Beatrice Szczepek Reed

NOW or NOT NOW: Coordinating Restarts in the Pursuit of Learnables in Vocal Master Classes

During the pursuit of learnables in vocal master classes, masters frequently produce lengthy clusters of directives, while students and accompanists orient to early opportunities for putting directives into practice. Participants are therefore faced with a continuous necessity to negotiate whether a directive is to be put into practice “now” or “not now.” Accompanists typically initiate musical (re)performances and are therefore the first to respond to a masters instruction completion, often preempting it early on in a masters potentially final turn constructional unit. Master class participants have to coordinate two action types: masters orient to giving instructions through talk; students and pianists orient primarily to restarting the musical performance.

Beyond the particular: prosody and the coordination of actions.

The majority of research on prosody in conversation to date has focused on exploring the role of individual prosodic features, such as certain types of pitch accent, pitch register or voice quality, for the accomplishment of specified social actions. From this research the picture emerges that when it comes to the implementation of specific actions at specific sequential locations conversationalists employ prosodic features systematically, but also with considerable variation, and indeed flexibility. This paper suggests a further line of enquiry, which pursues a wider, more fundamental role of prosody for interaction, and which does not focus on individual prosodic practices or features, but on participants’ collaborative use of prosody for the implementation of one of the most basic interactional decisions: whether to continue a previously established action trajectory, or whether to start a new one. The data and findings of recent research make it clear that prosody, and in fact talk-in-interaction as such, is not appropriately defined by reference to individual features, speakers, locations and actions alone, but must be approached as a resource and negotiating strategy for social interaction. Prosody, therefore, must be described according to its role for both the accomplishment, and the coordination of actions across turns and participants.

Prosody and alignment: a sequential perspective

In their analysis of a corpus of classroom interactions in an inner city high school, Roth and Tobin describe how teachers and students accomplish interactional alignment by prosodically matching each other’s turns. Prosodic matching, and specific prosodic patterns are interpreted as signs of, and contributions to successful interactional outcomes and positive emotions. Lack of prosodic matching, and other specific prosodic patterns are interpreted as features of unsuccessful interactions, and negative emotions. This forum focuses on the article’s analysis of the relation between interpersonal alignment, emotion and prosody. It argues that prosodic matching, and other prosodic linking practices, play a primarily sequential role, i.e. one that displays the way in which participants place and design their turns in relation to other participants’ turns. Prosodic matching, rather than being a conversational action in itself, is argued to be an interactional practice (Schegloff 1997), which is not always employed for the accomplishment of ‘positive’, or aligning actions.

British Muslim University Students' Perceptions of Prevent and Its Impact on Their Sense of Identity.

The Prevent strategy at UK universities is designed to reduce the possibility of university students becoming radicalised and so working against them supporting or directly engaging in terrorist activities. In this study, we were concerned to reflect on our reading of some relevant literature by exploring the views of a sample of British Muslim students regarding Prevent and, in particular, its impact on their sense of personal and national identities as British Muslims. Nine British Muslim undergraduate students completed an online questionnaire. We discuss findings suggesting that there is limited general understanding and negative characterisations of Prevent, with perceptions of this policy being ineffective and inappropriate for higher education contexts. We suggest that more work is needed to develop relevant educational initiatives in the development of a tolerant society and that there is potential in discourse analysis to help reveal further insights into Muslim students’ identities.

Creating space for learner autonomy: an interactional perspective

Abstract This paper is concerned with teachers’ and learners’ collaborative pursuit of learner autonomy in a highly asymmetrical education setting, the music masterclass. Evaluations are identified as a potential opportunity for the mutual construction of learner autonomy. The analysis shows that, while teaching professionals mitigate interactional inequalities and thus reflexively handle asymmetrical interaction, words alone do not address the imbalances that exist. It is only when teachers show determination in pursuing invitations for students to engage and provide sequential slots for them to do so that spaces for learner autonomy are created. Students are also shown to take charge of their own learning by evaluating themselves, rather than waiting for teachers to do so. The data show that, while interactional asymmetries can be deeply ingrained in traditional forms of instruction, the local co-construction of social life means that patterns of instruction can be negotiated in situ rather than being the inevitable result of established hierarchies. However, doing so requires considerable interactional effort.AbstractThis paper is concerned with teachers’ and learners’ collaborative pursuit of learner autonomy in a highly asymmetrical education setting, the music masterclass. Evaluations are identified as a potential opportunity for the mutual construction of learner autonomy. The analysis shows that, while teaching professionals mitigate interactional inequalities and thus reflexively handle asymmetrical interaction, words alone do not address the imbalances that exist. It is only when teachers show determination in pursuing invitations for students to engage and provide sequential slots for them to do so that spaces for learner autonomy are created. Students are also shown to take charge of their own learning by evaluating themselves, rather than waiting for teachers to do so. The data show that, while interactional asymmetries can be deeply ingrained in traditional forms of instruction, the local co-construction of social life means that patterns of instruction can be negotiated in situ rather than being th...

