storytelling, hence, enacts a differential positioning of the co-participants as to their social role as caregivers. The excerpts above illustrate three major findings discussed in this chapter. First, they show some typical features of the local (re)enactment of normatively expected conduct as caregivers that can be observed in our database. Interestingly, in the two quoted excerpts, although the roles of storyteller and story-recipient are distributed differently, both the host mother and the au-pair girl draw on the same resources to present their own and challenge the others’ being ‘good’ caregivers. First, the storyteller recurrently uses DRS to stage contrasting attitudes of the story’s protagonists, so as to make the story-recipient construe or ‘witness’ their own positive and rational conduct in front of a ‘deviant’ other. Story-recipients in turn react to the implicit evaluations of these reported past conduct. Consequently, such discourse practices constitute a central resource for the participants to legitimise themselves, and to be legitimised by others, as

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a ‘good caregiver’. This is a key aspect of the belonging to a community of (professional) practices. In fact, a similar use of storytelling has been documented for other workplace settings, such as nurse shift handovers. Bangerter et al.’s (2011) study shows how nurses re-enact in the face of colleagues their past interactions with patients in the handling of a difficult or unexpected situation and while doing so depict themselves in a positive light while patients are not, thereby providing evidence of their professional competencies. These depictions are also important insofar as they index, often implicit, expectations of what adequate (professional) conduct should be. For the aupair girl’s sojourn, these interactional mechanisms therefore bring to light models of ‘good’ childcare conduct, commonly shared by the members of the community. Making stakeholders aware of these roles and norms is of crucial importance for future application. Secondly, the relationship between the host mother and the au-pair girl is observably worked out through stance sharing with regard to the events and characters that are being reported on in the stories, and this contributes to creating a sense of complicity and solidarity between the two women. Developing complicity is a core aspect to the building of an equilibrated relationship between the au-pair girl and the members of the host family. This is even more crucial as regards the relationship with the host mother with whom the au-pair girl might enter into competition in her responsibility of taking care of the children. Hence the possibility for a strong social bond between the au-pair girl and the host family is a key aspect of the success of an au-pair girl’s sojourn. Thirdly, the excerpts illustrate competing experiential knowledge, authority and entitlement to know between the co-participants as to their social role as caregivers, and this is enacted through the subtle play on affiliation and disaffiliation during the storytelling. This pinpoints the ambiguity of the participants’ roles in this particular setting: while the au-pair girl takes care of the children all day long and therefore knows most about their recent doings, she does not benefit from the long-time experience of the host mother. In turn, the host mother, who is absent during the day, lacks direct access to her children’s daily experiences. This puts into the balance asymmetries in knowledge between long-term caregiver experiences in general as well as with these particular children and knowledge about daily happenings with the children. This aspect seems to be of particular concern to the stakeholders, as will be illustrated in the next excerpt. In the previous two excerpts, co-participants may shift back and forth between recounting single-time events and reporting on the recurrent practices or habits of given characters. They illustrate that knowledge about the recounted event belongs each time to one participant only, namely the storyteller. However, in this section we present an excerpt that shows a different distribution of knowledge: the storyline is carried out by the host mother, and the au-pair girl now positions herself as a story-recipient who has equal

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knowledge about the recounted event and to the precise situation in which it occurred. She notably engages in co-tellership by providing alternative pieces of information. And through this very co-telling, participants index competing experiential knowledge. In this excerpt (divided in three parts) Marie is talking about her daughter’s swimming lessons – a conversational topic that was introduced earlier. In the first part of the excerpt, Marie reports how the children were told by the swimming teacher to use the bathroom before getting into the pool.

Excerpt 5.3a "piscine", Julie 12.10.2009, Part 1 01 MAR: 02 03 (0.5) 04 MAR: 05 06 JUL: 07 MAR: 08 (0.8) 09 JUL: 10 11 12 JOR:

parce qu’elle leur a dit qu’avant d’aller dans la pisc↑ine because she told them that before entering in the swimming pool on devait tous aller faire pi↑pi, donc = euh:, we all had to go to the toilet so eh ma théorie qu’il fallait pas aller my theory that we shouldn’t go sur les toilettes=[eu:h ((rit)) on the toilets ehm ((laughs)) [mhm:: +j’ai pas pu. ((contained laughter))+ I couldn’t mais ↑elle elle avait l’air d’être très là but she she seemed very shy there avec les autres qu- ((rit)) qu’elle ne sait-=eh qu’elle n:e with the others that- ((laughs)) that she doesn’t kno- eh she doesn’t connait +pas ((en expirant legèrement))+.= know ((expiring slightly)) =°°(xxx)°°.

From the first lines of the excerpt onwards, Julie offers additional (pieces of) information to the story told by the host mother, namely that Manon looked shy with the other people she did not know (lines 9–11), thereby both indexing ‘eyewitness’ status as to the reported event and claiming some degree of knowledge about both Manon’s acquaintances and her character. Hence, as a (partially) knowledgeable participant, Julie positions herself as a co-teller of the story. This positioning is quite consequential here as it will allow her to resist the host mother’s complaints/critiques in the subsequent talk. The storytelling culminates in this second part of the excerpt with the host mother reporting how the teacher also requested the parents to leave the swimming pool and leave the children alone with her. The way the host mother reports on her dilemma and ensuing decision indexes normative

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expectations regarding the resolution of a parent to leave his or her child under the sole responsibility of a stranger.

Excerpt 5.3b "piscine", Julie 12.10.2009, Part 2 MAR: mais=ouais >parce qu’au début je ne savais pasje me suis and then I saw everybody was going I told myself 18 dit=qu’est-ce que je=fais j’y vais aussi< bon (x) (0.4) what should I do do I go too well (x) 19 elle est restée tran°quille°. she stayed quiet 20 (0.4) 21 JUL: mh=. yeah 22 (0.4) 23 JUL: elle était tranquille oui=.hh. she was very quiet yes 24 (1.0) 25 JUL: c’est comme ça quand:=elle était où- euh- de↑hors, (0.4) it’s like this when she was where- uh- outside 26 elle a vraime:nt euh [eu fr↑oid. she has really uh been cold 27 MAR: [((laughs)) 28 +(6.5) ((kids talking together))+ 29 MAR: après j’ai regardé un moment dehors pour voir si: tout à coup then I looked a moment outside to see whether all of a sudden 30 elle se mettait à pleurer ou comme ça,=puis °non=non°°. she’d start crying or something like that then no no 31 +(7.1) ((Manon playing in the background))+ [76 lines omitted] 13

Marie describes and re-enacts the reasoning process by which she decided to leave the swimming pool and hence to leave her daughter by herself with the other kids (lines 13–18). This step-by-step process allows Marie to present her decision to leave as a well-reflected act, worthy of a good caregiver, and – what is more – culminating in success: elle est restée très tranquille ‘she [i.e. Manon] stayed very calm’ (line 19). Yet, Julie responds by a highly mitigated agreement (line 21). She further adds a piece of information (lines 25–26) that may be heard as potentially deconstructing the mother’s explanatory

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template – or at least offering an alternative one: she was cold, and therefore quiet. This is treated by Marie as a reaffirmation as to the fact that Manon was ok (lines 29–30). So the host mother and Julie enact here competing concerns about the child, the mother worrying that she was alone, and Julie that she was cold. Thereby they both claim access not only to the scene being reported on, but also to Manon’s state of psychological or physical wellbeing. And they do it in a way that does not make their respective interpretations converge. The competing nature of the host mother’s and Julie’s interpretations of that single event finally culminated in Julie’s display of a one-time superiority as a caregiver over the mother as shown in the third part of the excerpt.

Excerpt 5.3b "piscine", Julie 12.10.2009, Part 3 108 JUL:

.h bon après la piscine elle était + well after the swimming she was very quiet 109 vraiment = really we could see 110 MAR: =((laughing))= 111 JUL: =qu’elle est .hh [vraiment fatiguée. that she is really tired 112 MAR: [c’est vrai >après je me suis dit j’aurais dû it’s true after I told myself I should have 113 di:re de la=mettre faire la sieste< mais alors told to make her take a nap but then 114 s’il y a °quelqu’un qui°. if there is someone who 115 (1.0) 116 JUL: ouais j’ai °fait ce°°. yeah I did (this) 117 +(3.9) ((Kids making noise))+ 118 JOR?: (xx) Julie moves towards a possible closing of the storytelling by reporting that Manon was very tired after the swimming lessons which, in turn, occasions a radical inversion of the asymmetry between the au-pair girl and the host mother regarding their doings as caregivers. While Marie uses reported thought to indicate her purported reasoning that she should have put Manon to bed for a nap before the swimming lesson (lines 112–113), Julie shortly but poignantly responds: ‘that’s just what I did’ (line 116), thereby displaying good conduct as a caregiver. This excerpt illustrates the way competing experiential knowledge as caregivers is enacted in the course of joint storytelling through

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different procedures: the mother rationalises her own conduct as a responsible and caring person, namely in reporting her own thoughts about what she did or should have done, while the au-pair girl demonstrates that she knows the protagonist well (i.e. Manon) and provides one illustration of her acting as a caregiver in a way that was projected but not accomplished by the mother. In sum, this excerpt, as well as the two others, illustrates how storytelling activities between the au-pair girl and the host mother provide a site for the sharing of experiential knowledge, and for the participants’ moving towards a joint understanding of the moral and social obligations of a good caregiver. Here, storytelling turns into a locus where competitive stances between two ‘caregivers’ are talked into being, yet a common sense of what is being right is maintained (a child should not feel alone, should not be cold, should not be overtired . . .). The subtle mechanisms (e.g. DRS and reported thought) by means of which the participants in this setting provide evidence to their interlocutor – who is also ‘the’ caregiver of the same children – of their adequate conduct shows not only how much they are concerned with being recognised as ‘good caregivers’, but also uncovers what the moral and social obligations that are shared and valued by the community are, as these often remain implicit. In addition, the permanent challenging of one another’s knowledge related to one-time events as well as long-term experience enhances the complexity of the participants’ mutual roles as caregivers, but also indexes the legitimacy of their status within the family microcosm (e.g. the host mother is legitimately the most knowledgeable about the children, whereas the au-pair girl is not). Future application of the findings to the place of praxis should draw on the stakeholder’s awareness about these issues, as these highly intervene in the socialisation process of the au-pair girl into adequate childcare practices but also in her integration in the family microcosm.

Critical Discussion of Findings In this section, we summarise the findings illustrated through the analysis of three representative examples. First, the stories found in the data most typically report on a problematic situation that the caregiver had to deal with. The storytelling has been shown to systematically host the teller’s depiction of herself as having displayed a rational and appropriate conduct in the face of a child’s misconduct. This allows the storyteller to present her handling of the situation as conforming to shared normative expectations regarding what can count as a good caregiver’s conduct (‘doing being a good caregiver’) and makes the story-recipient ‘witness’ this. Therefore, storytelling provides an opportunity for both storyteller and story-recipient to build up and value experiential

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knowledge as well as to display and challenge expectations regarding a set of normative conduct related to childcare. Secondly, storytelling is a site where asymmetries of knowledge are oriented to and challenged by both storyteller and story-recipient. While the storytelling most often involves an asymmetry as regards the participants’ knowledge about the recounted event (the storyteller being the most knowledgeable), it also occasions the display, negotiation and even the challenging of possible asymmetries regarding experiential knowledge. Storytelling provides thereby an ideal situation for the sharing of experience, by means of which the host mother offers a ‘model’ of what it means to be a good caregiver so as to socialise the newcomer (i.e. au-pair girl) into childcare practices. Thirdly, storytelling is also a place where competing types of knowledge (long-term motherly experience versus more recent, although day-to-day, experience of the external caregiver) are enacted in both the storyteller’s ways of reporting about the event and the story-recipient’s reactions. However, what really is at stake here is the negotiation of the different roles of the family microcosm (the mother versus the less experienced home employee) and their entitlements (e.g. while the mother is entitled to criticise her child’s misbehaviour, it is more delicate for the au-pair to do this without risking implicitly challenging the child’s education and hence the parents’ responsibility). Fourthly, by means of affiliative moves in the course of the storytelling, story-recipients join in the assessment of events or characters being reported on by the storyteller (e.g. they may join in complaining about the child’s misconduct). Thus, storytelling provides an occasion for establishing complicity between the participants, and consequently for consolidating or maintaining the social bond between, for instance, family members and the ‘outsider’ who joins the family community. And finally, taken together, the findings presented above underline the importance of informal conversations that occur at the margins of the work agenda (e.g. coffee break, mealtime, etc.). The storytelling occurring on these occasions provides rich opportunities for the sharing and the adjustments of mutual knowledge and expectations about work-related conduct between more experienced participants and less experienced ones, indeed playing a central role in the socialisation process of newcomers into professional practices. It also constitutes a site for the establishment of social relationships and management of mutual roles (employer–employee, host–guest, etc.). This latter aspect is of particular relevance for the workplace as it can contribute to reducing, or even avoiding, possible tensions and miscommunication between members of the community and hence contribute to instilling optimal work conditions. These findings are very much in line with Bangerter et al.’s (2011) observations on how nurses during shift handovers use storytelling so as to display their ‘doing being a professional’, to negotiate the

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related norms of conduct and to share their experiential worlds. The findings also converge with Orr’s (1996) and Hafferty’s (1988) earlier observations on the role of storytelling in the transmission of experiential knowledge and the construction of social relations between members of the communities of technicians and medical students, respectively.

Framework for Application What applications might our findings have for the real-world setting we investigated in this research and are the products of our research relevant and usable for the stakeholders in their practices? We have wrestled with this issue when we considered our findings in the light of the Framework for Application described in this volume (Chapter 1). In this regard, Antaki’s (2011a) ground-breaking collection has laid down valuable milestones for the applicability of the products of CA research. On this path, a central criterion for a successful dissemination of CA-based findings, as underlined by Kitzinger (2011: 116), is to provide recommendations for change in the praxis that are (1) ‘relevant to the concerns and preoccupations of the organization’ and (2) ‘achievable’ for the practitioners. Our work is of relevance for different stakeholders concerned with aupair girls’ sojourn (host families and au-pair girls), as these findings provide insights into the ways childcare practices are talked into being through conversational practices, and allow for a better understanding of the larger social dynamics at stake in this social setting. Indeed, with the growing inclusion of women into the work market in a large number of Western countries, the hiring of an au-pair girl is common and responds to the families’ practical need for having someone to take care of the children during workdays at a low cost (see Hess & Puckhaber, 2004). However, the au-pair situation is not much institutionalised as a professional practice: insofar as the au-pair girls are involved in the family life – and are supposedly treated as a member of the family – they are not in a position to negotiate the work and living rules set by the host parents (see Cox & Nerula, 2003; Hess & Puckhaber, 2004). Also, their roles and duties as caregivers might enter in competition with that of the actual mother (see Macdonald, 1998), as we observed for some of the analysed excerpts. Most importantly, there are few or no predetermined moments in the weekly routines for the provision of advice regarding the au-pair-girl’s duties as a caregiver (see Cox & Nerula, 2003; Macdonald, 1998). In this regard, it is noteworthy that in the initial stages of our research, when we recruited participants to collect dinner table conversations for us, many au-pair girls confided that they did not interact much with the host parents or had difficult relationships with them, and some of them relinquished their stay with the host family. This latter aspect pinpoints even more strongly the need for routinised shared social moments within family

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life at the margins of the work agenda that differ significantly from formal questioning or instructions regarding caregiving duties. Routinised social moments are central to the sharing and building of experiential knowledge and expectations because they create occasions for triggering a strong social bond between host parents and the external caregiver. These informal occasions, and the use of storytelling as a privileged resource, are then for the benefit of both au-pair and host family. Hence, our findings allow us to identify three realistic areas for intervention in the praxis (i.e. ‘achievable’ for the stakeholders): • • •

scheduling a regular occasion for informal talk about the day in the family’s weekly agenda such as sharing a meal or a coffee together or instituting a routinised ‘debriefing talk’ at the end of the workday; enhancing during these chats the production of ordinary conversational storytellings about the au-pair girl’s daily duties and happenings with the children; raising the host parents’ and the au-pair girls’ awareness of their varied roles and related sets of duties and entitlements within this hybrid context (e.g. employer–employee, host–guest, family member–outsider, experienced caregiver–novice caregiver).

How can these areas for intervention be achieved by the practitioners? The Framework for Application outlined in Chapter 1 (Grujicic-Alatriste) to this volume establishes two steps on the road to applicability of our research findings: a first one consists in outreaching the places of praxis; another is concerned with concrete ways of disseminating the findings. One primary target group to be reached is the participants actually involved in the study. As Kitzinger (2011) reports on her research on childcare helplines, the social counsellors who did the recordings were highly interested in receiving feedback about their practices, and so was the organisation. On the other hand, Grujicic-Alatriste (Chapter 1) suggests that the participants to a study can also provide valuable feedback on the researchers’ interpretation of the data with their experiences and background knowledge that is missing in the recordings. In our case, the participants in our study can no longer be located, as the au-pair girls returned to their homes and the host families remained anonymous throughout the data collection. However, based on our experience with this study, we suggest for future research exploring similar settings of home employment to take advantage of the participants’ feedback on the data. Since we were collecting longitudinal data, we had to meet the au-pair girls regularly throughout the study in order to gather the recordings. These regular meetings revealed themselves to be very interesting occasions for informal talk about their experience in the host family and for learning more about them in general. Retrospectively, we think that these meetings should also have been used as opportunities for

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discussing the data and sharing the findings with the au-pair girls directly in order to get a better grasp of the stakeholders’ actual concerns with the praxis and their members’ understanding of the observed practices. Hence, we recommend building into the research agenda a possibility for participants’ feedback either during the data collection or after its completion. This feedback can be gathered, for example, by means of an informal discussion around a selected piece of data with the participants. Generally speaking, reaching out to the stakeholders in the domain of home employment is a difficult task, as we experienced at the beginning of our research, since families are ‘out there’ in the world. Indeed, many aupairs’ sojourns are organised on behalf of individual contacts or announcements placed in newspapers, rather than organised by an institution. In the present study, we entered into contact with the au-pair girls through a language school where some of them were attending a weekly specialised course in French for au-pairs. However, the dissemination of research findings with the aim of bringing change in the praxis implies reaching out to a larger panel of stakeholders, beyond episodic contacts with single au-pairs or host families. In that respect, a better path to follow is to collaborate with au-pair recruitment agencies who put in contact prospective au-pairs and prospective host families. Such agencies are good mediators as they are able to offer training and information to the stakeholders. Once the places of praxis are reached, how can the findings be disseminated? The plan for action we outline here for future research comprises two axes: •

•

Informing and training the counsellors of these au-pair recruitment agencies. As mediators, these persons are in a privileged position to provide adequate advice and feedback to the au-pairs and the host families, and therefore need to be aware of the issues about this setting identified in the research. Informing and training the host parents in particular, as they will be responsible for the work conditions (e.g. instituting a coffee time with the au-pair girl at the end of the day) and are most concerned with the au-pair girl’s learning and accomplishing appropriately her childcare duties.

We suggest providing information and training to these two types of audience by using the following tools: •

The development of a small booklet presenting a very accessible list of key issues found in the research which are illustrated with a few short and simplified transcribed excerpts and a list of recommendations for the praxis. This booklet can be distributed to the counsellors as well as to the prospective families and prospective au-pair girls via the air-pair agency.

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The organisation of regular workshops for the counsellors any time throughout the year and different ones for the host families at the beginning of the school year (when most of the au-pair girls start their sojourn). In these workshops, the participants would engage in a collective analysis of selected excerpts (with simplified transcripts and listening to the audio recordings), representing key issues of this setting. The exposure to authentic data from other (anonymous) host families should provide an occasion for the workshop participants for stepping back from a context they know well and reflecting, from an objective perspective, on the social dynamics at stake and the discourse practices used to regulate and manage interactions in this setting. On the basis of this reflection, participants would engage in discussing concrete steps that can be taken to change the praxis (further down the road).

