Christopher Joseph Jenks

Transcribing talk and interaction : issues in the representation of communication data

Interest in transcript-based research has grown significantly in recent years. Alongside this growth has been an increase in awareness of the empirical utility of naturalistic research on language use in interaction. However, a quick scan of the literature reveals that very few transcription books have been published in the past three decades. This is an astonishing fact given that there are perhaps hundreds of books published on spoken discourse analysis. This book aims to narrow this gap by providing an introduction to the theories and practices related to transcribing communication data. The book is intended for students with little to no knowledge of transcription work and/or instructors responsible for teaching introductory courses on transcript-based research. Readers who are learning or teaching discourse/conversation analysis or similar analytic methods of investigation will find this book particularly helpful. The author: Christopher Jenks has many years of experience teaching transcription work and analysis of communication data to postgraduate students and researchers. In addition to running workshops and giving presentations on similar topics at universities around the world, he has published widely in top international journals and has numerous other forthcoming publications.

When Is It Appropriate to Talk? Managing Overlapping Talk in Multi-Participant Voice-Based Chat Rooms.

There has been extensive reporting on the interactional characteristics of multi-participant text-based chat rooms. In these chat rooms there are several students typing at the same time, often on more than one topic. As a result, it is not uncommon to see multiple overlapping utterances. Despite these communicative challenges, research suggests that multi-participant text-based chat rooms are beneficial for language teaching and learning. It is my objective to investigate whether the same can be said for multi-participant voice-based chat rooms. As there is little empirical work on the interaction that results from communicating in voice-based chat rooms, a necessary first step in discussing pedagogical benefits is to investigate its interactional structure. This study will therefore focus on how overlapping talk is dealt with in a medium in which multiple voices are heard in the absence of nonverbal cues. The findings show how pauses act in connection to overlapping talk, both as a source and an interactional resource. These findings will then be used to discuss the pedagogical implications of communicating in multi-participant voice-based chat rooms.

‘Is it okay to eat a dog in Korea…like China?’ Assumptions of national food-eating practices in intercultural interaction

Abstract There is a small body of research which shows how intercultural communication is constituted in and through talk-in-interaction, and can be made relevant or irrelevant by interactants on a moment-by-moment basis. Our paper builds on this literature by investigating how cultural assumptions of national food-eating practices are deployed, contested and co-constructed in an online, voice-based chat room. Using conversation analysis, findings show how assumptions about cultural practices sequentially unfold in a setting where the interactants are strangers. Additionally, we show how assumptions about cultural practices can be used for rhetorical purposes, and can be treated as simple and complex in a single exchange.

Language and intercultural communication in the workplace: critical approaches to theory and practice

In much contemporary theorising on culture and globalisation, it is argued that the emerging international network of sociopolitical systems has led to a weakening of the nation as a source of iden...

Managing Mutual Orientation in the Absence of Physical Copresence: Multiparty Voice-Based Chat Room Interaction

This study investigates the interactional work involved in ratifying mutual participation in online, multiparty, voice-based chat rooms. The purpose of this article is to provide a preliminary sketch of how talk and participation is managed in a spoken communication environment that comprises interactants who are not physically copresent but are engaging in and disengaging from conversations with high regularity. This distinctive feature of chat rooms provides a unique opportunity to examine how communication is shaped by technological affordances and constraints, an issue important to a number of different areas of study, including discourse analysis and computer-mediated communication. The analysis examines two aspects of interaction that are germane to participating in chat rooms: summons–answer exchanges and verbal alignment. The findings show that talk in chat rooms does not simply happen but is preceded by highly organized, complex, and collaborative interactional work aimed at establishing mutual orientation.