Managing the Boundary Between “Yes” and “But”: Two Ways of Disaffiliating With German ja aber and jaber

This study shows how different phonetic productions of the same word pair perform different actions in conversation. The German words for “yes” and “but” share the same vowel at the word boundary: ja aber. Data from naturally occurring talk show that German speakers exploit this property of their language to differentiate between ja aber and jaber. The phonetic distinction co-occurs with a distinction in how actions are formatted. In ja aber turns, ja performs a separate action, often as a second pair part, providing an elicited confirming response. The action initiated by aber is typically disaffiliative and done for the first time. In contrast, jaber-fronted turns are rarely second pair parts and perform one single disaffiliative action, which is a redoing of a previously accomplished or attempted action. The frequent occurrence of jaber in the corpus suggests that the item is being used as a wordlike entity similar to a discourse marker. The findings reveal that for participants the local requirement t...This study shows how different phonetic productions of the same word pair perform different actions in conversation. The German words for “yes” and “but” share the same vowel at the word boundary: ja aber. Data from naturally occurring talk show that German speakers exploit this property of their language to differentiate between ja aber and jaber. The phonetic distinction co-occurs with a distinction in how actions are formatted. In ja aber turns, ja performs a separate action, often as a second pair part, providing an elicited confirming response. The action initiated by aber is typically disaffiliative and done for the first time. In contrast, jaber-fronted turns are rarely second pair parts and perform one single disaffiliative action, which is a redoing of a previously accomplished or attempted action. The frequent occurrence of jaber in the corpus suggests that the item is being used as a wordlike entity similar to a discourse marker. The findings reveal that for participants the local requirement to manage action boundaries is more relevant than linguistic word boundaries that may exist outside the interactional context. Data are in German with English translation.

Prosody in Conversation: Implications for Teaching English Pronunciation

This chapter presents findings from research on conversational prosody and discusses some of their implications for teaching English pronunciation. Two main areas are discussed: the relationship between prosodic form and interactional function, particularly with respect to prosody and turn taking; and the role of prosody for interactional alignment, in particular the sequential practice of designing a turn either as responsive to prior talk or as a new beginning. One challenge for pronunciation teaching is the emerging consent amongst students of talk-in-interaction that conversational cues work together as clusters, rather than fulfilling functions individually. Moreover, the very latest studies on intonation suggest that for some interactional practices, pitch patterns play a very limited role. One of the conclusions emerging from this research is that participants in conversation make prosodic choices, not according to any context-free functions or meanings of prosodic patterns but according to the social action they are in the process of accomplishing. The chapter suggests that teaching methodologies for pronunciation take into consideration the role of prosody for implementing and coordinating social actions, for example, by developing learners’ interactional orientation to others.

Factors Affecting Turn-taking Behaviour: Genre meets Prosody

This chapter looks at work on turn-taking from the perspective of what a speaker must know in order to participate in Schegloff’s ‘primordial site of sociality’. After a brief overview of the existing literature, we propose a set of broad hypotheses about what speakers must know in order to accomplish successful turn-taking in conversation. We then go on to offer analyses of two extracts from a native/non-native interaction which demonstrate the impact of knowledge about conversational genre on the local negotiating work accomplished by the speakers in the realms of prosody and syntax. We conclude by suggesting a broader interpretative framework for future analysis of turn-taking behaviour.

How speakers of different languages extend their turns : Word-linking and glottalisation in French and German

ABSTRACT A speaker who issues a confirming turn starting with particles like yes, oui, ja, and so on, may mean to extend it and provide further material. This study shows that French and German speakers employ the same phonetic contrast to indicate the nature of that turn continuation. In spite of the typological difference between the German use of glottalization and the French use of linking phenomena for word boundaries involving word-initial vowels, speakers of both languages exploit this contrast systematically in their design of multiunit turns. Initial confirmations are joined directly to subsequent vowel-fronted turn components when speakers respond with an internally cohesive multiunit confirming turn. The components are separated by glottalization when responses involve multiple actions or departures from a trajectory projected by the turn-initial confirmation. This is further evidence that sound patterns shape interaction and are not solely determined by language-specific phonologies. Data are in French and German with English translation.

Managing Educational Interactions: A Case Study of Bilingual Supervision Meetings

Editor’s introduction Conversation analysis (commonly abbreviated as CA) is an approach to the study of social interaction, embracing both verbal and nonverbal conduct, in situations of everyday life. It is used in this case to evoke a basic question: Is it accurate to describe a conversation as cross/intercultural when participants conform to the same verbal and nonverbal conventions even though they come from different cultural backgrounds? In this case, the conventions are those pertaining to academic relationships between students and staff at a Western university; and Szczepek Reed’s research suggests the answer to the above question is in the negative. She found that in spite of significant cultural and linguistic differences, the participants managed their discourse successfully by sharing the same assumptions about the conduct of what she describes as “institution-specific interaction.” Her findings are in line with a fascinating discourse by Sheldon Richmond in 1998 1 at the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy in Boston, US. He pointed out that many writers have been perplexed by the problem that if culture is formative of language and thought, how people from different cultures can understand each other. The common assumptions of most theorists of language are that language is fundamental to thinking and culture; and language, thought, culture or humanity is a natural product of social evolution. Richmond went on to suggest that both Karl Popper 2 and Michael Polanyi 3 – diametrically opposed in most of their ideas – independently criticized these assumptions and argued that though language and culture create hurdles for 7 Educational