Concluding Thoughts In this chapter we have presented the implications of empirical research on au-pair girls’ sojourning in a host family. Due to the hybrid nature of the setting under investigation, our findings are seen not only as being relevant to the au-pair’s workplace and other forms of home employment in the domain of childcare (e.g. nannies, babysitters), but also to workplace settings in general. Indeed, our findings regarding the role of work-duty related storytelling converge with several studies chats happening in other work settings (see above). They stress the importance of informal talks at the margins of the work process (e.g. coffee breaks, lunch breaks, after-work drinks), suggesting that these conversations, due to the exchange of experiential knowledge and the mutual calibration of work process related norms and expectations which they occasion, may more or less directly benefit the work agenda. Providing in-built occasions for spontaneous conversation, however, very much contrasts with current tendencies in the work market towards rationalising, or even eliminating, informal face-to-face interactions, for the sake of gaining time. For example, Bangerter et al. (2011) show that, in the context of nurses’ shift handovers in Swiss hospitals, computer-based reports increasingly replace the exchange of information based on face-to-face interactions. This runs the risk of confining the transmission of information to the reporting and delivery of technical and factual elements, and eliminating vital occasions for the sharing of work-related experiences and expectations, for joint sense-making about work-related issues, and ultimately for the construction of a shared feeling of belonging to a given (professional) community of practice. Finally, the conceptual and methodological apparatus of CA in which we based our research can be relevantly used for gaining new insights into the

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workings of social practices of the au-pair girl’s workplace. This microanalytical approach aims at identifying participants’ orientations towards each other and the social environment in which they interact, as materialised in the details of their unfolding interactions. It therefore allows us to get a grasp on participants’ understanding of the particular setting in which they interact, and on how they interpret their mutual roles, identities and relationships, be it as employer/employee, as mother/‘outsider’, as host/guest, as native speaker/non-native speaker, as experienced person/newcomer, etc. It also allows us to shed light on participants’ normative orientations towards relevant conduct related to given roles, and on how they assess each other’s knowledge and entitlement to know. The type of turn-by-turn analysis of practical courses of activities provided by CA has, thus, the potential to enrich our understanding of any social setting by offering a detailed account of the (more or less routinised) conversational activities that are accomplished by stakeholders, and by uncovering the implicit norms to which stakeholders orient to organise and to interpret their mutual conduct and the social environment of their encounter (e.g. as part of the ‘hidden curriculum’ of a given institutional setting). Based on such empirically grounded accounts, improvements in the social functioning of the setting under analysis may be envisaged. A relevant example is provided by Heritage and Robinson’s (2011) study of doctor– patient interactions: the authors show how drawing the practitioners’ attention to the way the design of their questions influences the patients’ responses can positively impact the outcome of the medical consultation and thereby improve the praxis. When it comes to the workplace settings or more generally institutional environments – which are in constant demand for improvement – the kind of in-depth understanding of praxis provided by CA sets the ground for identifying possibilities for small changes in human interactional behaviours which can, in return, contribute to improving larger social-institutional practices, and in the end positively impact the workings of the institution itself (and the well-being of those who work in it).

Appendix: Transcription Conventions . ? , bla::: (bla) (xx) BLA °bla° ↑bla

Final falling intonation Final rising intonation Continuative intonation Vocal prolongation Unclear segment Incomprehensible segment High voice volume Low voice volume High pitch

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>bla
take your [time< [oh:: ( ) [take your t↑i:[:::::me.= [ti::me ti[me no, =[↑ah::::::: (0.2) fast? (.) ti:me= =NO FAST. heh [heh heh heh [heh .hhhh [No fast. [No fast. Ri↑(h):ght. Take it ↑easy. heh heh

For this revised second task, Juana and her classmates have been asked to work at different levels of meaning – of an expression in English and a larger discourse structure containing it – and the students are shown to wrestle with these layered meanings. However, while Juana in Excerpt 8.1 appeared not to be developmentally ready to produce her own life lesson story in English, Excerpt 8.2 shows that exploring an aspect of deep narrative structure in another’s life lesson story is within her ability. Importantly, Juana’s problem-solving activity is not only attributable to my changed lesson plan, but also her peers’ assistance turn by turn. In line 1, Juana’s classmate Teresa leads the discussion with a question about the ‘haste makes waste’ expression (‘What does it mean?’). In lines 2 and 3, however, Yang demonstrates that he cannot provide an answer. After a five-second silence, Teresa hesitantly puts forth a piece of information from the story in line 5 (‘no no time she’s no she’s no have time’), displaying some understanding of the target phrase. After a longer silence, Teresa takes the floor again in line 7 to restate the content of her line 5 utterance. This time, however, she does so with an accompanying sound stretch and continuing intonation – cues signalling that she is soliciting her classmates’ help in contributing to the list she started (Lerner, 1995, 2002). However, she is still met with silence in line 8. Line 9 shows Teresa continuing her exploratory search by stating another, related piece of information from the narrative (‘fast . . . she’s fast,’), again with continuing intonation. With Juana’s contribution in line 11, the participants take a step forward in their problem-solving activity. Seemingly drawing upon Teresa’s

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utterances in lines 5 and 7, Juana puts forth the suggestion ‘take your time’ – which I hear and repeat, and positively evaluate with an elongated ‘ah’ in line 16 12. Other learners follow with their own interpretations of Juana’s statement in lines 15–21, lines that show the students’ high involvement in one another’s utterances (Tannen, 2005), evidenced by their echoing, latching and utterance co-construction. In line 15, Jose puts forth the negative particle ‘no’, a turn Juana seemingly completes in line 18 (‘fast?’). Leo also employs the negative particle in line 21 to combine his classmates’ prior contributions (‘NO FAST’), which is echoed by Juana and Jose in lines 23 and 24. Line 26 shows Teresa incorporating the item ‘take’ – employed previously by Juana – into a new idiomatic phrase: ‘take it easy’. While their understanding of ‘haste makes waste’ is not fully developed, Juana and her classmates are drawing connections between a story and its title expression: their teacher should take her time and take it easy. A holistic approach to the examination of classroom interaction can involve a blurring of ‘speaker’ and ‘hearer’ as interactants construct utterances that they mutually own (Ohta, 2001). The discourse perspective taken here reveals that the two variations of a saying within a narrative coda put forth by Juana: ‘take your time’ (line 11) and ‘no fast’ (line 23) could not be attributed to Juana alone, but to Juana and her classmates as they attended to a problem that they could not solve individually, a problem requiring movement beyond their actual developmental levels into their ZPDs. These shared contributions highlight the practical utility of Vygotsky’s ZPD concept for teachers. In creating our task plans, we can ask ourselves not only whether or not we are encouraging students to work together, but how group work can be used to tap into students’ abilities that are not yet fully formed. An understanding of the ZPD can also help us to assess our students’ activity performance as we attend to their participation in class and consider how successfully we have encouraged joint problem solving.

Task 3: Drawing upon a ready-made life lesson In Excerpt 8.2, Juana was found to attend to the language of a coda in her teacher’s narrative text. Excerpt 8.3a will show Juana doing so in her own story. Continuing my efforts to mediate students’ production of life lesson story structure, my intent for this third task was to provide a new form of help: a selection of ready-made lessons to frame their own narrative content. Preceding Excerpt 8.3a, Brian, their substitute teacher, told his own life lesson story, incorporating the English expression ‘you get what you pay for’ as the moral (see Appendix C for the transcript based on this telling). Following an examination of the language used in Brian’s narrative, I led a discussion about popular sayings in students’ native languages, encouraging the use of these expressions in their own tales.

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Juana, Yali, and Maya have been given a tape recorder and microphone. All three have prepared a written text at home, and each takes turns reading hers aloud. Juana begins.

Excerpt 8.3a Juana 1 01 02 03 04 05

(reading)) I am, I’m Juana. (.) My: life lesson. (.) ↑Two friends, (.) and one girl, (.) she likes, (.) someone but he not understand her and another one t↑ell her, I’:m, (.) in love you, and she said ↑it’s okay.

Excerpt 8.3a provides evidence that the resources afforded to her since her first telling have made a mark on Juana’s task conceptualisation. A basic narrative is made up of at least two events, in sequential and temporal order. While her first try at life lesson storytelling produced a weekly life report, her prepared text in Excerpt 8.3a displays the makings of a narrative. Unfolding events are being related – seemingly involving some kind of love conflict, with an apparent resolution expressed in the final line (‘she said it’s okay’). With the mention of protagonists in line 2 (‘two friends . . . and one girl’), Juana is also found to answer the question of ‘who?’ – an aspect of orientation structure which serves to provide background to the main action (Labov, 1972). At the same time, there is no evidence that Juana is telling a life lesson story. Despite the narrator’s introduction with the phrase ‘my life lesson’, there is no reference to Juana herself. Nor is there the presence of a coda to bridge the gap between the end of the story and the present. The next speaker is Maya.

Excerpt 8.3b Maya 1 01 02 03 04 05

((reading)) when I came from Puer-from the island of Puerto Rico, .hhh I went shopping with my neighbor. She did something that I didn’t like it, then I wai:t for her outside the store. I never trust ↑her to go noplace at all.

Maya’s telling shows a clearer and more expanded story than Juana’s. Beyond a sequence of events, other discourse units may be present in more developed narratives. These include: an abstract providing a general overview of the story to come, an orientation that provides background to the main action (who, what, when and where), an evaluation highlighting the narrator’s perspective and point of the telling, a final resolution and a coda (Labov, 1972). Told in the first person, Maya’s narrative begins with a brief orientation. At the heart of her story (lines 2–3), there is a core event sequence (‘I went shopping with my neighbor. She did something’), peppered with her personal evaluation of this local action (‘that I didn’t like it,’), and a resulting

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action (‘then I wait for her outside the store’). Besides displaying her stance relative to her neighbour’s action in line 3, Maya is also shown to evaluate the neighbour more generally in lines 4–5 (‘I never trust her to go noplace at all’), a statement that also functions as a coda by closing the story and revealing how its events affected the storyteller. At the same time, an element is missing: there is no conveyance of a broader lesson taken away from this incident. The third student to speak is Yali. As shown in Excerpt 8.3c, her story does culminate with a general statement linking the past events she describes and her present knowledge (in bold).

Excerpt 8.3c Yali 1 01 Juana: 02 Yali: 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

my name, ((reading)) my name is Yali. Uh: ((quiet laughter with classmate)) when I was come to the New York City everything looks different (.) and so modern and new to ↑me:. I (should) not have any problem but (.) settle down a few months. hh one day, I finish my work come back to home, a thief follow me in the apartment i::n front of the door. hhh he ask me g↑ive him money and bag especially when he wa-want wants to rob my handbag. My neighbor hear some noi:se, (.) hh he shout ss sssomebody ss down, downstair? No English. This Chinese. hh uh thief was run out door but long long t↑ihhhme I was heh heh nervous ((quiet laughter)) but I know now I have to feel comfortable live in New York.

Yali’s story includes nearly all of the higher order narrative units identified in Labov’s work. In lines 2–6, she orients her listeners to the central character of the main action (Yali herself), where it took place (New York City), and when it occurred – seemingly after she ‘settle down a few months’ (line 6). Her evaluation of this background information foretells the nature of the action to come. New York City is described through her own eyes in lines 4 and 5 (‘everything looks different . . . and so modern and new to me’), and an underlying feeling presented about this place in lines 5–6 (‘I (should) not have any problem’) creates a sense of anticipation – an apparent reference to an ensuing complication. In lines 7–12, a complicating action does arise, couched within a sequence of clauses describing Yali’s encounter with a ‘thief . . . in front of the door’ and her neighbour hearing ‘some noise’ and shouting out. Within this event sequence, another evaluative attribute commonly exhibited during conversational storytelling for dramatic effect is employed – the narrator’s line 12 impersonation of a character as she evokes

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her neighbour’s cry (Goffman, 1981; Labov, 1972). After the main action is resolved in line 13 (‘thief was run out door’), Yali puts forth an evaluation of her experience as a whole in lines 13–14 by stating that she was nervous for a long, long time. In the last two lines, her story comes full circle with her expression of a coda (‘but I know now I have to feel comfortable live in New York’). This statement, while not appearing to derive from a saying in her native language as suggested by her teacher, manifests Yali’s awareness of a key component of her storytelling task – an address of how a past experience has resonated with her in a far-reaching way. Through their varying enactments of the same open-ended task, a glimpse is provided into the language capacities of the three learners. However, their work is not yet finished. Following Yali’s telling, Maya is found to take the microphone again for a transformed narration (new information in bold).

Excerpt 8.3d Maya 2 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08

Maya Ortega hhh my expression i:s, (.) .hh teh-tell me who you a:re, (0.5) tell me who you walk ↑with .hh and you tell me who you are. .hhhhhh I came from Puerto Rico, from the island of Puerto Rico. I went shopping with my neighbor. .hhh she did something that I didn’t like it then I wait for the- for her outside. Outside the st↑o:re. I never trust her to go to- to noplace at all.

After fumbling with the tape recorder, in partial overlap with what appear to be her classmates’ voices, Maya’s telling continues. 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

uhhhh I deduct my: from my::: (0.2) li:fe, .hh (0.8) uh is that, .hh (.) I went shopping with with my neighbor. .hhh And then she did something, (.) I didn’t ↑like it (.) .hhh if-if >she did something I didn’t like it in the< sto:re. .hh uh (.) I think if the manager see me with her saw saw he- (.) saw me with her maybe he think I do the same ↑thing (0.5) >that’s< I- de- I- I uh: deduct from my story. (1.2) Because (this) my-my .hh (0.2) my life i:s, (.) tell me who you you walk (.) with and you tell me who you ↑are

Comparing Maya’s new text in Excerpt 8.3d with the one previously produced in Excerpt 8.3b, some developments are evident. The first is that Maya introduces her story with a new ‘expression’ in lines 1–3 (‘my expression i:s . . . .hh teh-tell me who you a:re . . . tell me who you walk with .hh

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and you tell me who you are’). Her false starts and pauses indicate that this addition to her story is being spontaneously generated. At the same time, the presence of this expression suggests that Maya’s prepared text has been based upon this expression – an English translation of a common Spanish axiom (‘dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres’). While it went unspoken during her first telling, it appears that Maya has followed her teacher’s suggestion and grounded her story in a native language saying. Her production of it after her story has already been told and, on the heels of Yali’s display of a personal lesson statement, suggests that a type of statement produced in a classmate’s life lesson story is serving as a model for Maya’s. Maya then reproduces the experience with her neighbour as has been told in Excerpt 8.3b. In lines 9–10, she appears to initiate further expansion of her narrative by explaining what the experience taught her (‘I deduct my: from my::: . . . lif:e, .hh . . . uh is that,’). Her pauses, fillers and sound stretches indicate that this new addition is also unplanned. While her deduction turns out to be a false start, it is taken up again in lines 12–13. After reproducing negative judgement of her neighbour’s action (‘I didn’t like it in the store’), Maya puts forth a new evaluative statement in lines 13–15 (‘I think if the manager see me with her saw saw he- . . . saw me with her maybe he think I do the same thing’). In the final four lines Maya shifts her story back to the present through the use of a deictic marker (Becker, 2005) (‘that’s I . . . deduct from my story’), and reiterates the expression she has previously stated (‘tell me who you you walk . . . with and you tell me who you are’). During her second telling, Maya’s narrative is shown to evolve in a number of ways. First, there is the clear presence of a life lesson statement (‘tell me who you walk with and you tell me who you are’), serving to ‘encapsulate the point’ of her tale at its start – a common function of an abstract, and expose ‘the effects of the events on the narrator’ at the end – the role of a coda (Labov, 1972: 363–365). Maya additionally provides a more in-depth evaluation of the main action described. The analysis shows that Maya’s inclusion of these new elements followed the narration of a well-developed story by her classmate, Yali. Through imitation, Maya appears to be drawing on the external support of her classmate’s life lesson story to grow her own. Subsequently, Juana is also found to take the microphone again.2 In Juana’s new telling, we witness what appears to be an imitative ‘domino effect’. Yali’s telling has encouraged the development of Maya’s story, which in turn serves to spark the development of Juana’s. New information in Juana’s turns is in bold type.

Excerpt 8.3e Juana 2 01 02 03

Juana:

my name is Juana. Uh huh Torres. My-this is (.) my life lesson. Two friends, and one girl. She likes someone (.) but he not understand (0.2) hher, and

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04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

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Maya: Maya: Juana: Maya: Juana: Maya: Juana: Maya: Juana: Maya: Juana: Maya: Juana: Maya: (Yali): Juana: Maya: Juana: (Teresa): Juana:

another one tell her (0.5) I:’m in love you, and she said it’s okay. Uh the explain is, (1.0) the explain is, (1.8) eh[::::] [(explain is,)] (0.2) uh:: (.) one of the guys, one of the guys, (1.0) (((consulting quietly with Teresa in Spanish))) SLEEP= =sleep one of the guy sleep um hm and another guy, eh::: (.) eh: (0.5) and th[e [eh::: be eh:::m wake up heh heh [heh heh= [yeah yeah yeah] =heh heh heh] .hhh wake up, .hh for [eh:: [(and) he told her I love you. (0.2) uh? I- [eh: he-] he told her I love you. heh heh heh [he told her,] (((quietly reproducing Spanish saying))) definition is the shrimp who sleep running into the water. yes $okay$

Juana’s textual additions show a beginning learner in an active process of meaning building. She visibly attends to two elements of narrative form, an evaluation and a coda, while working these forms into her text. It is also apparent that these intentional transformations are not independently produced. The recent engagement with new elements of narrative grammar by Maya, a more proficient classmate, in response to her peer Yali’s story, appears to be mediating Juana’s engagement with these same discourse structures. Juana is imitating another’s imitative activity. Her classmates’ tellings, and perhaps more importantly, their retellings, appear to be breaking down a challenging L2 task into manageable chunks, increasing the saliency of key evaluative and summative components of a life lesson story, and pointing Juana’s own story towards these same narrative elements.

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It is also evident that Juana’s narrative transformations in Excerpt 8.3e hinge upon the tailored support provided by her classmate on a moment-bymoment basis. The new evaluation element that Juana incorporates into her story in lines 5–28 (‘one of the guys sleep, and another guy wake up and he told her I love you’) is a co-construction – a sentence created turn by turn by Juana and Maya. Lines 31–32 clarify the thoughts contained within these emergent discourse units (‘the shrimp who sleep running into the water’). This statement is the learner’s translation of an axiom in her Spanish L1: (‘el camerón que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente’), and can be more accurately translated into English as: ‘the shrimp who sleeps gets carried by the current’. Like Maya (Excerpt 8.3d), Juana has based her story on a native language saying. Also like her classmate, Juana produces this saying as her final textual statement. In performing this action, Juana provides closure to her narrative by summarising its main theme, the function of a coda. The message: you snooze, you lose. Keeping this main message in mind, the series of clauses in the previous lines (‘one of the guys sleep, and another guy wake up and he told her I love you’) appears to function as an evaluation – not of events in her own life as her peers have displayed in their evaluatory statements, but rather of events that take place between ‘two friends and one girl’, her story protagonists. A clearer picture of Juana’s original text (Excerpt 8.3a and Excerpt 8.3e, lines 2–5) begins to emerge. The action and resolution seem to centre upon a love triangle between two male friends and a female. The female protagonist likes one of them, but he (metaphorically, the shrimp) does ‘not understand her’. He does not act. The other male tells her he loves her, and she approves (‘she said it’s okay’). The lack of initiative of one of the males (‘one of the guys sleep’) causes him to miss his opportunity, whereas the initiative taken by the other (‘and another guy wake up and he told her I love you’) allows him to seize his. The lesson to take away: the shrimp who sleeps gets carried by the current. Maya’s assistance in drawing out this meaning is shown to be highly tailored to Juana’s needs. She guides Juana, and at the same time allows her more novice peer to share control over the textual developments. In line 9, following Juana’s displayed trouble in verbalising the explanation (‘explain’) for the events in her story, Maya jumps in with a noun phrase to get her started (‘one of the guys,’). Her continuing intonation suggests that Maya is leaving the floor open for Juana to produce the next part of the sentence (cf. Lerner, 1995). After Juana affirms her assistor’s contribution in line 10, she continues with her story in line 13 by adding the verb ‘SLEEP’, uttered excitedly at increased volume. Juana adds another syntactic form to her story in line 17 – a noun phrase (‘and another guy,’) modelled closely after the first noun phrase supplied by Maya (‘one of the guys’) – and in line 20, she incorporates a second verb form: ‘wake up’. In these turns, the mark of Maya’s carefully provided support continues. During and following her line 17 turn, Juana’s fillers, sound stretches and pauses show that she is experiencing

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difficulty in continuing (Schegloff et al., 1977). In line 19, Maya appears to initiate help with a new addition (‘and the’). However, as Juana displays her determination to complete the thought herself in line 20 – in overlap with Maya’s assistive offer – Maya abandons the turn she started. In her line 20 turn, Juana continues to display difficulty, but Maya does not intervene. She waits through Juana’s displayed fillers and sound stretches to give her the space to express herself in her own time. We thus see examples of help, on Maya’s part, that are graduated and contingent (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994). Maya appears to be actively working to gauge the least amount of guidance that Juana needs to produce this element of narrative grammar. Assistance is ‘offered only when . . . needed and withdrawn as soon as the novice shows signs of self-control’ (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994: 468). Maya also supports her peer’s production through motivational backchannel responses (Tannen, 2005) – repeating content in Juana’s prior turns (lines 7, 14) and positively affirming her utterances (lines 16, 21–22). While Juana is not yet self-regulated as a life lesson storyteller in English, Excerpt 8.3e demonstrates that Juana’s ability to use the assistance she is offered is maturing. For her first try at life lesson storytelling, Juana was able to pull out pieces of language from a model story for imitation, but was unable to draw upon its underlying structure. However, following the provision of new resources in her classroom, Juana has produced a basic written narrative (Excerpt 8.3a), and has transformed her original text with targetlike additions (Excerpt 8.3e). As she works within her ZPF for life lesson storytelling over time, Juana is more effectively drawing upon the affordances available to her, and negotiating with others in her efforts to use their assistance. This finding has had an impact on how I use the time that I have with a given class today, and is a valuable insight for other practitioners in the field. I view my lesson plans more holistically now, focusing more on working with a class to develop and refine single pieces of work over long stretches of time. Along the way, I share my own texts that students might employ as tools for imitation, and ask students to share resources of their own with one another. Since my collection of this corpus, I have brought a narrative-based project to all of my second language classes. While telling a developed story is a challenging act, I have found that collaborative work with individuals’ narratives consistently brings about the kind of personal investment on the part of storytellers and audience members that encourages linguistic and textual growth, as Juana, Maya and Yali demonstrate.