Adaptation in Online Voice-Based Chat Rooms: Implications for Language Learning in Applied Linguistics

In this chapter, I will use conversation analysis (CA) to investigate how speakers of English as an additional language (EAL) converse in online voice-based chat rooms. The chat rooms that I investigate are a relatively new communicative environment. Here multiple interactants from all over the world interact in the spoken medium, in very much the same way as text-based chat rooms. The term ‘additional’ refers to the fact that the interactants investigated here are not in ‘second’ or ‘foreign’ language classrooms, but are communicating in non-educational settings where the relevance of English as a second/foreign language (S/FL) varies from interactant to interactant.1 It is vital to make this distinction at the outset, as any investigation of language learning must identify what is meant by language. Additional language is a more context-sensitive term which acknowledges that for some interactants, formal classroom language learning is only one of many settings in which English is used and learnt. More importantly, the identities and discourse that are often associated with S/FL learning are not ubiquitous (for example, language learner; see Kurhila 2004).2 So, for example, the communicative goals in online voice-based chat rooms are not necessarily to learn predetermined ‘target’ grammatical rules from an expert in a linear fashion, as one would typically experience in language classrooms.

‘Your pronunciation and your accent is very excellent’: orientations of identity during compliment sequences in English as a lingua franca encounters

Abstract The widespread use of English has – for better or worse – shaped the social and communicative norms and practices of many people the world over, and the likelihood of this continuing for the foreseeable future raises questions concerning English ownership, linguistic imperialism, language attrition, and mutual intelligibility, to name a few. These themes and issues are empirically rich areas of investigation for discourse and identity studies. For example, despite its widespread use and exposure, English varies from one region to another with regard to how it is learned and used in day-to-day life and the social significance it has with families and communities. The present study investigates the identity work that takes place when interactants from different parts of the world come together and communicate in English. Specifically, this study uses membership categorization analysis to examine English as a lingua franca (ELF) encounters. Data come from a large corpus of multi-party voice-based chat rooms and the Vienna–Oxford International Corpus of English. The analysis focuses on how interactants give, and respond to, compliments concerning language proficiency. The paper aims to show how compliment sequences provide a window into how identities are co-constructed in intercultural, lingua franca encounters. Observations reveal that compliment sequences often lead to orientations of so-called ‘non-native’ identities, and highlight the fluid and dynamic nature of discourse identity invocation and co-construction during ELF encounters.

Working with Transcripts: An Abridged Review of Issues in Transcription

This paper provides an abbreviated review of the theories and practices that are related to transcribing spoken discourse. The review identifies four keys areas of transcription, discusses why they are important to all investigations of spoken discourse analysis, and considers the practical implications of carrying out transcript-based research. The four areas of transcription discussed in this review are organized into the following sections: theoretical issues, representation, transcription software, and transcription ethics. The aim in providing this review is to argue that while there is no monolithic way of transcribing spoken discourse, the theories and practices that underpin and shape transcription work are highly complex, inherently problematic, and therefore should not be taken for granted.

Are you an ELF? The relevance of ELF as an equitable social category in online intercultural communication

Abstract This paper examines the different social categories that are made relevant when geographically dispersed speakers of English as an additional language communicate in chat rooms. Although the literature characterizes these interactions as English as a lingua franca, this paper explores to what extent interactants see themselves as lingua franca speakers. Membership categorization analysis is used to investigate how social categories related to English are enacted in, and through, talk and interaction. This is done by investigating language proficiency compliments, talk of language proficiency, and getting acquainted sequences. While English is the medium of communication in these chat rooms, the findings reveal that English as a lingua franca is not a social category that is made relevant during talk. When constructing identities in relation to English, the social categories that are made relevant are foreigner, language learner, and non-native. These observations are then used to argue that an equitable, impartial, and context-sensitive approach to examining identities in intercultural communication requires abandoning the more traditional method of ascribing social categories a priori. The paper ends by exploring the validity of using the term English as a lingua franca when interactants possess, and make relevant, a number of different social categories when speaking in English.

An Introduction to Conceptualising Learning in Applied Linguistics

The chapters which make up this volume have emerged principally from a two-day BAAL/CUP seminar, ‘Conceptalising Learning in Applied Linguistics’, held at Newcastle University in June 2008. The seminar brought together some of the leading names in SLA research and resulted in a stimulating and thought-provoking debate about the meaning and characteristics of learning in applied linguistics. We hope we have captured the essence of that debate in the chapters which follow.