Task 4: A life lesson story It is the last instructional session and, to celebrate, I have asked the students to present their life lesson stories to the whole class.3 Since Juana’s last

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try at the task (Excerpt 8.3e), I have continued to work to develop students’ awareness of narrative language by encouraging their use of substitute teacher Brian’s text (see Appendix C) as a resource for incorporating more details into their stories. Juana’s telling is presented in Excerpt 8.4. While some textual ambiguities remain, a developed life lesson narrative is shown. The point of her tale: Juana is an independent woman who takes care of herself. All 69 lines of this text are reproduced in Excerpt 8.4.

Excerpt 8.4 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Juana:

↑so I from Colombia right? (.) T: Y[ES Juana: [( ) from Colombia, T: um hm, (0.5) Juana: my daughter and me::, T: um hm, Juana: eh:: (0.8) I we were living wi-with my mother en in her house. (1.5) ↑One day, my mothe:r, este ((referring to text)) °I- must go:, with my mothe:r,° >were living with my< mother:, for eleven months. T: °um hm° Juana: eh: >°in her house.° Okay< one day, my mother talked to me, (.) J↑uana (0.5) eh: look eh look up for (a) new apartment. T: Uh (h) huh Juana: ah::::: (1.5) eh ((referring to text)) (0.5) you:, ((impersonating mother with high pitch)) you see yeah? Look at my ap↑artment. I say ↑o:kay:. (0.2) I:: my- so I went look (0.8) for apartment, I found o:ne, I::: (1.8) I ↑pay eight hundred dollars. Ss: ((expressing disbelief “wow” “oh” “tsk tsk” “ooh”)) Juana: for rent Ss: ((“oh” “ooh”)) Juana: Now: what is my surprise. (0.5) (Now) I pay (.) ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED Teresa: Why= T: =WHA:T? Juana: DOLLARS Jose: Wh-why [you payJuana: [Uh huh my RENT= Jose: =You pay? [You pay? (Antonio): [(pay)

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35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

Maya: Juana: Coco: Jose: Juana: Jose: Juana: Jose: Coco: Juana: T: Juana: Antonio: Juana: Jose: Juana: Jose: Antonio: Juana: Antonio: Juana: T: Jose: Juana: T: Juana:

°Fifteen hundred d[ollars° [now, ah ((expressing disbelief))) [now: too high now [what happened] [now [too high] yes too high= =what ↑happened. .hhhh I don’t know I go to the the office, talk to me explain me eh why what is the problem for= =yeah ri:ght (.) very good for you [you know [( ) it was the it was uh puh- uh (surprise) surprise huh ((students commenting)) the secretary says me problem the:: maybe problem (with) the computer. (.) Oh yE[A::H? [eh::: I’ll send I will send letter for you fo:r explain.= =for the background ye[ah [yeah (.) right (.) the= =yeah yeah yeah (yeah) how many months you pay (.) one hundred fifty dollars? How many months. Six months= =oh [( )] oh right= [( )] =six months (.) um[mm [ah::: sorry ↑okay my life lesson (it’s) important the i↑:nde↑pendence, um [hmm [eh:::m ((referring to text)) to work for our selves.

Two aspects of Juana’s performance in Excerpt 8.4 will be highlighted in order to draw attention to the social foundations of her narrative. First, this new text incorporates higher order units of narrative syntax that were absent during Juana’s first try at life lesson storytelling, but which participants in her task setting have attended to since. Secondly, her new narrative is conversational. It becomes negotiated over the course of its telling – ‘a result of . . . interactive work between teller and recipients’ (Monzoni, 2005: 198).

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In lines 1–20, Juana lays the foundation for the main events to come in a developed orientation section. In line 1, she introduces her text with the orientational ‘hook’ ‘so I from Colombia right?’ While lacking a verb form, this utterance shows her transforming, with personal content, the structure of an introductory clause used by Brian to embark upon his life lesson story (‘so . . . I’m from Brooklyn right?’). Later, in the evaluative clauses in lines 15–20, Juana permeates her storytelling with evaluative embedding, or internal evaluation, whereby the narrator quotes herself or others reacting to the story situation as it unfolds (Labov, 1972; Tannen, 2007). While this is the first time Juana is shown to employ this evaluative device, this is not the first time it has been used in her classroom. Juana’s peer Yali drew upon internal evaluation by animating her neighbour’s cry (Excerpt 8.3c, line 12). Her teacher and substitute teacher also employed it in their story texts (see Appendices B and C). In lines 15–16, Juana informs her audience of her need to move out of her mother’s house by bringing her mother’s voice to life (‘Juana . . . eh look eh look up for (a) new apartment’), and again, with higher pitch in lines 19–20 (‘you see yeah? Look at my apartment.’). Juana is also shown to enact her own response to her mother’s pressing requests in line 20 (‘I say okay’). In these evaluative utterances, the seeds of Juana’s story point are planted. The narrator shows herself, in abiding by her mother’s appeal, as an independent person. Juana is also shown to be negotiating an ongoing dialogue with her teacher and classmates. In seemingly reproducing an aspect of the storytelling behaviour they have exhibited, Juana works actively to draw her audience into the world of her current tale, and to spark their personal reactions to it. Indeed, as Juana’s text develops, the voices of those around her are increasingly heard. In line 21, the narrator introduces the first main event in her narrative sequence, ‘so I went look for apartment,’ and a subsequent narrative clause, ‘I found one,’ and in lines 22 and 24, she evaluates an aspect of this found apartment – the rental payments (‘I pay eight hundred dollars for rent’). Juana is seemingly casting judgement on the high cost of living on her own, and in lines 23 and 25, her audience members are found to do so too. Their choral tokens of sympathy and amazement (‘wow’, ‘oh’, ‘tsk tsk’, ‘ooh’) show Juana’s listeners aligning themselves with her. They also assist in developing her narrative as they respond to the content in her previous turn and encourage her to tell them more. In lines 26 and 27, Juana does this by stating that her rent became even higher (‘(Now) I pay . . . ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED’) – an evaluative revelation that provokes astonished reactions across the next 10 lines of transcript (lines 28–38). One strategy employed by the narrator to spark this engagement is observed in line 26 where she produces a WH-question as an evaluative clause (‘Now what is my surprise’). A question, as the first pair-part of an adjacency pair sequence, makes the second part of the pair, an answer, conditionally relevant (Sacks et al., 1974). Only Juana, however, knows the nature of this

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surprise, and as is shown in lines 26–27 (‘(Now) I pay . . . ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED’), she answers the question herself. However, by employing this first part of an adjacency pair, Juana works to involve her audience by provoking in her listeners an imagined response to the second.4 CA details also show the narrator building audience involvement at a paralinguistic level (Tannen, 2005), including her use of a strategic withinturn pause to build suspense prior to the big announcement of her rental increase (line 26), and her voicing of the new dollar amount in lines 26–27 at an increased volume. This attempt to draw in her listeners is shown to be successful as her classmates and teacher respond disbelievingly, evidenced in their clarification requests (line 28: ‘why’; line 29: ‘WHAT’; line 31: ‘Whwhy you pay’; line 33: ‘You pay? You pay?’), a quiet reiteration of the amount (line 35: ‘fifteen hundred dollars’), and an evaluative comment followed by a request for clarification (line 38: ‘now too high now what happened’). Juana uses interactive moulding or co-telling (Monzoni, 2005), as she twice abandons attempts to add new information to her tale to build a classmate’s commentary into it. In line 36, Juana appears to embark upon the continuation of her telling with the marker ‘now’ with continuing intonation, indication of a possible orientation shift (Schiffrin, 1987), but abandons this turn as her audience members display continued amazement at her rent amount – Coco with an ‘ah’ token in line 37, and Jose with his line 38 evaluative comment (‘now too high now’). This turn by Jose is spoken in overlap with another ‘now’ marker voiced by Juana in line 39 – a second apparent attempt by the narrator, and a second desertion of it, to return to her story. Immediately following Jose’s commentary, however, and in overlap with his ensuing request for clarification (‘what happened’), Juana finally takes a turn of her own. Instead of transitioning back into her story, however, Juana echoes and affirms the judgement produced by Jose in his prior turn (‘too high yes too high’). In lines 40–42, the co-telling between narrator and listener continues as Jose repeats his request for clarification about how the high rent came about (‘what happened’). Juana then answers this question (lines 41–42): first with an evaluative clause expressing her own confusion about the matter (‘I don’t know’); followed by her relating of new narrative events (‘I go to the office, talk to me explain me eh why what is the problem’). By responding to her classmate’s emergent question, one L2 learner’s intervention serves to help develop another’s story with new form, action and meaning. As her narrative works its way towards closure, Juana continues to add new evaluative information and details, and her listeners continue to participate in drawing out this content. Finally, in lines 65–69, Juana is found to close her life lesson telling with a coda that is clearly stated (‘okay, my life lesson (it’s) important the independence . . . to work for ourselves’). The events she has described have seemingly led up to this ‘life lesson’ coda – examples of Juana taking independent action in her life by leaving her mother’s home and looking for a new apartment, finding one, and upon the rent

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being nearly doubled, going to the building office and demanding an explanation which apparently brings the problem to its resolution. In Excerpt 8.4, Juana’s internal control over the structural elements of narrative grammar in her L2 is seen. The reverberations of this work are seen in Juana’s reproduction of language structures that others in her classroom employed to enrich their tellings, including a developed orientation section, units of evaluation and a coda. Juana is also shown not only to manage the constituents of a discourse structure in her second language, but to do so conversationally. In everyday conversation, narratives are not monologues, but dialogues. They become co-constructed as narrators tailor their stories to audiences, and respond to their emergent contributions (Mandelbaum, 2013). Juana’s growing self-regulation at life lesson storytelling is exemplified by her ability to manage her telling spontaneously and responsively, navigating its elements within a dynamic setting where participants share control over the unfolding discourse. Juana’s development of this L2 speech event has been rooted in her classroom’s open-ended activity over time. The conversational narrative in Excerpt 8.4 is an extension of an ongoing conversation through which this learner has reconceptualised and reconstructed a life lesson story. Gradually, in their relational and goal-directed activity, Juana has made deep units of narrative structure produced by her teachers and classmates her own.

More on Applying the Findings These data support what many teachers report from the field. However careful we are in planning a lesson, it is often in fleeting moments that we must make pivotal choices about what we see our learners doing. While being surprised by my students was a common occurrence in my teaching practice, conducting this study gave me the opportunity to slow down and open a window onto what contributed to the unexpected. As noted by others (e.g. Macbeth, 2011), it is vital for educators to understand the processes through which students come to understand. Microanalysis gave me the opportunity to examine the processes of my lessons as closely as their products. What I found was that I could not pinpoint a particular discursive pattern or dialogic phenomenon that contributed to language learning. Juana’s experiences did not emphasise a specific linguistic device or feedback mechanism but rather an open-ended process grounded in the quality of her interactional experiences over time (see Lantolf & Poehner, 2011a). While I have always seen relationship building in the classroom as important, in reviewing and writing about this corpus I was continually struck by how difficult it was to tease apart aspects of Juana’s participation from the participatory behaviours of those surrounding her. Using CA informed and deepened my understanding of what productive dialogue means in a teaching and learning

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context. I pay more attention to how I respond to my students, and how they respond to one another. As I taught, and as I studied the discourse data, I found myself moving back and forth between numerous conversations: with my students, our recordings, Vygotskyan sociocultural scholars, myself. There is a growing body of research bringing L2 instructors and sociocultural investigators together to consider how teachers can at once diagnose students’ needs, orient themselves to these needs, and intervene in ways that will guide learners toward development (Davin, 2013; Lantolf & Poehner, 2011a, 2011b; Poehner, 2009). However, while classroom-based studies on dynamic assessment exist (Davin, 2013; Lantolf & Poehner, 2011a; Poehner, 2009), as well as a teacher’s guide (Lantolf & Poehner, 2011b), the sociocultural approach to second language acquisition is still considered an alternative approach (Atkinson, 2011). For this perspective to enter mainstream conversations about second language teaching, testing and learning, the work of instructors and scholars must come together, and more often. Such collaborations necessarily involve moving beyond a consideration of pedagogical instruments, methods and forms of feedback into a deeper discussion about how to bring about ‘coregulation’, whereby a means of support is not only provided, but becomes grounded in a learner’s responsiveness which ‘also regulates the teacher and her subsequent attempts at assisting the learner’ (Lantolf & Poehner, 2011a: 18). As this study shows, such processes cannot happen without real classroom communication, and rely upon teachers’ experiences in the field, thereby serving to ‘enhance new communality’ between research and praxis (Sarangi & van Leeuwen, 2003). Indeed, as Vygotsky proposed, ‘the highest test of a theory is practice’ (quoted in Lantolf, 2008: 19). In this age of accelerated learning and standardised testing, and with the product-oriented view of language development so prevalent in assessment and instructional materials for second language learners, it is especially critical that such materials honour learning as a process. While defining openness as a construct is inherently paradoxical, by presenting a snapshot of how open-ended tasks became occasioned in one classroom this framework for activity serves as a tool for adaptation in diverse educational settings. Like the study findings themselves, I see the dissemination of this framework as necessarily conversational. These are discussions that need to move beyond academic conferences and into our own schools. Inviting other instructors to examine more closely, not just what we are teaching, but how, is a starting place. Playing back the discourse excerpts presented here, eliciting feedback, and discussing the relevance of an open-ended task model in light of the varying pressures we face as educators, can raise awareness about the complex demands of our profession, and lead to shifts in the kinds of conversations we have with our students, our colleagues and our administrators. These open-ended task data have shown classroom participants grappling with live storytelling. Juana’s work with narrative was shown to tap

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into her developing abilities as a conversant, an aspect of language development too often overlooked in instructional materials for second language students. However, the work of narrative taps into something deeper than communicative competence. Kramsch (2009: 199) writes of growing our students’ symbolic competence, the development of their capacity ‘to take symbolic action and to exercise symbolic power’. By bringing a memory from the past to life in her second language, and representing it symbolically to others in narrative form, the discourse data here show an experience from Juana’s life being given ‘meaning, coherence, and a sense of purpose’ (Kramsch, 2009: 201). Hull and Katz (2006) promote students’ use of storytelling in a multimodal, digital format; Archakis and Tsakona (2012) propose a critical language pedagogy through which learners investigate the narrative construction of identities. This study points to a need to move beyond our continued emphasis on grammar-based activities in TESOL, and to further consider, develop and disseminate narrative-based practices in our classrooms. Students’ stories should be told.

Concluding Thoughts Roberts (2003: 134) calls upon applied linguists to move beyond reflection to produce reflexive accounts – ‘reflections that are turned back on ourselves – to a self understanding which itself produces change in us and our work’. I was still in the early stages of reading about sociocultural theory when I was teaching the class presented here, and Vygotsky’s ZPD concept appeared easy enough to grasp. However, it was only in applying this concept turn by turn to my discourse data that I came to understand its depth. In Juana’s discourse I could see evidence, not only of Juana’s language and the language of other classroom participants, but also what they aimed to accomplish, and their histories and their resources, including those that they themselves were constructing through dialogue (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994). My work as a researcher provides support for Vygotsky’s developmental theory: that the internalisation of new knowledge occurs through social activity, and that this process takes time. And within my everyday practices as a teacher (Roberts, 2003), I continue to work to engage this finding, and to engage other teachers in it as well.

Appendix A: Model Narrative 1 Narrative 1: Happiness is a journey not a place (Greta) My husband is a real optimistic guy, sometimes overoptimistic. Most of the time of his life he is like this. Sometimes he can be even like this. I’m

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a pretty optimistic person. Most of the time I’m like this. Sometimes I’m even like this. But if something is going wrong and I have problems, I can also be like this. Then I can get pretty depressed. When this happens, my husband Robert reins me in with his optimism and says: ‘Es ist keine Schande hinzufallen, aber es ist eine Schande liegen zu bleiben’. In English this means: ‘Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but rising every time we fall.’ Since we are in NYC a lot of our friends have already visited us. All of them have liked it here very much. But there is always an exception to every rule. One of them didn’t like NYC – my friend Ina. Before she came here, she got some impressions about New York from ‘Sex and the City’. When she came, she compared the New York lifestyle with what she saw on this TV show. Nothing in New York was the same. The town was too noisy for her. There were so many people everywhere. The bars were too kitschy. She couldn’t find any clothes. She couldn’t sleep, the food was bad and she didn’t feel well. In general, she sees the glass half empty. As I told you about my husband’s optimism, he sees the glass half full every time. This means those two aren’t that good a match. So her visit was kind of complicated and afterwards I got really depressed, maybe like her. My husband comforted me as usual, this time with a little present, which shows a healthy philosophy of life and a good life lesson for my friend Ina: ‘Happiness is a journey, not a place.’ I want to point out that Ina is still my friend as the picture shows. Notes: All reproduced story texts were provided to the students as handouts. Language in bold type was analysed by the participants.

Appendix B: Model Narrative 2 Narrative 2: Haste makes waste (Gabrielle) Haste makes waste. I learned this when I first got married. My husband is very organized. He wakes up early, makes the coffee, and reads the paper in the morning. He is always on time and is never late. I usually oversleep, press the snooze button on my alarm clock, and am always in a hurry. One day, as usual, I was rushing to get out of the house. It was 8:00 AM and I was running late for work. My husband was sitting at the table, eating breakfast. I was packing my bags, sipping my coffee, and trying to find my keys at the same time. As I ran out the door, my husband yelled out: ‘You forgot to kiss me! Haste makes waste!’ Now, every day I get up early – not as early as my husband, of course. But I always leave enough time to kiss my husband goodbye. I have learned that haste makes waste.

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Note: All reproduced story texts were provided to the students as handouts.

Appendix C: Model Narrative 3 Narrative 3: You get what you pay for (Brian) BRIAN:

So . . . I’m from Brooklyn, right? I was born in Brooklyn, I grew up in Brooklyn. And I was in Brooklyn two weeks ago and I was going to meet Gabi and uh I was really late. And she got a little upset ’cause I was like late. But I was late because I took the bus. Anyway, so, um, yeah, a funny thing happened on the bus. Yeah, it was a really strange bus ride. So first of all, the bus came right away. I was pretty surprised – it came fast. I didn’t have to wait! So, I um, I got on the bus and it was a free bus! I didn’t have to pay, can you believe it? Yeah, the money box was broken. So I looked at the bus driver and he gives me this big smile and he says: ‘It’s your lucky day! Free bus!’ So I sat down and then this big lady she like sits down next to me and she has this big peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And she asked me if I want a bite. But I said, ‘no thank you.’ And then like this crazy thing happens. The bus driver turns around and he um asks us this question. You know what he asked us? He asked us – get this – he asked us which way to go, ’cause he was lost! He was a lost bus driver. So we told him to go left and then right but he was like confused and so I was late. So, the bus driver got lost and I was late. And Gabriela got a little bit upset. GABRIELA: I wanted to beat him up! BRIAN: So the bus was free but I was late. You get what you pay for. Note: All reproduced story texts were provided to the students as handouts.

Notes (1) A section of this analysis previously appeared in Kahn (2012). (2) This follows a brief question and answer sequence by Juana and Maya, and Maya’s reproduction of her transformed story another time. (3) Students have been told that they may refer to notes but may not read from a prepared text. (4) Juana’s substitute teacher was also found to employ this same involvement strategy in his story, You Get What You Pay For (Appendix C).

9

Interpreter-mediated Parent–Teacher Talk Elena Davitti

Investigating actual practice through the analysis of authentic data has proved a very fertile ground for understanding how institutions communicate with lay people through the analysis of what practitioners do in interaction. Such research has yielded interesting accounts of practice and its potential breakdowns and has helped develop collaborative solutions to interactional problems, particularly in monolingual contexts (Antaki, 2011a; Richards & Seedhouse, 2005; Stokoe, 2011). An extra layer of complexity is added when such interaction takes place between people from different sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds, therefore needing a dialogue interpreter1 to enable communication between them. Through the adoption of micro-analytical approaches to authentic data, such as discourse and conversation analysis, research carried out over the last two decades has produced insight into the complex dynamics of ‘triadic exchanges’ (Mason, 2001), particularly in institutional settings such as healthcare (Baraldi & Gavioli, 2007; Bolden, 2000; Bot, 2005) and courtrooms (Berk-Seligson, 1990a, 1990b; Mikkelson, 2008; Morris, 2008). Studies have shown that interpreters do not ‘simply’ translate, but they also act as coordinators and intercultural mediators (Baraldi & Gavioli, 2012; Wadensjö, 1998). In other words, they are active participants in a communicative pas de trois (Wadensjö, 1998) who handle not only differences in language practices, but also in cultural and institutional norms, values and expectations, building on the assumption that language and culture are closely intertwined dimensions and cannot be considered as separate entities. Although considerable progress has been made in understanding dialogue interpreting dynamics in professional settings through micro-analytical lenses, studies have remained mainly confined to academic circles, without offering a plan of dissemination and application of their findings in the places of practice.2 The present chapter shows how findings can be taken to the next level of reaching out to the stakeholders. To this end, it reports on findings from the analysis of a specific type of encounter within the educational setting, i.e. interpreter-mediated parent–teacher meetings (PTMs), 176

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which are considered within the framework of application and praxis. The micro-analytical, step-by-step approach adopted and the dissemination plan proposed here hope to change the attitude towards these research findings, feed into a raising awareness framework and eventually find their way into actual application. This setting was chosen because it represents a strategically important life domain where it has become routine for teachers to interact with parents with linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. PTMs are crucial moments for the establishment of a fruitful dialogue and good working relationship between two ‘overlapping spheres’ of society (Epstein, 1995) and interdependent institutions, i.e. family and school (Pillet-Shore, 2001), each playing a vital role in children’s intellectual and social development, growth and learning outcomes (Bobetsky, 2003; Carter, 2002; Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Sanders & Epstein, 2000; Xu & Gulosino, 2006). Due to their mediated nature, the encounters analysed here represent instances of intercultural scenarios in which communication barriers could seriously undermine the unfolding of the event, and jeopardise the establishment of collaborative relationships, with potentially profound repercussions on the children’s school life. Interpreters are often called in to redress such imbalance and ensure the ‘promotion and fair distribution of active participation (equity), display of sensitivity for the interlocutors’ interests and/or needs (empathy), and treatment of alternative perspectives as enrichment (empowerment)’ (Baraldi, 2012: 299). However, traditional codes of conduct often fail to provide effective guidance for both interpreters and service providers on how to handle such meetings, as they build on the old-fashioned view of interpreters as conduits of meaning. Likewise, education and training communication programmes do not provide teachers with linguistically and culturally sensitive or interactionally oriented approaches. Examples from real life are often not present or only anecdotal and do not engage with the finegrained details of talk and how it is co-constructed. In line with the communicative pas de trois metaphor, Henry (1996: 182) states that ‘[parent-teacher communication] is a dance [. . .] between teacher and student and parent and child and parent and teacher and so on. Knowing when to respond and when to let go [. . .] is a subtle communication of letting each other know what our needs are and how we can help each other’. In mediated interactions, interpreters actively guide this dance through their contributions, which need to be explored closely to see whether they respond to the challenge of creating a ‘bridge’ between parents and teachers. Finding an intersection between empirical observations and training has proven an issue for a number of reasons. One of these is the lack of and difficulty in collecting sufficient ‘raw material’ for meaningful analysis, i.e. real (video-)recorded interaction, mainly due to ethical and confidential reasons and to the sensitive nature of the encounters. Except for Davitti (2012, 2013), PTMs remain an almost uncharted territory in empirical, evidence-based

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studies on dialogue interpreting. Despite the great progress made towards dismantling old-fashioned, prescriptive views of interpreting, current research is still stuck in a descriptive stage, and is struggling to make findings immediately relevant to praxis.

Overview of Pertinent Literature Parent–teacher meetings (PTMs; also known as parent–teacher interviews, conferences or evenings) are complex settings. They can be defined as the most institutionalised and common way for parents and teachers to interact with one another and engage in face-to-face interaction (Hanhan, 1998: 116) and represent unique interactional events carried out as part of schools’ obligations to report to parents on children’s achievements, performance and attitude in the classroom (Afflerbach & Johnston, 1993; Cuttance & Stokes, 2000; De Moulin, 1992). On the one hand, teachers convene PTMs and tend to steer the overall organisation, even though the lack of a rigid agenda may allow for certain flexibility of topics, tasks and activities. PTMs represent an opportunity to share progress or concerns and to update families about recent changes in the education system, curricula or testing. Parents, on the other hand, have a chance to respond to teacher’s reports or evaluations and to clarify any other issues which may help obtain a clear picture of the child, including strengths and weaknesses (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2004). This suggests that the parents’ role is not merely receptive; rather, they expect to be considered on an equal footing by educators (Lindle, 1989) in that they complement teacher’s knowledge through additional information and feedback about the child at home, thus actively contributing to forming an assessment of the child and providing the basis for improving student learning (Bastiani & Doyle, 1994; Macbeth, 1995; Tomlinson, 1991; Wolfendale, 1993). PTMs are therefore much more than sites for reporting on children’s achievements: they represent the ‘cornerstone of parent-teacher communication’ (Sanchez & Orellana, 2006: 212), in that they ‘provide an interface between two social institutions: the school and the family [. . .] to discuss the individuals for whom they both serve as fundamental agents of socialization: the students’ (Pillet-Shore, 2001: 4). Badger (2007: 11) defines PTMs as ‘boundary phenomena’ in the sense that they are placed in the ‘treacherous and tender terrain’ (Lightfoot, 2003: xxix) where schools and families meet and intersect (Bastiani & Wolfendale, 1996; MacLure & Walker, 2000), thus constituting ‘a point at which the boundaries between school and home cultures become permeable’ (Walker, 1998: 3). This widely accepted conceptualisation of PTMs is the one embraced in this study, i.e. as two-way conversations which provide an opportunity for parents to learn about their children’s progress in school and for teachers to gain insights into their students’ attitudes and behaviours at home.

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Research on monolingual parent–teacher communication and home– school relationships over the last three decades is quite extensive3 but mostly done in English-speaking contexts: Australia (Badger, 2007; Baker & Keogh, 1995; Cuttance & Stokes, 2000), the US (Pillet-Shore, 2001; Wine, 2007) and the UK (MacLure & Walker, 2000). Despite the variety of conceptual and methodological frameworks adopted, such studies tend to confirm that the effectiveness of PTMs largely depends on the ability of teachers and parents to build ‘productive boundaries between and bridges across them’ (Lightfoot, 2003: xxiii). However, early literature on monolingual PTMs is prescriptive in nature as it provides guidelines for both parents and teachers on how to get ready for these meetings and interact with each other, without always clarifying the analytical grounds of such recommendations (e.g. Faber & Mazlish, 1995; Fuller & Olsen, 1998; Lawler, 1991; McLoughlin, 1987; Newman, 1997; Rotter et al., 1987; Studer, 1993; Swiderek, 1997). More recent research has maintained this prescriptive nature and has often been used as the basis for developing training material freely available on the internet and aimed at a large audience of practitioners and parents. Such documents tend to be strongly oriented to praxis: they are produced in the form of tip sheets or handouts and their primary aim is to provide practical suggestions and guidelines on how to hold successful meetings and make the most out of them. This is the case, for instance, of HFRP (2010), Parent– Teacher Conference Tip Sheets – for Principals, Teachers, and Parents, which excerpts tips from three main pieces of research (Henderson et al., 2007; Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2003; Pappano, 2007), organised according to target reader (principal, teacher or parent) and timing (before/during/after the encounter). Such materials generally include sections for teachers on how to communicate with parents effectively. Communicative strategies include using a friendly, non-threatening tone, conveying interest, empathy and a genuine caring for parents, building rapport, reflecting affect, using everyday language instead of educational jargon, and clarifying statements to ensure accurate understanding (Evans, 2004; Graham-Clay, 2005; Williams & Cartledge, 1997). General exhortations to listen actively to parents and encouraging more talk are also commonly found. However, these guidelines seem to be derived top-down from prescriptive approaches to the analysis of this type of communicative event, thus failing to fully ‘capture the subtleties of how that is actually done in real talk, and how a person can come across as engaged, supportive and attentive’ (Stokoe et al., 2012: 487); they also do not provide clear pointers about how to deal with potential communication issues (such as parents’ lack of response or reticence to interact) during the interaction. Hence the need to reverse the approach and develop training tools and materials grounded in the analysis of authentic data, to be used as a starting point for dissemination. Among the studies which have been particularly inspiring for the present work are Wine (2007), Badger (2007), Randall (1991) and Pillet-Shore (2001,

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2003), which build on the analysis of real data to draw ‘processual’ guidelines, rather than prescriptive ones, i.e. underlying principles to guide practice which are based on detailed micro-analysis of real-life scenarios. A lot remains, however, to be discovered about the way parents and teachers interact during these encounters. A better understanding of monolingual contexts may also lead to improved performances when interpreters are involved. Based on the literature review of monolingual PTMs, parent–teacher cooperation and parental involvement emerge as essential components to successful PTMs. These elements are closely intertwined and they need to be achieved through constant and mutual interaction; interpreters play a critical role in shaping relational and interpersonal dynamics. The following two sections will serve as a reference framework when considering the implications of the findings obtained.

Challenges to parent-teacher cooperation and parental involvement While the values of the home–school relationship (Bobetsky, 2003; Epstein, 1992; Fager & Brewster, 1999) and parental involvement (Angelides et al., 2006; Cuttance & Stokes, 2000; Jordan et al., 2001; Xu & Gulosino, 2006) are self-evident and universally accepted, knowing how to effectively achieve them is not always apparent (Bastiani, 1991; Walker, 1998). Cooperation, solidarity and understanding among the parties cannot be assumed, but must be co-constructed and negotiated among the interactants to create a supportive environment to discuss students’ academic performance (Walker, 1998) and work together as partners in managing and supporting children’s learning (Cuttance & Stokes, 2000). These tasks go beyond simply sharing information about the child; they entail actively seeking new solutions, taking on new roles, sharing knowledge, resources, power and responsibility, and tailoring new strategies to the individual needs of each party involved (e.g. Andrews, 2008; Miller, 1981; Thompson, 2008). To achieve this, teachers act as co-operators (Wine, 2007), appealing to a common ground and avoiding negativity explicitly expressed, detrimental to successful parental involvement (Montgomery, 2005), while keeping control over the event and avoiding crossing ‘the line between inquiry and intrusiveness’ (Lighfoot, 2003: 72). This is particularly important in the case of diverging agendas or competing views on students’ abilities, conduct and skills, which may turn PTMs into a site for conflict (Baker & Keogh, 1997; Walker, 1998), e.g. parents disagreeing with teachers (Cuttance & Stokes, 2000), questioning their knowledge or teaching methods (Baker & Keogh, 1995) or even producing a different assessment of students’ conduct and achievements. Parents may also perceive these meetings as teacher-reporting events, characterised by a unidirectional flow of information (Power & Clark, 2000; Wine, 2007) and during which any offers to complement

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teachers’ knowledge are rejected or downplayed, thus making parents feel powerless and ‘voiceless’ (MacLure & Walker, 1999; Walker, 1998). Handling these events is challenging and can be ultimately boiled down to issues with ‘communicating’, which is one of the six components of Epstein’s (1987) framework of parental involvement. Most literature suggests that teachers should, for instance, carefully frame and mitigate the dispreferred value of negative reports and undesired recommendations, using hedging devices, prosodic shifts and softeners (Baker & Keogh, 1995; MacLure & Walker, 1999) as well as ‘strive to use a variety of effective strategies to make communication with parents as informative and interactive as possible, incorporating new communication methods and yet retaining the human touch’ (Graham-Clay, 2005: 121). How to develop these strategies? Too often teachers are not specifically trained to communicate effectively with parents (Hradecky, 1994; Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2004; Sheridan & Kratochwill, 1992). Hence the call for professional development programmes actively promoting communication skills for teachers launched, among others, by Caspe (2003). The added value of the micro-analytical and sequential approach adopted here lies in using real-life data as the bedrock to identify ‘micro discourse routines’ (Roberts et al., 2004), assess their impact and develop a repertoire of practices to enhance parent–teacher talk and to overcome communication challenges.

From monolingual to mediated PTMs The specific setting presented in this chapter is characterised by a third player in addition to traditional parent and teacher participants, i.e. the interpreter, whose presence necessarily modifies the configuration and dynamics of the meeting. Thus, achieving PTMs’ objective proves even more challenging. Hence the need for empirical research ‘on the way that not sharing the same language affects parent-teacher meetings’ (Wine, 2007: 180). In PTMs, interpreters are responsible for enabling the meeting to run smoothly, maintaining its cooperative character, establishing a common ground and giving both parties the possibility to fully understand what is going on and interact on a level playing field. Interpreters are therefore constantly confronted with a difficult balancing act, i.e. to what extent should they identify with or distance themselves from one party or the other, what are their tasks, socio-epistemic rights and responsibilities in the interaction. To ensure parental involvement, interpreters need to create opportunities for parents, who normally occupy the most vulnerable position, to talk and express their views, thus contributing to a truly bi-directional flow of information and knowledge integration. This is particularly the case in intercultural PTMs, where parents seem to refrain more from raising questions or objections, possibly also by virtue of the power differential characterising these events (Davitti, 2012). To this end, some kind of active participation

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on the part of interpreters is necessary; how this manifests itself and its impact on the overall unfolding of the interaction are the items on which professional stakeholders need to be sensitised.

The Study: Data, Analytical Focus and Method In order to exemplify how dissemination may work, central findings will be first showcased. For this chapter, three examples from a much larger corpus of authentic, video-mediated interaction were selected. Data consist of approximately four hours of interaction between teachers and parents from migrant families that were video-recorded in Italian (PTM1 and PTM3) and British (PTM2) pedagogical settings. Meetings are comparable in terms of the number of participants (two teachers, T1 and T2; one mother, M; one interpreter, INT), language pair (English and Italian) and conversational purposes. All the interpreters hold qualifications and experience in the field, but have never worked with any of the families or schools before. The focus of the original study (Davitti, 2012) was to investigate whether and, if so, how, a specific discursive practice recurrently found across my corpus, i.e. interpreter-produced expansions, encourage or hinder parental involvement and understanding of their lifeworld, namely their everyday life, experiences, problems and concerns (Mishler, 1984, my emphasis). Very little research, mainly carried out in the field of mediated doctor–patient interaction, provides authentic data-based examples of how an interpreter might practically (fail to) achieve or enact understandings of such dimension, and encourage patients’ active participation in interaction (Baraldi & Gavioli, 2012; Hsieh, 2007, 2008). Expanding on the content of a source utterance in the passage to the rendition traditionally falls within the ‘don’ts’ of interpreting, i.e. interpreters are traditionally supposed to translate what is said verbatim. However, discourse-based empirical studies of mediated interaction have highlighted that, in many respects, dialogue interpreters tend to depart from the gold standard of close, turn-by-turn renditions (Baraldi & Gavioli, 2014). These departures cannot, however, automatically be labelled as bad practice, but require a more fine-grained analysis. This has shifted the question from ‘whether’ to ‘how’ interpreters can intervene in interaction, and with what effect. The type of expansions considered here are not ‘factual’ elaborations aiming to clarify a culture-bound term or simplify some potentially obscure expressions. The instances selected resemble Wadensjö’s (1998) category of emphatic expansions, in that they are interpreter-initiated contributions seemingly playing an affiliative, interpersonal function. A close scrutiny of the sequences in which such expansions occur in combination with specific verbal and non-verbal cues displayed by all parties is enabled by the

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micro-analytical tools of conversation analysis (CA; Atkinson & Heritage, 1984; Heritage, 2004b; Hutchby & Woofitt, 2008; Sacks, 1992; Sacks et al., 1974; Schegloff, 2007) and multimodal analysis (Kendon, 1990; Mondada, 2006a, 2006b, 2009a, 2009b; Rossano, 2012a, 2012b). The following three excerpts illustrate key findings that will help us achieve a better understanding of the interplay of factors that may lead to the production of expansions and of the impact that these specific interactional moves can have on parental involvement, i.e. whether they act as inhibitors or facilitators. The excerpts also show that this conversational move is not the result of any a priori negotiation, but rather of a finelytuned, local coordination between interpreter and teachers which establishes the praxeological and contextual conditions for former to take the floor and produce the expansion. Last but not least, the analysis will show the fluidity and multi-layered nature of interpreter’s roles in the triad: depending on the topic, interlocutors (lack of) response and stage in the interaction, they may shift from relayers to authors and principals, thus providing empirical evidence of the flexibility or ‘mundane creativity’ (Roberts, 2011) inherent in their task. The selected excerpts are first described here following the format of a guided data session, i.e. semi-guided sessions led by researchers with target groups aimed at helping stakeholders engage in the direct, fine-grained observations of real practice data, and isolate and discuss relevant phenomena with emphasis on reflexivity (for details about the design and implementation of such activity, please refer to Davitti & Pasquandrea, 2014). The sort of sequences identified represent ‘sites for interaction where important communicative moments occur’ (see Grujicic-Alatriste, Chapter 1). Each of them is described step-by-step in order to enable the target audience to follow and understand its sequential unfolding. Such data are not presented as a model to replicate, but rather as discussion material through which practitioners are encouraged to problematise specific interactional features on the basis of close observation and understanding of naturally occurring data.

Showcasing the Findings The following three excerpts of authentic mediated PTMs presented are showcased here because: (1) they all present instances of interpreter-initiated expansions; (2) they are taken from the moment when teachers have just delivered their report about the child or put forward a request to the family; and (3) all the issues discussed are very delicate due to the academic and/or behavioural problems experienced by the students. Drawing on Pillet-Shore’s taxonomy to describe the major phases in which a prototypical PTM is divided (Pillet-Shore, 2001: 24), the sequences analysed can be placed between Phase 2, i.e. ‘reasons for and topics of the

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conference: progress and problems’, and Phase 3, i.e. ‘parents question teachers’. In monolingual interaction, at this point parents usually provide their own views and feedback to the teachers and voice their concerns. If this occurs, parents and teachers engage in a negotiation which normally terminates when they reach a mutually agreed upon solution or a plan to support the student. In the mediated sequence presented below, the interactional work autonomously produced by the interpreters seems to have a considerable bearing on such dynamics. The first two excerpts analysed (Excerpts 9.1 and 9.2) will look at instances of expansions as inhibitors of parental involvement, focusing on how they can be co-constructed in interaction. Just as a quick reminder, the following abbreviations are used in the transcripts below: teachers are referred to as T1 and T2; mother as M; interpreter as INT.

Excerpt 9.1: ‘It is really normal for a child to forget’ Excerpt 9.1 (PTM1) starts off with T1 expressing a concern, i.e. the lack of interaction with the family.

Excerpt 9.1a 1 2 3 4

T1:

ecco una cosa che ci manca un pochetti:no è il rapporto con la famig- con la right what we lack a bit is the relationship with the family with the famiglia (.) gli avvisi non vengono firmati (1.51) ehm::: (.) percui non sappiamo family notices are not signed so we never know mai se quando deve uscire pri::ma o:: c’è qualco:sa (.) dobbiamo telefonare a if when he has to leave earlier or there is something we need to call casa (.) per essere sicure che poi siano: letti e questo è un po’ un problema home to make sure that these are read and this is a bit of a problem

Lines 1–4 frame the lack of awareness of any communications from the teachers as a ‘problem’; this is done with recourse to a series of mitigating devices, namely modifiers like un pochettino (line 1) or codas such as e questo è un po’ un problema (line 4), which downtone the dispreferred nature of the utterance. T1’s statement becomes more explicit in INT’s rendition (lines 5–13) through the use of the extreme case formulation you never sign (line 10),

Figure 9.1 Seating arrangement of Excerpt 9.1

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which is more direct than the formulation used by T1 (gli avvisi non vengono firmati, line 2), and the instruction pronounced with emphasis on the verb (they NEED to be signed, line 13).

Excerpt 9.1b 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

INT: ok (.) so she said that with BK it’s ok (.) but (.) th- the problem they have is when they want to communicate with you with the parents (.) because for example when they send som::e ehm:: notice home to be: signed (1.53) M: si (xxx) yes INT: you never sign (.) this is a problem because there ar:e for example some meetings with the teacher T1: ((cough)) INT: they NEED to be signed

At this point, M, despite her broken English, responds that she actually signs any notices she receives (lines 14–19). This is reported back by INT at lines 22–23, and opens up the possibility of an alternative narrative.

Excerpt 9.1c 14

M:

15 16 17

INT: INT: M:

18 19 20 21 22

INT: T1: M: T1: INT:

23 24 25

T1: T1:

no I (will signed) it (.) [ehm:::^ (.) that’s ehm them sends me la: la: car- folio the paper- sheet [ok yes send me casa (.) and I will (signed) (.) I see that I will sign it house [ok [mhm si perceh quind- lei dice che quando lei riceve un av[viso* e lo vede questo foglio [con so she is saying that when she receives a notice and she actually sees the sheet with I’avviso* lei (.) lo firma the notice she signs it [si [ecco

T1, in turn, asks whether it is the child who maybe forgets to show notices to the mother (line 26). Before INT’s translation, M self-selects while looking at INT (lines 28–36) and provides yet another alternative explanation of why she does not attend meetings in school, namely due to her lack of knowledge of Italian (lines 31–35). Through this contribution, M clearly expresses an obstacle which is preventing her from becoming more involved in the child’s school life. This is promptly echoed back to T1 by INT (lines 40–41).

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Par t 2: Educat ional Set t ings

Excerpt 9.1d 26 T1: 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

INT: M:

34 35 36 37

INT: INT: M: INT:

INT: M: INT: M:

38 INT: 39 M: 40 INT: 41 42 T1: 43 T1: 44 T1:

percui è BX che a volte si dimentica di farglielo vedere? so it is BX who sometimes forgets to show you [ah:: [ah::* ehm I will: n- not attend meetings in school (2.48) sorry? ah: m- meetings is I I will not attend (.) in s- school yeah there was a meeting ah: [si no no no* meetings is not attend yes [(there was a meeting) but you didn’t go eh: [because: I* don’t know italiano [quando c’era (la riunione)? when was the meeting ok ehm: si eh la eh: quando ci sono gli incontri [co:* genitori lei in realtà non viene non è venuta when there are meetings with the other parents she actually does not come she did not [perchè non parla* I’italiano [perchè dice io* non capisco I’italiano come because she cannot speak Italian because she says I cannot understand Italian [si yes [si si yes [si yes

At lines 45–46, T1, who has so far produced a series of acknowledgment tokens (lines 19, 42, 43, 44), formulates a possible solution to the problem in the form of an indirect request, i.e. that the mother goes through the child’s diary often to check the homework or any notices which may have been left by the teachers for the parents.

Excerpt 9.1e 45 T1: va bene però spesso se ci sono avvi:si magari sfogliare il diario oppure BX si dimentica ok but often if there are some notices maybe flick through the diary or Bx forgets 46 (xxx) di farglieli vedere to show her

Between lines 47 and 54, INT translates the request back to M, who consistently reiterates that she is already doing what she is asked to do (lines 56–59). This is a moment of potential standstill, as mother and teacher do not seem to find a common ground autonomously.

Excerpt 9.1f 47 48 49

INT:

s-so the teacher said maybe EITHER is (.) BXs (.) who sometimes forgets to show you (.) OR: ehm:: m:- maybe it’s you see it but you were busy but she is sugsuggesting you that sometimes you could just go through have a ru- have a look

Inter preter-mediated Parent–Teacher Talk

50 51

T1:

52

INT:

53

T1:

54

INT:

55

M:

56

M:

57 58 59

INT: INT: M:

187

(.) through the: diary he has he has a spe[cial [si* si ce I’ha yes yes he has got it lui ha il quadernino per gli avvisi o il: diario pro[prio? does he have a little book for communications or a diary [ha il diario he has got a diary ha il dia- the diary he has [when he* when he signs the: ehm the homework he has a dia[si si si yese yes yes si I will: eh: see: the homework [on:* diary yes [yeah: yeah and I: eh: signed it

At this point, INT’s active involvement becomes more manifested (lines 60–66): instead of reporting M’s reply back to T1, INT responds directly, reiterating T1’s request various times (lines 60, 63, 65). INT-produced expansions redesign the initial request put forward by T1: they overtly pursue endorsement of the teachers’ position and are oriented towards persuading M to comply with such requests. Evidence is found at line 64, where M’s reiterated no is promptly responded to with yeah and the modal you should (line 65), clearly presenting the solution as the best possible one. This is done independently by INT: no briefing was held before the meeting, and any tacit agreements by virtue of a long-standing collaboration with the school can be excluded as the interpreters have never worked with these teachers before. Meanwhile T1, who has partial access to English, at first monitors and supports INT’s initiative (lines 61–62), then starts a parallel conversation with her colleague (lines 63–64, indicated by square brackets). This shows that T1 is comfortable with INT’s highly engaged behaviour, and does not sanction or request clarification of what happens during the exchange with M. The teachers’ disengagement comes to an end at line 65: when INT utters yeah in a higher voice pitch (emphasised by capital letters), the teachers reorient their heads and gaze towards INT and M. The timing of the two events suggests that the teachers, who had self-excluded from the participatory framework, reengage with it at a point at which potential tension is perceived and a repairing intervention may be necessary.

Excerpt 9.1g 60 61 62 63 64 65

INT: T1:

yeah right (.) so maybe sometimes you can just go through [have a look [esatto right T1: si yes INT: [[even even when BX doesn’t tell you maybe you can just go and have a look M: no no no no (the message no)]] INT: YEAH maybe you should because sometimes they write things but BX forgets or:

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At line 66, there is a further attempt from M to provide an alternative narrative to justify her son’s behaviour (i.e. he is a child so he is forgetful). M’s utterance is understood by Ts, who start laughing in proximity to INT delivering her rendition (lines 67–68); T1 then turns her head to INT and mutual gaze is established. While addressing INT, T1 confirms M’s talk by reiterating the evaluative utterance provided by the latter followed by the particle ‘si’, meaning ‘yes’ (a volte dimentica si, line 70). This token of understanding and agreement, combined with mutual gaze, provides a green light for INT to turn to M and produce her independent expansion (lines 71–74). This is an instance of upgrading rendition (Davitti, 2013), in which INT intensifies the source evaluation (it’s really normal for a child to forget, line 72) and reiterates the request once again. INT’s contribution is upheld by T1, as shown by the acknowledgement tokens and expressions of agreement uttered at lines 75–76.

Excerpt 9.1h 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

M: T2: T1:

ah:: yes eh BX is eh now a child eh (.) eh he’s forgetted [@@@ [@@@ [è un bambino si he is a child yes INT: [è un bambino a* volte dimentica he is a child yes at times he forgets T1: a volte dimentica [si at times he forgets yes INT: [yes for* this reason just because he is a child and he forgets and it’s n- it’s [really* normal for a child to forget that maybe you can go and have a look sometimes just to be sure (.) that the tc- [teacher didn’t write* anything IMPORTANT for you to know T1: [mhm T1: [esatto si right yes M: si si si yes yes yes

Analysis of Excerpt 9.1 shows that the expansion produced by INT seems to reassure the mother by depicting the child’s forgetfulness as ‘normal’, thus creating common ground with her. However, a closer look at the sequential development of talk in combination with non-verbal cues (gaze and head orientation) suggests that such move is ultimately oriented towards making the request acceptable to M and eliciting her agreement after a series of dispreferred responses and attempts to provide alternative narratives, thus arguing a case for the teachers. Findings show that a fine-grained analysis of multimodal features can raise awareness of a number of interactional cues that all parties-at-talk need to be aware of to successfully coordinate the communicative event in which they participate. Similar patterns were found across the corpus of data analysed, involving different participants; this increases the validity of the

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observation (despite the purely qualitative nature of the study), which can be shared with practitioners in guided data sessions, supported by handouts with built-in steps and collaborative discussion.

Excerpt 9.2: ‘That would do him good’ Excerpt 9.2 (PTM2) is another example of a sequence starting after an unfavourable request uttered by T1, i.e. that the child attend some extra hours of art given his poor performance. M is not happy with the request, as she is very concerned about putting too much pressure on the child. The sequence starts with M seeking further clarification on this recommendation.

Excerpt 9.2a 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

M:

I’unica cosa che non ho capito per: (.) I’ora del (.) della pausa pr- del ehm (.) the only thing that I have not understood for the hour of the lunchtime of quando fa pranzo (.) che fanno (.) per lui (.) la rientrano a lui di più o: when he has lunch what do they do for him does he have to stay longer or (2.12) INT: do you (.) you mentioned that during th- a lunch time (.)[there will be extra (.) [extra T1: [yes art (.) T1: [extra* art INT: ah sarà arte [sarà *(.) arte it will be art will be art T1: [art (1.13)

At line 13, T1 answers M’s question (i.e. whether the child should stay in school long hours, line 11) saying that this would have to be negotiated between the child and the art teacher, who is not present at the meeting. In terms of informational content, the rendition can be considered complete at line 17, after INT’s rendition (lines 15–16) and M’s acknowledgment token (line 17), which signals understanding but not necessarily agreement with what is being said. However, it is followed by an expansion (line 19) which is produced after a 4.65-second gap in conversation and seems to be triggered by the lack of a clear uptake from M. The expansion’s format is that of a favourable evaluative statement which supports the recommendation made by the

Figure 9.2 Seating arrangement of Excerpt 9.2

190

Par t 2: Educat ional Set t ings

teachers and calls for agreement. By positively assessing the initial recommendation, it attempts to make it more acceptable to M, while showing that the school acts in the interest of the child and finds remedial interventions to overcome pupils’ problems. As a conversational move, it seems to be oriented towards preventing conflict while preserving the collaborative nature of the event. The move analysed also shows that INT acts as a coordinator in the interaction, trying to reach agreement and move the agenda forward.

Excerpt 9.2b 11

M:

12 13 14 15

INT: T1: INT:

16 17 18 19

M: INT:

per quanto tempo? tutta I’ora del eh for how long the whole hour of the whole lunchtime (.) lunch hour? he could go f- (.) he could negotiate (.) the times that he went (.) because often at lunchtime Ax is sitting a round (.) with time to (.) to spare (.) mhm è ins- è aperto alla negoziazione (.) [perchè* (.) spesso Ax (.) non s- all’ora di it is open to negotiation because often Ax does not kn- at pranzo non ha niente da fare lunchtime he has got nothing to do [mhm (4.65) e allora questo sarebbe un: eh modo (buono) per riempire I’ora so this would be a good way to fill in that hour

No token of alignment or gaze withdrawal appears after INT’s expansion, but M produces yet another question (quante volte alla settimana?, line 20), which entails a continuation of the sequence and calls for re-engagement of the teachers. INT translates the question to T1, whose generic answer is responded to with another minimal response from M (line 24). In this case, T1 autonomously provides further explanations as to why the child should attend the class (lines 25–26). INT translates this back to M, whose minimal response (line 29), however, does not show explicit agreement. T1 self-selects a third time at line 30; INT starts his rendition to M before T1’s utterance completion, adding a coda (gli farebbe bene, line 32) which shows alignment with the stance taken by T1 towards the suggested solution. INT, while rendering teacher-produced talk into Italian, also acts as a responder and helps collaboratively produce a request that is acceptable to M. At the same time, the sequential positioning of this expansion makes it a closing-implicative resource, which proves successful this time: while finishing his rendition, INT turns his head and gaze back to T1, who takes the floor and brings the sequence to a close (line 33).

Excerpt 9.2c 20

M:

21

INT:

quanto tempo eh quante volte alla: settimana? how long how many times a week how many times a week?

Inter preter-mediated Parent–Teacher Talk 22 23

T1 INT:

24 25 26 27

M: T1 INT:

28 29 30 31

M: T1 INT:

32 33 34

T1 M:

191

it will be up to (.) the teacher (.) and to Ax to (.) work out (.) the time dipende da (.) da Ax e da-(.) dall’insegnante* di: di negoziare la (.) i tempi it depends on on Ax and on the teacher tot o negotiate the times mhm cause really it’s because they’re (.) working (.) independently (.) on (.) she feels that Ax would really benefit (.) from additional help in questo momento stanno lavorando indipendentemente (.) percui eh Ax in this moment they are working independently so Ax trarrebbe dei vantaggi (.) dei benefici a: (.) da questo extra (.) lavoro extra would get some advantages some benefits from this extra work mhm so that was art so if you could encourage Ax (.) to go to those (.) [additional [se lei potesse* if you could incoraggiare Ax a (.) andarci in queste (.) ore aggiuntive (.) °gli farebbe bene° encourage Ax to go there to these extra hours it would do him good anything else? (la ringrazio) thank you

Analysis of Excerpt 9.2 shows that the series of questions combined with the lack of a clear uptake from M project her unhappiness with the request. Differently from Excerpt 9.1, teachers do not have any access to Italian, so they cannot even partially monitor and align with the INT-promoted moves. Similarly, however, teachers do not question INT’s conduct: they leave the interactional management of the request entirely to INT, whose rendition seems to be oriented to achieving agreement and moving the agenda further, rather than eliciting the concerns or doubts M may have towards the recommendation. Excerpts 9.1 and 9.2 can therefore be shown sequentially together to an audience of practitioners, thus achieving two crucial purposes: disseminating findings by making findings intelligible to a non-specialised audience and raising awareness of specific behavioural patterns which can be related to their daily practice and which deserve reflexive thinking in order to elaborate effective coping strategies.

Excerpt 9.3 A deviant case Excerpt 9.3 (PTM2) is a deviant case, as interpreter-produced expansions have a different impact on the interaction: they open up an opportunity for M to actively enter the talk at a delicate point, thus facilitating her involvement. Excerpt 9.3 is taken from the same PTM as Excerpt 9.2; the sequence starts with a question autonomously produced by M to T1 (English teacher) about the exam that the child will have to sit shortly. M is worried about her child, who cannot speak English and has difficulties following the classes, keeping up with the homework and integrating within the classroom. The exchange is rendered by INT turn-by-turn.

192

Par t 2: Educat ional Set t ings

Excerpt 9.3a 1

M:

2 3

INT: T1:

4 5 6

INT: INT:

7

M:

8

INT:

9 10

T1: INT:

11 12 13 14

M: T1: INT: T1:

15 16 INT: 17 INT: 18 19

eh volevo chiedere (.) per l’esame di inglese (.) quando sarà (xxx) eh I wanted to ask for the English exam when will it be when will the:: (.) English exams be in (.) year eleven (.)[ehm* but there will be (.) some (.) practice exams (.) eh after Easter (.) one exam [after Easter [ah [(°allora°)* ci sarà un esame di pratica (.) dopo (.) Pasqua so there will be a practice exam after Easter dopo Pasqua after Easter dopo Pasqua after Easter that will be on the poetry that we are starting (.) next week (quindi) sarà sulla poesia che cominceranno la prossima settimana so it will be on the poem that they will start next week mhm and: (.) so: eh th-* there’s a writing section (.) eh writing to describe writing to (.) [describ[a writing* to describe section [of the* exam (.)yeah (.) one half is a poetry and one half is writing to descr[ibe [ah [ok* (°allora°)* metà sarà sulla poesia metà sarà scrittura ok so half will be on poetry half will be on writing per (.) descrivere (.) descrizione to describe description (1.2)

Similarly to previous excerpts, no common ground between M and T1 is immediately reached, as signalled by M’s question at line 20, calling for a continuation of the sequence, which could otherwise be considered concluded. At line 24, understanding is explicitly acknowledged by M, but no clear stance is displayed about it (as in lines 8, 11). At this point, the sequence reaches a potential standstill, with M acknowledging understanding of the situation but also implicitly projecting her unease with it, which remains, however, unexplored. It is worth noticing the participants’ multimodal behaviour between lines 25 and 27: when silence falls (line 25), M, who had until then mainly directed her gaze towards T1, shifts her gaze to INT and

Figure 9.3 Seating arrangement of Excerpt 9.3

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self-selects (line 26). Her turn is uttered in a low tone of voice, and reiterates her understanding, followed by a short burst of laughter, signalling embarrassment, and by gaze-away. After this, another short lapse occurs (line 27).

Excerpt 9.3b 20

M:

21 22 23

INT: T1 INT:

24

M:

25 26

M:

27

ah e: quanto (.) dura questo esame? ah and how long does this exam last how long will last the exam? it’s (.) an hour and a half [un’ora e mezzo an hour and a half [un’ora e mez*zo °ho capito (.) mhm° an hour and a half I got it (1.5) °eh niente:° ehm: (.) ho @capito@@@ eh nothing ehm I got it (1.5)

The teachers, who are supposed to lead the meeting, do not pick up on any multimodal signals and refrain from intervening. At line 28, INT self-selects and addresses a question to M. Such self-initiated expansion is different from those seen in Excerpts 9.1 and 9.2, as it is framed as a noticing and indirect question, calling for (rather than preventing) a response from M. Furthermore, it is uttered by INT in the first person, as a personal remark which makes INT’s engaged attitude manifested. This move does not simply call for agreement or disagreement, but seems to be oriented towards increasing knowledge about the mother’s concerns and inner feelings, which are not voiced by her autonomously. Evidence can be found in the transcript: after the INT question, a short section between M and INT starts (lines 28–33), with M explaining that she is asking all the questions mainly to reassure her child. INT reports the content of the exchange back to the teachers (line 34), who have so far been excluded from the exchange. At line 39, when INT has completed his rendition, M self-selects again and further expands on her previous narrative. This confirms that INT’s move initiated at line 28 provides M with an opportunity to make her voice heard, an opportunity that she takes full advantage of, as shown by the sequential development of talk.

Excerpt 9.3c 28 29 30 31 32

INT: mi sembra molto (.) mi sembra un po’ preoccupata per gli esami lei you seem very you seem very concerned about the exams M: bhe: [eh si è* lui (.) è lui [che è preoc* cupato (.) si= yes it’s him it’s him who is worried yes INT: [(è tesa per Ax) are you nervous for Ax INT: [è lui it’s him INT: =ah

194

Par t 2: Educat ional Set t ings

33

M:

34 35 36 37 38 39

INI:

T1 INT: M:

40 41 42 43 44 45 46

INT: INT: T1 INT: T1

ecco per quello le chiedo (.) così per tranquillizzare un po’ lui this is why I am asking just to reassure him a bit cause I was saying (.) commenting that (.) (the fact that she is) a bit (.) concerned about exams (.) she always asks about exams (.) she said no it’s (.) Ax that is worried about exams (1) so she is (.) seeking information to (.) pacify him (.) to allay his fears yes [yes (.) yes [°about exams°* (.) che lo sa che ‘n Italia: [nun ce* stanno li esami (.) (allora) lui s’è abituato (.) does she know that in Italy there are no exams so he got used to che nun c’ha esami not having exams [(in I- I-) cause it’s (.) different from Italy yes because (of) the (.) his fears of failing exams here right yes (.) of course yeah (1.2)

Discussing the Findings Analysis has shown various imports of interpreter-promoted expansions on the trajectory of talk and on mothers’ empowerment and active participation. To recap, all the excerpts present instances of expansions playing a primarily relational rather than informational function, i.e. they were not produced as a mere clarification of a potentially ambiguous term or concept. Such expansions seem to occur quite regularly, at times where mothers show a certain ‘resistance’ to an unfavourable request put forward by the teacher. Typically in conversation, the lack of a preferred response calls for the implementation of repair measures, which are here produced by interpreters in the form of expansions to their rendition. Such expansions make sequences become protracted and harder interactional work for both sides. They also emerge as practices which can be used with different, at times even contrasting effects: either assisting in revealing information about the mother’s lifeworld (which may otherwise remain unexpressed) or inhibiting mothers’ self-expression. In particular, Excerpts 9.1 and 9.2 provide evidence of a ‘pattern of benign paternalism’ (Bozzoli, 1991): although they seemingly perform an affective alignment and establish a common ground, expansions actually seem to strongly call for agreement, thus stifling mothers’ voices and providing them with very little opportunity to make relevant their version of the story and actively take part in the co-construction of talk (cf. Heritage & Robinson, 2011). As a consequence, a monodirectional flow of information from teachers to mothers is maintained. This reveals a constant tension between ‘efficiency of process and interactional goals’ (Penn & Watermeyer, 2012: 289), i.e. between the teachers’ goals of promoting the institutional agenda while keeping the interaction flow and achieving full comfort levels and making the mothers feel reassured. A parallel can be drawn with studies in the

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medical sector, where ‘decisions tend to be unilaterally made, using persuasive approaches to ensure agreement with physicians recommendations’ (Karnieli-Miller & Eisikovits, 2009). Excerpt 9.3 represents a deviant case, where interpreter-produced expansion is an example of reflexive coordination activity on the part of interpreter which promotes the mother’s voice and supports mutual perspective taking. Such a move is triggered by the noticing of a dispreferred behaviour displayed by the mother, and work towards achieving mutuality and effective exchange. No a priori assumptions can therefore be made about whether expansions are ‘harmful’ or ‘harmless’; there is a need to overcome this Manichean view and start considering their sequential realisation in order to assess whether they facilitate or inhibit the achievement of the interactional goals of the setting under examination. Detailed analysis of interpreter-initiated expansions through a combined look at transcripts and videos (exemplified here via three excerpts) has therefore helped identify several correlated multimodal features which appear to promote or inhibit parental involvement and self-expression (Table 9.1). These are the findings on which processual guidelines can be developed. They can stimulate reflection on alternative solutions that can help interpreters and teachers work together to promote the sharing of information and the establishment of direct and fruitful contacts with parents, providing the latter with autonomy and avoiding manipulating their decision making. Because through expansions the engaged attitudes of interpreters become manifested, the findings also contribute to an ongoing debate in dialogueinterpreting studies, i.e. how interpreters can participate in a mediated encounter. Interpreter-produced expansions thus emerge as extremely Table 9.1 Inhibiting and facilitating factors in mediated PTMs

Inhibitors

Facilitators

Teachers

Interpreters

Self-exclusion (through engagement in a parallel activity), which prevents teachers from monitoring the interaction (even when in listening mode) and picking up on silences or specific non-verbal displays. Elaborating on expressions of lifeworld, eliciting them when needed and working together with interpreters instead of passing the baton of the interaction entirely to them.

Excessive explication of and emphasis on originally mitigated utterances (e.g. through the use of extreme case formulations); reiteration and/or reformulation of the same points so as to make them acceptable to mothers. Eliciting/making relevant and reporting back to teachers (instead of dealing autonomously with) any actions through which mothers volunteer emotional or lifeworld information.

196

Par t 2: Educat ional Set t ings

multifaceted objects through which interpreters show differential stances, epistemic rights and responsibilities, thus displaying a pronounced involvement and redesigning turns to elicit certain responses. Such contributions are triggered by a series of contextual and interactional factors and by the interplay of all the parties-at-talk. In other words, although they are produced by interpreters, they are the results of fine-tuned co-construction with teachers, who seem to pass the ‘baton’ of the interaction to interpreters, often selfexcluding from the participatory framework, at least temporarily. This entails a (partial) yielding of control by teachers to interpreters. Interpreters therefore enjoy a great leeway and even act as teachers in the way they autonomously intervene and deal with responses produced by parents.

Disseminating the Findings My project is at the dissemination stage and some collaborative materials are currently being produced. As highlighted before showcasing the findings, the outreach phase mainly relies on the organisation of guided data sessions (Davitti & Pasquandrea, 2014), i.e. collaborative group sessions in which the video-recordings are played back to participants to illustrate specific points of interest, then analysed and discussed together. To elicit further responses, questionnaires are administered to participants after the session, aiming to dig deeper into their perception of the activity, its usefulness in terms of raising awareness, and points for improvement to make it even more relevant to their daily practice. Guided data sessions have been so far trialled with one of two main stakeholder groups who can benefit from this type of research and feed back into it, i.e. trainee interpreters in UK and Italian universities. Contacts with school directors are currently underway to organise guided data sessions with teachers, in the form of group training workshops as part of their continuing professional development. This effort is part of raising awareness, a very necessary step when attempting the dissemination of any new initiative or change. Microanalytical observations like those carried out in this chapter have for too long been perceived as complex and unintelligible to non-experts, and thus unsuitable for dissemination and for use in training or practice. Conversely, they provide a goldmine of trigger material in order to gain insights into the real world of praxis, reflect on how abstract notions such as cooperation and involvement manifest themselves in interaction, and show how ‘formulating a turn one way rather than another can alter dramatically the direction of an interaction’ (Stokoe et al., 2012: 490). Guided data sessions using authentic data are rooted in the principle that ‘professional practice is communicatively grounded’ (Sarangi, 2014), and that only enhanced knowledge of communicative practices reached via observation of authentic scenarios can fine-tune interactional skills and improve the

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performances of trainee interpreters and other stakeholders in mediated PTMs. Guided data sessions have proved an invaluable tool to raise awareness of how communication is co-constructed, as well as of the wide array of possible choices and behaviours and of their interactional consequences, thus opening up the possibility to share alternative views on what happens in the data, and imparting sensitivity and preparedness to interactional challenges. Once these mechanisms have been understood, a set of coping strategies can be developed and communication problems can be better fixed, thus improving praxis on the basis of observation of real-life scenarios, rather than a priori assumptions. To make the activity suitable to a wider audience, excerpts illustrating specific interactional phenomena have been preselected by trainers. For the purpose of this project, I used excerpts that could illustrate various repercussions of interpreter-initiated actions on the participatory framework. In particular, the sequences illustrate how such active behaviour manifests itself, how all the parties-at-talk co-construct interaction, and whether such moves lead to the desired effect (in our case, the involvement of mothers). Last but not least, the playback of video-recordings has been supported by handouts with transcripts of the actual sequences analysed. Ideally, such transcripts should use a set of basic encoding symbols to capture relevant phenomena of talk (such as overlap, pauses, hesitations, etc.), without, however, making them too cumbersome and difficult to read and process for laypeople.

Application among trainee interpreters ‘Direct interpreting’ (Hale, 2007), i.e. a close rendition of every turn without altering, making additions to or omitting anything, has long been promoted as the gold standard that normatively guides interpreters’ codes of conduct and interpreters’ training. Empirical research like that shown in this chapter has revealed that, in fact, interpreter-initiated expansions are a recurrent interactional phenomenon, which cannot be discarded as ‘wrong’ per se. The selected excerpts shown and discussed with trainee interpreters via guided data sessions have therefore contributed to exemplifying some of the practices at play in real-life scenarios and what to take into consideration when deciding whether and how to expand a turn. Such activity has also triggered a fruitful discussion about active intervention on the part of interpreters as ethical and necessary when it promotes empathy and empowerment. Disseminating findings via guided data sessions among trainee interpreters has also helped address another problem of interpreter education, i.e. students’ lack of awareness of what happens in real-life scenarios. Watching and discussing the data together has exposed them to some real-life scenarios, thus giving them the unique opportunity to critically analyse what other

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professional interpreters had done and to think about what they would have done in the same circumstances. The self-reflective skills acquired through this activity are therefore applicable to the analysis of the trainees’ own performance. Furthermore, this activity has been very beneficial for trainers, in that it supports them in the difficult task of addressing, in a non-prescriptive way, thorny issues like professional boundaries and roles in interaction. The activity conducted helped trainee interpreters become sensitised about the fine line between supporting, helping, assisting, aiding, interfering and speaking or pleading on behalf of other. It also contributed to enhancing their critical skills and understanding of how to engage in an interaction effectively and realise that the success (or failure) of a meeting depends on the coordinated actions of all the parties-at-talk. A fil rouge across the answers given by the respondents to the questionnaires, administered after the session, was a benefit of such an activity for raising awareness of different factors, for instance: awareness of the complexity of real-life scenarios; awareness of the unsuitability of prescriptive categories to guide action and of the importance of recognising contextual and sequential features that can help make decisions on a moment-bymoment basis; awareness of the difficult balancing act between showing empathy and taking the initiative and avoiding substituting for the teachers; and awareness of the importance of eye contact and other non-verbal cues, often neglected when doing simulations in class, where emphasis is mainly placed on language accuracy and mechanical acts of translation. Following on from this is the development of training materials building on such findings; a concrete step forward is being taken, with publications specifically targeting interpreter trainers aimed at explaining how to adopt this methodology in the classroom (Davitti & Pasquandrea, 2014).

Application among teachers Recent studies have underlined the importance of training for service providers to work with interpreters (Flores et al., 2008; Jacobs et al., 2010), particularly of how to adjust communicative strategies when involved in a triadic exchange. However, unlike fields of business, law or medicine, the field of teacher training and education does not utilise case studies from real life as extensively. Schools with a large percentage of migrant pupils are a suitable target for this first dissemination step. As suggested in the previous section, guided data sessions like the one proposed in this chapter can be built into teachers’ continuing professional development courses or integrated into their education curricula and promoted in the form of webinars or accessible documents. These are to be developed by researchers acting as consultants and working alongside educational institutional representatives to make this material

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available. Sections will adopt a thematic approach, focusing on some key principles to ensure effective PTMs and showing, through the aid of transcripts and screenshot or embedded videos from authentic data, what practices can foster or undermine their collaborative achievement, or whether any alternatives are possible. This requires, however, a much larger scale study on a more consistent corpus of comparable data, including a larger variety of language combinations. It is crucial that outcomes from these activities ultimately inform institutional policies and practices, thus contributing to the creation of a more inclusive society by reconciling the tensions which exist between goaloriented institutional agendas and the need to make the teacher/parent process more empowering for the families of the schoolchildren. In particular, teachers, like interpreters, will realise the importance of how to collaborate with interpreters to maximise understanding of the parents’ world in delicate scenarios.

Concluding Thoughts As pointed out by Stokoe et al. (2012: 487), CA methods are ‘powerful tools for implementing social change, particularly when the matter at hand comprises recurring interactional business’. Through evidence-based analysis, this chapter has contributed to the body of research claiming that descriptive, micro-analytical approaches provide invaluable insights into the dynamics of mediated encounters and the tools to investigate and make sense of the complexity of real-life interaction in real time (Ford, 2012). The main downside, however, is that they fail to shed light on participants’ perceptions, i.e. expectations prior to and level of satisfaction after the encounter. It is therefore necessary to integrate other approaches in order to investigate in more depth the CA notion of uptake, i.e. whether and, if so, to what extent, the issues highlighted by the micro-analytical findings are effectively perceived by the participants, and whether their initial expectations are actually met. Triangulation has started to be used to incorporate providers’ and users’ perspectives, through findings from focus groups, post hoc interviews and other talk-extrinsic sources (Ford, 2012) and promises to provide a fruitful way forward (Kadric, 2000; Pomerantz, 2005). Integrating results from surveys or interviews prior to meetings can also make micro-analytical research more relevant for practice by providing insights into participants’ expectations and existing areas of conflict or tension in communication with migrant families, especially when an interpreter is present. Finally bringing together and interfacing findings from pre, during and post stages of interpreter-mediated encounters is the next, crucial step to further strengthen our Framework for Application.

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Transcription Conventions (1.5)

pause (in seconds and tenths of seconds)

@

laughter (different intensity)

(.)

micro-pause (shorter than ( ) 0.5 seconds)

unintelligible

?

ascending intonation

-

abrupt interruption of talk

°text°

quiet volume

°°text°° very quiet volume

TEXT

loud volume

:::

lengthened sound

[

start of overlapping talk

]

end of overlapping talk

(text)

unclear or dubious words [[tex]]

parallel activity taking place

Notes (1) The expression dialogue interpreting (Mason, 1999; Wadensjö, 1998) caters for the wide variety of contexts and scenarios where face-to-face interpreting is required. Nevertheless, a number of expressions can be found in the literature to refer to the same form of interpreter-mediated interaction, e.g. community interpreting (Hale, 2007; Hertog & van der Ver, 2006), public service interpreting (Corsellis, 2008) and liaison interpreting (Alexieva, 2002). These expressions differ slightly in terms of the emphasis placed on specific aspects of the interpreting process, such as mode, setting or specialisation of the interpreter. Boundaries have become even more blurred further to the rise of the figure of the (inter)cultural mediator in countries like Italy and Spain. This has led to an untenable dichotomy between two practices which are very closely intertwined (Gavioli, 2009). In this study, dialogue interpreting is used to encompass the multifaceted activity of ‘mediating across boundaries of language and culture’ (Pöchhacker & Shlesinger, 2002: 1). (2) Among the exceptions are studies that have attempted to bridge the gap between research and practice, such as Angelelli (2008), Davitti and Pasquandrea (2014), Kadric (2000) and Tebble (2009). (3) I shall signal two documents which provide a comprehensive literature review. First, Carter (2002) provides an annotated bibliography including approximately 70 studies about the impact of families ‘involvement in students’ success’. Secondly, Henderson and Mapp (2002) provide a summary of 51 studies on the impact of family and community involvement on students’ achievement, and effective strategies to connect schools, families and the community.

Part 3 Private and Public Settings

10 Tensions in Family Discourse: Expectations and Justifications Rebekah J. Johnson

This chapter contributes to our understanding of how family interaction shapes children’s identities and how they continue to negotiate these identities throughout adult life. We will look at three data excerpts that highlight the tensions embodied in situations where adult children ‘go home for the holidays’ and must navigate through the dualities of the adult child identity that emerges from both being the children in the family and wanting to be treated as independent adults. In such scenarios, parents discuss the expectations they have for their adult children, who in turn must respond by justifying their life choices. This tension in family discourse is the central focus of this chapter, and we move from the data to the application of these findings in real-life settings. In the original larger study (Johnson, 2011), the data analysis was done using the framework of interactional sociolinguistics (IS) and informed by the tools of conversation analysis (CA). In this chapter, the results will be considered from the perspective of dissemination to the stakeholders including family counsellors, family therapists and family members. One major finding is the set of specific discursive practices and related cyclical communication problems that arise from the discrepancies between parental expectations and the life choices of their children. These discursive practices are examples of the strategies people use in real-life settings to accomplish goals, extract information or shape identity through conversation. This finding is unique, as the previous literature neither looks at the interaction between parents and their adult children (‘adult children’ being defined as those who no longer live at home) nor at the co-construction of the adult child identity. The discourse segments that I highlight in this chapter show where the triggers of tension are by focusing on particular discursive practices used by the interactants, including posing a ‘loaded’ question, explicitly showing appreciation and justifying choices. In reality, family members can unwittingly cause tension and display judgment, evidenced by the way 203

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other family members react to what has been said. Within the Framework for Application (Grujicic-Alatriste, Chapter 1), dissemination of the findings on such communicative breakdowns are relevant to those who need help with family communication (clients) and also to those who conduct familyrelated counselling (practitioners). The issues this chapter addresses are of interest to all the aforementioned stakeholders. To promote problem solving and the rebuilding of family relations, which is the crux of the work of family counsellors, therapists and family members themselves, we must first raise awareness of the way family interaction and the tension therein builds, utterance by utterance, and then work to resolve these issues, moving from awareness to alternate strategies and ways of communicating – and thus from theory to application and future praxis.

Theoretical Background I first offer a brief overview of the pertinent literature in psychology on the impact of family, and highlight the relevant literature on family discourse analysis and identity. Then I discuss the goals of applied discourse analysis before showcasing the data. The family is an important cultural institution for interaction and socialisation and remains an ongoing integral part of life. Research shows that family interaction shapes children’s interactional skills and emotional wellbeing, as exemplified in the following study findings: stress and unfairness in the family context affects a child’s self-esteem (Katz & Nelson, 2007); being exposed to criticism causes perfectionism and fear of intimacy (Martin & Ashby, 2004); parental psychological control affects children’s identity and commitment making (Luyckx et al., 2007); and hostility within family relationships emerges in later romantic relationships (Stocker & Richmond, 2007). Hence, it is essential for children to learn positive interactional strategies and how to discursively co-construct their own identities, negotiate power and realise desired interactional accomplishments, in addition to how to deal with negativity in family discussion. In addition, the parent–child relationship is a unique and strong social influence that continues throughout the life course (e.g. Bucx et al., 2008; Shapiro, 2004; Umberson, 1992). Nowadays, as children become adults, the parent–child relationship takes on even greater significance, as more people live alone, divorce, move around geographically and adhere to the societal value of independence (Umberson, 1992). Although it is crucial, adult children and their parents may have ambivalence about their relationship. Ambivalence is the paradoxical contrast in feelings of closeness and distance, or solidarity and conflict. Although ambivalence is a ‘basic human condition’ (Luscher, 2002), several factors contribute to the amount of ambivalence between adult children and parents. Because the family

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is one of the institutions in which inequalities can be reinforced, it creates intergenerational ambivalence (Bengtson et al., 2002; Connidis & McMullin, 2002). But while the parent–adult child grown-up relationship is very significant, it has not been a major focal area in the field of discourse analysis. To address this gap in the literature, this study will examine parents interacting with adult children in one American family in a discourse analytical case study. With this important relationship between parents and children in mind, this chapter looks at the interactional strategies and discursive practices used by adult children and their parents as they negotiate the adult child identity through interaction. Parents may unwittingly problematise their adult children’s life choices or put them into the position of justifying their career or family decisions. Seeing how this manifests in turn-by-turn interaction is a useful starting point for discussion on how family members can interact while both respecting the autonomy of the children and recognising the concerns of the parents. It is hoped that examples of real spontaneous spoken family discourse such as the excerpts below will be of value to family counsellors and therapists in broaching the topic with clients, considering the discourse data in applied ways (Antaki, 2011a).

Discourse analysis in the family context Discourse analysis has a wide range of interdisciplinary use, as spoken interactions or written texts are a part of many fields and professional practices, from politics to medical practice and from social relations to classroom interactions. This chapter focuses on family discourse, which grew out of the work of Deborah Tannen and Elinor Ochs and their students and colleagues into its own sub-field. Research into family discourse examines the ways family members interact with one another and how conversations unfold in spontaneous spoken interaction. Former studies on family discourse have largely focused on families with young children (e.g. Gordon, 2004; Marinova, 2007; Tannen et al., 2007). However, while many discourse analytic studies have examined the family interaction of families with younger, stay-at-home children, few if any studies have looked at interaction between adult children who no longer live at home and their parents. There have been no other discourse analytic studies specifically looking at the construction of the adult child identity and how both adult children and their parents navigate the delicate and potentially tension-filled conversations they have. We will now look in more detail at two relevant discourse concepts: (a) the co-construction of identity and (b) discursive practices.

The co-construction of identity Social identity is multifaceted and dynamic and all interactants in a given situation continually construct and reconstruct one another’s identities as the conversation unfolds. Individuals do not choose and construct their

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social identity alone; identity is co-constructed by all the participants in a given interaction. Furthermore, the interpretation of meaning is constrained by cooperative sequencing, negotiation of meaning and conversational management. In this way, meaning is created through interaction within particular situations by specific people who have certain shared knowledge (Gumperz, 1982, 1992). We could say that this coordinated dialogue is coconstructed interaction. Co-construction is ‘the joint creation of a form, interpretation, stance, action, activity, identity, institution, skill, ideology, emotion, or other culturally meaningful reality . . . including collaboration, cooperation, and coordination’ (Jacoby & Ochs, 1995: 171), and can include arguments and negative interactions, as well as positive ones. Co-construction facilitates taking the thoughts people have internally and making them outwardly ‘relevant to communication through social interaction’ (Jacoby & Ochs, 1995: 175). There are several studies by discourse analysts who look at family narrative telling and the ways in which family members co-construct their own individual roles and identities and the larger family identity (Gordon, 2004; Ochs & Taylor, 1992a, 1992b; Paugh, 2005; Taylor, 1995). This study adds to the literature on the co-construction of identity in family talk. Constructivist data analysis has at times been critiqued for making broad ‘essentialist-sounding claims’ (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006) but, to address this issue, researchers can look at naturally occurring data and examine the turn-by-turn interaction, including the way each turn is designed and what social actions are accomplished by the turn. This micro-analytic form of analysing talk can examine the way in which participants orient to what has just been said, which demonstrates the understanding and intersubjectivity achieved by the interlocutors (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; Schegloff, 2007; Schegloff et al., 1977). The social actions accomplished in talk-in-interaction can be looked at in terms of the discursive practices used by the interlocutors.

Discursive practices Discursive practices are the tools with which we accomplish things in our interactions. Identities and discursive accomplishments are created by the particular discursive practices used by the speakers. When we are examining family discourse, parents and children co-construct their own and one another’s identities discursively. Like any group of people who have regular communication, families develop unique routines and ways of interacting and there are discursive practices specific to families (e.g. ‘Father knows best’, Ochs & Taylor, 1992a, 1992b, 2001; ‘telling your day’, Blum-Kulka, 1997) that do not tend to occur in contexts outside the home. Yet, despite unique discourse elements within specific families, similar communication strategies appear across families and across institutions.

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For professionals working with families in family counselling or family therapy, an awareness of some of the discursive practices family members use to negotiate ‘hot topics’, to navigate the connection–control dynamic (Tannen, 2003), and to accomplish interactional goals can be useful for analysis and discussion. The discursive practices outlined in this chapter are communicative strategies participants use to assert identity and to accomplish particular interactional goals (e.g. justifying choices). Armed with examples such as these, I hope to inspire counsellors to look for the implicit ways their clients are negotiating tensions and the intricate identity work being done in family talk and to consider using discourse analytic methods to better serve their clients.

From theory to application My initial interest in family discourse was born out of an interest in two facets of linguistic focus on interaction: (a) how identity is co-constructed and (b) how people use sequence and consequence in interactional turn-taking (i.e. how people perform interactional accomplishments; Drew & Heritage, 1992b: 17) in spoken discourse and how we can see they were interpreted by interlocutors, based on their next turns. But to do the applied part of ‘applied linguistics’, we must go beyond description. Candlin and Sarangi (2004a) suggest that applied linguistics studies must show relevance and consider ‘how this relevance may be characterized, how it can be appraised, how it can be disseminated’ (Candlin & Sarangi, 2004a: 2). After initial data collection and analysis, I found myself asking how the findings were useful, beyond demonstrating the strategies and practices family members use to convey ideas, accomplish goals and build identity. How can this awareness of the way people do things discursively – such as covertly insinuating things (veiled complaints) – or demonstrate the way they take something to be a judgment (an assessment) by justifying their actions – help others? There seems to be growing interest in ‘evidence-based practice’ in family therapy (Ali & Bachicha, 2012). This is encouraging, as discourse analysis can provide such evidence. Already some psychology studies look at spoken interaction, including gossiping (Parker & O’Reilly, 2012), the use of narrative therapy (Caldwell, 2005; Miller & Forrest, 2009), or children’s participation (Hutchby & O’Reilly, 2010). There may be space for applying a linguistic eye to practices such as multisystemic therapy (Ali & Bachicha, 2012), family therapy (Hutchby & O’Reilly, 2010), home-based family therapy (Cortes, 2004), and marriage and family counselling (Southern et al., 2005). Candlin and Sarangi (2004a) further state that applied linguists cannot think of themselves as ‘bringers of solutions’ but instead must work with practitioners and attempt ‘joint problematisation and suggest complementary analytical frameworks’ (Candlin & Sarangi, 2004a: 4) to find how the data can be useful in real-life contexts. It is with an eye on collaboration with

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family counsellors or other practitioners working with families that I present these data and the potential collaborative work that can be done to disseminate the results. In the next section, I briefly summarise the original study from which I will highlight three excerpts, first presenting the original findings, and then following with a discussion of steps to take for reasonable dissemination and practical application of the findings.

The Study The data in this chapter come from a larger study (Johnson, 2011) that examined the discourse of one Midwestern American family, comprised of two adult children (‘Rebekah’ and ‘Keith’) and two parents (‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’), during multiple instances of family holiday dinner table conversation. The study examined the contributions of both the parents and the adult children, and the discursive practices they used to collaboratively construct identity. For the larger study, the data were collected using digital video-recording equipment over four years with more than 25 hours of recorded conversations. A particular set of the digital video-recordings was then transcribed and compelling selections of the transcribed data were analysed recursively, with data-driven reorientation to the data informing the subsequent analysis. The transcript data were analysed using the methodological framework of IS and informed by CA tools and sequential analysis methods. While CA is a micro-analytic method of examining discourse, IS is both a microanalytic and a macro-analytic method, considering large segments of discourse in totality and taking social factors of the participants into consideration during analysis. Using both methods of analysis creates both a deep and a broad analysis of the data. The participating family is, in fact, the researcher’s own family. While this could lead to a bias in the analysis, the researcher could draw upon the ‘insider’s perspective’ using an emic lens as a participant observer and as a member of the Johnson family. The researcher is thus both a researcher and a practitioner – not an intended role but a by-product of the method and the choice of research setting. In addition, post-analysis interviews were conducted with other family member participants to triangulate the data and take into account the perceptions of all the interlocutors involved.

Looking at the Data: Discursive Practices in Family Interaction Within the family context, each family member is continuously constructing his or her own identity and co-constructing the identities of one

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another through interaction. Through the use of various discursive practices, both Rebekah and Keith are constructing themselves as adults, and Mom and Dad at times collaborate with them on this identity and at other times revert to treating Rebekah and Keith as children. In this chapter, we will look at a few of the discursive practices employed by family members to construct adult child identity during discussions that explicitly or implicitly address real or perceived parental expectations. Within all families, there are both spoken and unspoken parental expectations. In some cases, perceived parental expectations cause a lot of duress for adult children who feel that they may not be living up to their parents’ hopes and plans for them. In other cases, parents ask their children about various areas of their lives and do not specifically dictate that they should do particular things. This type of questioning, however, can still feel like pressure for the adult child. It is in the reaction of the adult children to the parents’ questions and suggestions that we see how the adult children perceive the discussion. Looking at some specific discursive practices that adult children and their parents enact allows us to focus on the co-construction of the adult child identity and the way the interactants negotiate this often tensionfilled and potentially offensive territory due to the fact that adult children don’t want to be treated as children but, conversely, their parents don’t want their advice to be disregarded. Here, I showcase three excerpts from a larger set of discourse data (Johnson, 2011). I select these three examples because they demonstrate how family members implicitly demonstrate expectations and opinions and attempt to navigate complex and potentially controversial topics fraught with tension, such as critiquing a person’s relationship status. For clarity, I will first summarise the scene and then present the raw data with key moments in discourse in bold type so the readers can immediately see why this is important, followed by a more detailed analysis of what is occurring in each conversation segment. Longitudinal data collection over four years shows that certain themes recur in the family discourse, with Mom bringing up similar questions each year when family members reunite for the holidays. Questions about the topics of school, jobs, relationships and having a family are raised each year. In the way that the topics are broached, the past actions of the adult children (Rebekah and Keith) are problematised in overt and covert ways. These subtle critiques or ‘complaints’ can cause tension and a ‘tugof-war’ between the parental expectations being conveyed and the explanations (which become justifications) of the adult children for their life choices. Two discursive practices demonstrating such a line of questioning initiated by the parents are posing ‘loaded’ questions and explicitly showing appreciation, seen in the first two excerpts below. An example of a strategy used by adult children, justifying choices, is seen in the third excerpt.

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Posing a ‘loaded’ question The first excerpt shows the discursive practice of posing a ‘loaded’ question. A ‘loaded’ question is one that includes an unjustified assumption or that biases the answer towards one that is negatively perceived by the speaker. When people do this, they indirectly indicate the answer they think – or fear – they will get. Throughout the data, Mom asks a lot of questions to get to certain topics she wants to hear about from her two adult children. In Excerpt 10.1, we see Mom ask a question to begin a topic she would like to discuss – relationships. At this time, neither Rebekah nor Keith are in a relationship, and both adult children are at graduate school, studying for doctoral degrees. To indirectly ask about relationships and the future, Mom poses a ‘loaded’ question. Excerpt 10.1 But the problem is – or let me ask the question 1

Mom:

2 3 4

Dad: Mom:

5 6 7

Dad: Mom:

But the PROBlem is-or let me ask the question- you asked about all these single (.) [aunts]= [°yeah°] =and uncles and stuff. IS there a point where you would get t-so independent where you:: wouldn’t WANT to [have to] merge with someone else’s needs an’ life::= [°right°] =°yep°= =style.

Here Mom problematises Rebekah’s and Keith’s single status, saying ‘But the PROBlem is-’ and then switches mid-sentence to instead asking a question by the explicit statement: ‘or let me ask the question’ (a pre-pre-question or the set-up announcing a question will be asked; line 1) and then referencing an earlier question Keith asked about why several great aunts and great uncles on my mother’s side had never been married (a pre-question giving the background for the upcoming line of questioning based on intertextual reference to prior conversation). Then Mom asks her question, ‘IS there a point where you would get t-so independent where you:: wouldn’t WANT to have to merge with someone else’s needs an’ life::style’ (lines 4–5, 7). We again see Mom make a shift mid-word (‘t-so’) which is most likely switching from the more overtly judgmental ‘too’ to the intensifier ‘so’, demonstrating that Mom is attempting to avoid overtly making a complaint by constructing this to resemble a simple enquiry. By first posing the situation as a ‘problem’, we see that Mom thinks that remaining single is a negative status, and hints at the fact that she fears that Rebekah and Keith, who are both single at the time, might be ‘so independent’ that they would not want to get married. However, as she begins the

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statement, Mom realises that saying it is a ‘problem’ is very negative and face-threatening to Rebekah and Keith, which orients to their autonomous adult identities. She shifts from problematising the situation to asking if her two children think there is ‘a point’ where they ‘wouldn’t WANT to have to merge with someone else’s needs an’ life::style’ (lines 5, 7). However, by using the negative terms ‘have to’, which implies that there would necessarily be a need to ‘merge’ and positioning ‘someone else’s needs and lifestyle’ as being incongruent with their own, Mom is taking a negative stance, making the preferred answer negative (i.e. ‘no, I would NOT want to have to merge with someone else’s life’). By designing her question in this way, she implies that she does fear that Rebekah and Keith might answer that they are, indeed, too independent to pursue relationships. This both shows that Mom hopes Rebekah and Keith find life partners and also shows she is not sure that they will. Mom avoids saying ‘an age’, instead using a more nuanced term, ‘a point’. In addition, by using the euphemistic term ‘merge with someone else’s needs and lifestyle’, Mom is avoiding the more direct term ‘get married to someone’. This careful treatment of terminology again shows that Mom is orienting to the fact that Rebekah and Keith are adults and demonstrates Mom’s knowledge that it is taboo to directly ask an adult why he or she is not yet married. So while Mom is attempting to avoid making a direct complaint about the single status of both Rebekah and Keith, she is still conveying the parental expectation she has that they will seek and establish long-term relationships by problematising their single status in subtle ways. This excerpt exemplifies the inherent tensions that emerge when we do a micro-analytic examination of family talk. In just one conversational turn, Mom (with supportive agreement tokens inserted or overlapped by Dad to demonstrate alignment on this stance) not only conveys that she wishes to hear her children’s thoughts on future relationships, but also implies that she thinks their current lack of such relationships is a problem. In this case, the specific language choices Mom makes demonstrate her attempt to rectify her hopes and expectations for her children with the reality that they have not yet realised these hopes and may not in the future. Family counsellors and therapists can use examples like this to demonstrate how even innocent-sounding enquiries can potentially be volatile in family discourse and can make adult children feel inadequate (according to their parents’ standards or expectations), causing underlying tensions and negative reactions. Parents can be invited to consider whether they cloak complaints or negative assessments of their adult children in questions such as the one in this example to spark conversation about topic initiation that is accepting versus accusing in interactions with their adult children. If needed or wanted, the next step is for parents to record and then play back their own conversations with their adult children to examine their own discursive practices from a more objective perspective.

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Explicitly showing appreciation In the larger data set, we find that Dad often seeks to tell Rebekah and Keith he appreciates them. In Excerpt 10.2, we see an example where Dad uses the discursive practice of explicitly showing appreciation and we see from the reaction of the adult children that it is not necessarily a positive experience for them. Here is a bit of background to the conversation below: just prior to this excerpt, Keith has mentioned how his friends have expensive cars and TVs, while he has instead put resources into more travelling than they have. Excerpt 10.2 It’s been a good investment 1 2 3

Rebekah: Keith: Rebekah:

4 5 6 7 8 9

Dad: Mom: Rebekah: Mom: Dad:

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Rebekah: Dad: Rebekah: Keith: Dad: Rebekah:

17 18

Mom:

19 20

Dad: Rebekah:

21 22 23

Keith: Rebekah:

24 25 26 27

Mom: Dad: Keith: Mom:

=>Everyone’s made choices of where they’re putting their money.If that’s what the point was.< ((looks at Mom))}] [((laughs, looks at Rebekah))] NO, no, we don’t need the TV. {Well I’m just saying ((smiles))} = =$Dad can sleep just fine in front of anything.$

Tensions in Family Discourse

28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Dad: Rebekah: Dad: Mom: Dad: Mom: Dad:

35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Mom:

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↑Yeah. It’s large enough. ((looks at Mom, laughs)) [But I-I really-] [I mean, you need a bigger house to have a bigger-] I-I really appreciate all the interaction we’ve had.= =This is very interesting, yes.= =It’s-it’s-it’s an area that, um, you know, we don’t get together on an everyday basis or every month basis. So it’s-it’s good to be able to °put this together.° And we do want to understand where you’re coming from on things because that helps us understand and-and be more tolerant of things .hh that we-we may differ in. And the OTHer thing is that we want to know that YOU know where WE’RE at because we won’t always be able to (.) communicate to you together at the same time about any of these things and we may not be CAPable somewhere down the line, {you know, ((shrugs))} so . . .

In line 1, Rebekah summarises the immediately prior discussion about the choices Keith and his friends have made in life by using the ubiquitous term ‘everyone’ in a general statement: ‘everyone’s made choices about where they’re putting their money’, thus constructing herself and Keith as autonomous adults who are making their individual life decisions. Dad then grabs Rebekah’s and Keith’s hands (line 5) and echoes Rebekah’s phrasing to refer to his and Mom’s investment, saying ‘WE have made choices of where we’re putting our money’ (line 9), alluding to the fact that their investment has been in their children – Dad and Mom have paid for some education and have assisted Rebekah and Keith over the years – and thus orients to them as children instead of as the adults which Rebekah and Keith had just previously been constructing themselves as. Perhaps because of this tension between their self-constructed adult identities and the other- (parent-) constructed child identities, neither Rebekah nor Keith explicitly acknowledge this allusion to ‘children as investment’. Instead, Rebekah initiates a repair (lines 11, 16–17) and Keith treats Dad’s attempt to get their attention by holding their hands as unnecessary (line 14). Mom follows by clarifying Dad’s statement (line 18) and Dad adds, ‘and it’s been a w- good investment’ (line 19), thereby giving the children an implicit compliment. Although compliments are meant to attend to the listener’s positive face wants, they also set up the speaker as the judge; when parents compliment their children, they are also making an assessment. In

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this way, Mom and Dad are orienting to their child identities by judging their actions, whereas Rebekah and Keith had been promoting their adult identities and their ability to make their own decisions independent of their parents’ input. Rebekah’s comment in lines 20–21 refers to Dad having held their hands (lines 5–15) as reincarnating a family inside joke which involved Dad ‘shaking hands’ with Rebekah or Keith in front of their friends at college in order to pass money to them discreetly. By invoking this past routine, both Dad and Rebekah orient to Rebekah’s and Keith’s child identities that rely on Dad’s financial support. Rebekah’s willingness to recreate a past routine is an implicit way of acknowledging her parents’ past support, yet it also shows that she sees this discussion as similar to the past, when she and Keith relied more on their parents. Keith responds with humour, too, joking about Dad’s investment, saying ‘You might have perhaps been better off getting a plasma TV’ (line 22), perhaps using humour to deflect the compliment. Dad and Mom do not react to the statement as a joke, however, giving serious answers (lines 25, 27, 31). Dad then moves to make his appreciation explicit, saying ‘I really appreciate all the interaction we’ve had’ (line 32) and continuing by saying that they don’t get to talk very often (lines 34–35). Mom collaborates with Dad on this display of appreciation (lines 33, 36–41). Mom refers to better understanding Rebekah and Keith and being ‘more tolerant’ of differing ideas through discussions. By stating this appreciation explicitly, both Dad and Mom are orienting to Rebekah and Keith as adult children who have their own opinions and ideas and who Dad and Mom want to understand. However, this demonstration of appreciation is also another type of assessment, alluding to the hierarchical parent–child relationship. Mom further orients to Rebekah and Keith as adults by alluding to the fact that they may need to reverse roles and take care of Mom and Dad in the future, by saying ‘we may not be capable somewhere down the line’ (lines 40–41). This may hint again at the fact that the investment Mom and Dad have made might need to be ‘paid back’ by reversing caregiver roles later on. By using the discursive practice of explicitly showing appreciation, Mom and Dad walk the tightrope between Rebekah’s and Keith’s adult and child identities and attempt to shift from orienting to their child identities to orienting to their adult identities instead. By using these particular discursive practices, Mom and Dad are attempting to relay their expectations to Rebekah and Keith, while demonstrating a respect for their adult child identities. It is useful to examine the ways in which parents strive to manage the competing interests (respecting autonomy/adult identity versus guiding and showing expectations/child identity) and interactional accomplishments (information seeking, encouraging, showing appreciation) they are negotiating simultaneously, as all parents of

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adult children must do, considering their adult children’s autonomy and yet relaying important information, advice and their own expectations. When considering this finding, one cannot but ask: What is problematic about showing appreciation? The answer lies in how it is perceived by the target listeners (the adult children). When parents express appreciation to their adult children, it can look like an assessment of how the adult children are doing or even like an evaluation of whether they are performing their duties to the parents. Additionally, adult children tend not to like to be reminded that they ‘owe’ their parents (both monetarily and in other ways) when they are trying to assert their autonomy and independent adult selves. Here, both Rebekah and Keith respond with different forms of deflection via humour – Rebekah by comparing it to the prior practice of giving the children money when they were younger, and Keith through joking that they should have invested in a television instead of their children. Although there is no overt negative reaction, the fact that the adult children downplay the appreciation via humour shows that they are uncomfortable with it. This is important for understanding how children handle such situations in family talk. Examples of real family conversation such as the ones shown in these excerpts illustrate the intricate ways family members can attempt to show respect to one another (as adults or as caring parents) yet somehow come across as judging or assessing one another. It is a delicate balance, and understanding this can help family members communicate better with one another and can help counsellors notice and point out such things in family therapy sessions. A family counsellor or therapist has an option of using such an example to start a conversation about the ways in which parents can make their adult children feel judged (in ways the parents may never have imagined), thus causing unintended tension for the children.

Justifying choices The adult children also have particular discursive practices to construct their identities within the context of discussions related to parental expectations and life choices. One discursive practice the adult children use in response to explicit and implicit commentary by Mom and Dad is justifying choices, a strategy that Rebekah and Keith use throughout the data to construct their competent adult child identities. In Excerpt 10.3, we see the way Rebekah responds to Mom’s leading question (first shown in Excerpt 10.1) about being ‘so independent’. The discussion just prior to this excerpt focused on their Scandinavian family background and the fact that many relatives were very ‘stubborn’ or ‘independent’ and many did not get married and, of those who did, many did not have children. The excerpt is quite long – 61 lines, even with a portion omitted which had included discussion about how difficult it is to meet people in the places Rebekah and

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Keith live, with considerations of similar education levels and interests. However, these longer segments needed to be presented to show how several of the family members together co-construct the scenario that sets up a need for justification by the adult children, how one of the adult children responds, and how the topic cycles with additional comments by the parents that the adult child feels are necessary to address with further justifications. Excerpt 10.3 It’s harder the older you get 1

Mom:

2 3 4

Dad: Mom:

5 6 7 8

Dad: Mom: Rebekah:

9 10

Dad: Rebekah:

11 12 13

Dad: Dad: Rebekah:

14 15 16 17

Mom: Rebekah: Mom: Rebekah:

18 19 20

Dad: Mom: Rebekah:

21 22 23 24 25

Mom: Rebekah: Dad: Mom: Rebekah:

26 27

Dad:

But the PROBlem is-or let me ask the question- you asked about all these single (.) [aunts]= [°yeah°] =and uncles and stuff. IS there a point where you would get t-so independent where you:: wouldn’t WANT to [have to] merge with someone else’s needs an’ life::= [°right°] =°yep°= =style. I’m thinking it’s HARDer the older you [get] because you’re more of yer own= [°yep°] =person and know what you want [and] have your own goals and ↑path of life.= [°yeah°] =°Yeah.°= =And uh-OTHer people [you meet, if they’re the same age] who are also doing= [it NARrows (.) °yeah°] =that,= =mm-hmm= =and to mat-you could be people that you like each other, [but if you] don’t match= [°mm-hmm°] =mm-hmm= =yer: goals, and what you want to be doing, and [career] and where you’re= [mm-hmm] =[headed,] that might not work for that reason. So .hhh= [°mm-hmm°] =mm-hmm= =the older you get, I think there’s mo:re (0.2) there are less people who you can match with.= =°yeah°=

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Rebekah: =°An’° FIRST of all, other people have been married off younger, but= Dad: =Right.= Rebekah: =but it WAS in New York City, people-there’s a LOT of single people, a lot of people who are following careers, a LOT of people in schools, there’s a LOT of single people around, but uh-it’s HA:RD to [match] and meet them (.) ANYway= Dad: [mm-hmm] Rebekah: =because (.) I like this or that or-[you know]-uh-it’s- still HARD.= Dad: [yeah] Mom: =Um-hm= (lines 37–63 omitted) Dad: Well, I-I think, uh, (0.2) I really feel strongly that, uh::, along the way whenever it happens, whether it’s: NOW or ten YEARS from now, I think (.) I ↑honestly feel that-that YOU-each of you will find someone, and it’ll, it’ll °you know,°= Rebekah: =I don’t- yeah. I don’t really have the sense that I would RATHER be single [or WANT to be] single, which SOME people- I have some friends who are like Dad: [No. (.) No.] Rebekah: that, they’re like “You know what? I prob’ly rather be single, an’ I’d like [that,”]= Dad: [Yeah. Yeah.] Rebekah: =and I’ll-wuh-and some people are also like “I definitely don’t want kids. SURELY I don’t want kids.” Or they say things like that, so I’ve HEARD (.) different things from [people] and I: don’t feel (.) ANY of those ways. [I: WANT kids,] I want= Dad: [°mm-hmm°] Mom: [Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.] Rebekah: =to be married, and I’m STARTing to worry about my age (.) [in all of that.]= Mom: [Mm-hmm. °Mm-hmm°] Rebekah: =Because there’s a limit to [(.) HEALTHy and EASy reproductive age.] Dad: [Well, this should be] (.) your motivating

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81 82 83 84 85 86

Rebekah: Dad: Mom: Dad: Mom:

87 88 89

factor to get this (.) w-°project done.° BeLIEVE me, I want to get it done for MA:NY reasons. ((laughs)) Yeah, um-no-I mean, you will MAKE wiser choices,= =Oh yeah.= = and it’ll BE a commitment for life is because you will have matched someone that MATCHes you, you know.= Dad: =°mm-hmm°= Rebekah: =Right.

Rebekah’s response to Mom’s question demonstrates that she takes it as a complaint by launching into a justification for her single status up to that point. In response to Mom’s question (lines 1–7), Rebekah gives a long, multi-turn explanation. It is interesting to note the pronoun shift in Rebekah’s answer. She begins with the general pronoun ‘you’, starting with ‘it’s HARDer the older you get because you’re more of your own person and know what you want’ (lines 8, 10). By using the pronoun ‘you’, Rebekah is distancing the explanation from herself and making it more generalisable to everyone. Rebekah uses this more abstract discussion for many lines (lines 8–28). Then she makes her examples more specific by talking about the city she lives in, New York City (lines 30–32) and finally she shifts to talking about herself explicitly, starting by using ‘I’ in line 34. Throughout this explanation, Rebekah uses basic argumentation skills, by giving a lot of supporting details and examples and even using structures like ‘first of all’ (line 28). In this way, Rebekah is constructing her adult identity – that of a rational adult person. She also constructs herself as a New Yorker and a graduate student. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad are demonstrating listening by using a lot of continuers (e.g. ‘yeah’, ‘sure’ and ‘right’). These tokens are also a minimal way to demonstrate understanding without interrupting. But they also can be perceived as inviting Rebekah to go on and give further justification which hints at the fact that Mom’s question was in fact a complaint that needed explanation. After Rebekah’s account, Dad says, ‘whether it’s: NOW or ten YEARS from now, I think (.) I ↑honestly feel that-that YOU- each of you will find someone, and it’ll, it’ll °you know°’ (lines 64–66). He asserts his expectation as a strong belief that both Rebekah and Keith will find someone, but becomes vague at the end of the phrase, perhaps realising how strong his statement is and how face-threatening it could be, thus mitigating its force with vagueness. By recognising the potential face threat, Dad is orienting to Rebekah and Keith as adults. Rebekah treats Dad’s assertion as a complaint that she is still single. This is shown by the explicit manner in which she subsequently defends herself, insisting that she does not want to remain single, contrasting herself with

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friends of hers who have said that they don’t want children (lines 67–79). Her bald on-record statements (‘I: WANT kids, I want to be married, and I’m STARTing to worry about my age’, lines 74, 77) show that she wants to explicitly defend herself against Dad’s complaint and demonstrate that she intends to fulfil Mom’s and Dad’s expectations about her getting married and having children. Following Rebekah’s assertion, Dad comments that ‘this’ (these desires) should motivate Rebekah to get her ‘project’ done, referring to her dissertation (lines 80–81). He is orienting to her self-constructed identity as a graduate student, which is an adult identity, but by implicitly showing his desire for her to finish her studies he acts as a parent, which orients to her child identity, again showing the dual aspects of the adult child identity. Again, Rebekah treats Dad’s comment as a complaint because she gives an account in response: ‘BeLIEVE me, I want to get it done for MA:NY reasons’ (line 82). In doing so, she both agrees and disagrees with Dad – she agrees that her intention to pursue having a family may be a motivating factor in finishing her studies but not the only one. Conditionally accepting Dad’s comment demonstrates Rebekah’s adult identity, displaying her ability to negotiate with Dad. Mom follows this with the statement ‘you will MAKE wiser choices’ (line 84), acknowledging that Rebekah is able to make rational decisions, as an adult, and accepting her justification. Mom also explicates her expectations for a future relationship by saying, ‘and it’ll BE a commitment for life’ (line 86). We see Mom and Dad showing a united front as they collaboratively build on what the other has said to demonstrate their expectations. This discursive practice of justifying choices employed by Rebekah in this segment shows us an example of how adult children work to both establish their own autonomous identity and simultaneously respect their parents’ advice and hopes for their futures by not refusing to answer their enquiries but rather addressing their concerns. The above example is useful for family counsellors or therapists to demonstrate the ways parents at times make the adult children feel judged and we see evidence of this tension through the justifications the children make in the interaction. One way to share this excerpt with practitioners is by using Stokoe’s (2011) conversation analytic role-play method of playback and playing the audio- or video-recorded interaction at an event such as a training workshop. Certainly, the data and findings are seen as containing enough relevant material to elicit feedback from practitioners and will allow the researcher to continue to formulate further venues for dissemination.

Summary of findings Much of the adult child identity is constructed within the context of parental and societal expectations for what people should be doing in life and, thus, what the life of an adult ‘looks like’. We have seen in these data

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the ways in which Rebekah and Keith work to construct their own adult identities and the ways in which Mom and Dad help or hinder them in this effort. The discussion of the life choices Rebekah and Keith make and the implicit expectations Mom and Dad have for Rebekah and Keith are rich context for the construction of the adult child identity. We see the parental discursive practices of posing a ‘loaded’ question and explicitly showing appreciation as ways Mom and Dad work to convey their hopes and expectations. At times, these practices orient to Rebekah and Keith’s child identities, and Rebekah and Keith resist this identity through the use of humour or by presenting their decisions as being adult choices. The adult child discursive practice Rebekah uses, justifying choices, works to build her own autonomous adult identity. The discursive practices showcased here demonstrate several strategies adult children and their parents use to raise issues, relay hopes and expectations, and react to various related topics. While specific to the Johnson family, these are candidate discursive practices that may be used by other adult children and their parents, or may be similar to the types of strategies other families employ to construct identity and negotiate the potential ‘minefield’ that is family interaction. The selected excerpts highlight the way family members unwittingly cause tensions and cause each other to ‘go on the defensive’ verbally. Such defensive positioning can reduce the ability to collaborate on a positive construction of the adult children’s identities. Parents can learn to be less evaluative in their comments and adult children can learn to be less defensive in reaction through a close examination of their own discourse. Therefore, raising awareness about the way these strategies occur and how they are perceived by other family members could be relevant to similar family interaction contexts.

Applications As with other contributors to this special collection, I was invited to look at my findings from a fresh perspective and consider how they can relate to real-life application and possible future negotiations of praxis. While working through the Framework of Application (Chapter 1, this volume), I realised that the strategies used by the participants of this study to negotiate the delicate balance between the child and adult components of the adult child identity have a strong potential to inform the practice of family counselling and therapy. The data show how tensions build and how conflicting perspectives combine to create misunderstandings or subtle negative assessments. We can also see successful strategies family members use to attend to one another’s ‘face’ needs, particularly those of the adult child. These findings seem relevant to real-life settings and to professionals who help others with

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problems in such settings. Thus, establishing contact with a group or organisation of local practitioners is a reasonable step to take to elicit feedback from those who practice daily with families who need to better understand their own (mis)communication. However, there are a few difficult questions researchers like myself will face when taking the first steps in the dissemination of findings, such as whether counsellors will find this information useful for their practices and how to best share the information. To address this concern, I decided first to show my data in discourse analysis circles, where colleagues discussed my data from the stance of discourse professionals. In this working group context, many colleagues said my data helped them to better understand family talk and that they had also experienced this same tension between adult children and parents within their own families. The overwhelming response was to move forward with this research. In addition, I have presented different subsets of data from the larger research project at conferences and invited talks and people have said that it is interesting and that it is relevant and valuable to professionals working with families. Yet is it not easy to determine how best to share this method with counsellors and how to demonstrate the ways that it can be used for their clients. The role of this type of work for applied linguists can be debated and challenged by other disciplines, particularly by the counsellors themselves. Thus, the discourse analyst has to be careful how to approach application. To consider how this information can best be disseminated to family counsellors and therapists, I want to meet with professionals in the field and get their feedback on the data. Can these data truly relate to practitioners and their work with clients? And ultimately how could the data’s usefulness be gauged? These are, as pointed out by Grujicic-Alatriste in Chapter 1 (this volume), weighty questions. It is important that I elicit responses to these questions from the counsellors and therapists themselves. My choice is to hold workshops to work with counsellors to demonstrate the ways they can use the sample discursive practices from this data set to approach interaction in their client families. This use of ‘communicational applied conversation analysis’ (Antaki, 2011b: 5–6) can be a complementary analysis of the communication issues the counsellors see among couples or family members. Through training, counsellors will be equipped with examples of discursive practices they can use to help clients become more aware of the ways they interact with family members and work to construct identities. By drawing attention to the ways they are interacting with one another, counsellors will be able to prompt their clients to reflect on how their utterances and responses shape the conversation and cause reactions from other family members. Additionally, these data could be used as a point of departure into a more personalised meta-analysis of their own family talk. Alternative ways of posing queries and assessing others’ actions could be discussed, particularly for ‘touchy’ topics.

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Furthermore, counsellors will be trained in how to record the interactions of their client families and then analyse the patterns, interactional strategies and discursive practices used by the family members to accomplish particular goals, using the method of line-by-line micro-analysis as demonstrated in this study. The clients can then be shown their own interactions from this objective perspective to better understand tensions and misunderstandings. Finally, the counsellors will be asked to give feedback on the presentation of the data, the usefulness of it for them in their daily practice, and suggestions they have for further efforts to disseminate the findings to professionals. There are studies where problematic interaction has been examined and analysed and then ‘interventionist applied conversation analysis’ (Antaki, 2011b: 8–9) has been used to educate those involved in such interactions. Wilkinson (2011) focused on people interacting with people with aphasia by studying their conversations and then by ‘making them aware of choices they have in how they produce talk together’ (Wilkinson, 2011: 32). This shows an example of how a practitioner can collect data from patients, analyse it, and then offer advice or interventions. Discourse analysts have held workshops using real recorded interaction data and analysis to help people improve their workplace interactions (Kitzinger, 2011) and role-play training based on recorded interaction data (Stokoe, 2011). Some discourse analysts have even developed a method for reflection on one’s own talk such as the discursive action method (DAM), which is ‘based on insights from Conversation Analysis and Discursive Psychology’ (Lamerichs & te Molder, 2011: 184) and is fashioned after the ‘discursive action model’ (Edwards & Potter, 1993). DAM first takes naturally occurring discourse data and uses recordings and/or transcripts to help people reflect on their own ‘action sequences’ and orients to interactants’ stake and accountability (Lamerichs & te Molder, 2011: 188–189). Then, it holds a workshop to progress through the following steps: (1) adopt a noncognitive view; (2) move from making cognitive judgments to identifying interactional effects; (3) identify the speaker’s interactional problem; (4) explore discursive strategies; and (5) move from analysis to eliciting critical comparisons. Using clients’ own interaction data and working through it in one of these ways could benefit a family therapist in his or her work by raising awareness of the ways their clients’ utterances affect others and by offering alternative ways to engage and respond to one another. One way to implement some of the aforementioned uses of the data is to reach out to associations and institutional establishments that may have conferences and symposia where this work can be presented and where the uptake of ideas is possible. One such conference is the World Family Therapy Congress,1 the international conference of the International Family Therapy Association. There are also related conferences including the Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development2 and the

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International Association for Relationship Research Conference.3 Large annual general psychology events include the International Congress of Psychology4 and the American Psychological Association Convention.5 Other potential conferences include local US-based events such as the regional Psychological Association conferences. At such conferences, a good option is to use ‘playback’ segments from real video or audio data to showcase particular phenomena and summarise trends. In a related context, I will pursue educational outreach for family counsellors by approaching a select number of institutions (educational programmes) that are at the forefront in educational and modern family counselling, such as Columbia University Teachers College and New York University. This is a way of meeting professionals and presenting the findings in summary form with the hope that some partnership could be set up for further examination of how these findings can translate into practice. In addition to the educational graduate programmes, another option, particularly in big urban areas in the United States such as New York City, is to partner with or to discuss potential collaboration with some known research institutions such as the Ackerman Institute for the Family6 or the Gottman Institute.7 In such a context, I will offer to help to perform discourse analysis on selected data from family therapy clients who are willing to participate in research, and will pursue an interdisciplinary effort to unravel the intricate elements of family talk in more detail to benefit the clients and the practitioners. There are other possible avenues to pursue in data sharing such as creating brochures or informational materials and distributing such materials to professionals in the field, which I am currently working on developing. Such materials will include common communication strategies used by parents and children to discuss controversial topics or ways to express concern or deflect criticisms without offending other family members. This information could be developed into a website, a blog or even a book. In addition, as a discourse analyst, I could do consulting work with counsellors and analyse the (live or recorded) discourse among family clients. After sharing my research data with practitioners, it will be important to collect feedback about the value of the data, and whether it is comprehensible and of practical value. Surveys are good vehicles for collecting such feedback. In the most practical sense, family members in any family with parents and adult children can use these data and their analysis to discuss tensions and misunderstanding within their own family’s interactions (see Tannen, 2006). This would follow Candlin and Sarangi’s (2004a: 5) suggestion that linguists share what they do in a comprehensible way with people outside their own field. More than one colleague has mentioned that they have seen similar things happening in their own family interactions when presented with the data and analysis. One colleague shared with me that she went

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back home (during the holidays) and brought up some of the findings from my data. Her family then discussed some of the tensions inherent in parent– adult children discourse using my data as a departure point. It is my hope that some of the findings in this study will help other people and other families discuss and better understand their own interactions. My own family has benefitted from discussions about our own interaction styles after looking at the analyses, and we have become more open and more able to share things and have reduced some of the implicit manipulations in our own family discourse. Lastly, this type of work can be risky for the linguist. The professional practice may not want our input or may consider line-by-line discourse analysis to be too ‘micro-level’ to be relevant to their clientele. While I acknowledge this concern, I also maintain that our field has insights that can enrich the work of other fields and that linguists can and should work with professionals to see what results from this initiative. But, as stated by GrujicicAlatriste (Chapter 1), the approach to application advocated here is reasonable: ‘a gradual move towards considering praxis and engaging it in ways that are possible for both the analysts and the practitioners’. This is the first step towards bringing these data into the places of practice.

Concluding Thoughts As we become an increasingly interconnected, global society, able to communicate with people in any location instantly through digital means, we must not lose the ability to communicate in person, in the moment, particularly with those who are important to us in lifelong relationships – our family members. In this chapter, I have shared some examples that demonstrate that parent–adult child relationships are difficult to navigate because the adult child identity must be negotiated carefully and is, at times, paradoxical. People say that ‘going home for the holidays’ can be filled with tensions and difficulties – often because of this ambiguous status adult children have. While they live their own, autonomous adult lives away from their parents, when they return to their parents’ home the dynamic changes, and they are both the child of the family and an adult – and all participants must navigate these dualities in conversation. Understanding that these tensions exist and knowing how to spot when family members are making indirect complaints or assessments (via problematising someone’s actions, ideas or choices) will help counsellors work with families and validate the perspectives of each side of the adult children– parent dichotomy. Using discourse as a tool to show the ways people respond to something a family member says can help family members become more cognizant of their own discourse practices.

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This is one of the first sets of data looking at adult children interacting with their parents. The way that discourse analysis can add to the practice of family therapy and counselling will remain an area for discussion in the field.

Appendix: Transcription Conventions [] [] =

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