Rod Gardner

The Right connections: Acknowledging epistemic progression in talk

It is proposed that the response token Right, in one important use, is a marker of epistemic dependency between two units of talk by a prior speaker, and that this talk has progressed the understanding by the Right producer of a complex activity involving much information transfer. Two other Rights as response tokens are considered: as an epistemic confirmation token similar to Thats right, and as a change-of-activity token similar to Alright/Okay. In addition, Right is shown to be different from other response tokens, including the news receipt Oh, newsmarkers such as Really?, and continuers and acknowledgment tokens such as Mm hm and Yeah. The primary data consist of a fully transcribed dietetic consultation in an Australian hospital between a dietician and a client.

Islamophobia in the media: a response from multicultural education

This paper looks at the media in Germany and Australia in order to focus on the question of how Islam is accepted in both countries, and the extent to which Islamophobia exists. It was discovered that, for the most part, the media in both countries present a somewhat biased view of Muslims and Islam. However, there were some significant differences: (1) a higher acceptance of multiculturalism in the Australian media, which is revealed in the greater number of articles on ordinary, everyday multicultural life; (2) differences in the portrayal of migrants’ roles; and (3) the terminology used to refer to migrants. The paper concludes by outlining the ways in which multicultural education could contribute to a reduction of Islamophobia.

‘Broken’ Starts: Bricolage in Turn Starts in Second Language Talk

Turn beginnings are pivotal positions in talk-in-interaction. Two of the fundamental orders of organization of talk converge at this point: turn-taking and sequence. First, speakers have to take a turn and claim the floor: they may have been selected, or may self-select, but however the floor is allocated to a speaker, there is pressure to begin one’s turn at talk. Second, participants have to embark upon some action that has been made relevant (or has to be made relevant by the speaker) within the emerging sequence. If a participant has been selected to answer a question, then an answer is relevant, and this is so not at any time, but now. A delay in the answer quickly becomes an accountable action in itself. Similarly, if one has not been selected, but chooses to self-select, this needs to be done with reference to these same two orders: an appropriate time to begin the turn, and the production of an action that is designed to be conditionally relevant within the context of the emerging talk (Schegloff 1968). For first language speakers, the complex achievements of this moment generally, but not always, run off smoothly and automatically (though not necessarily effortlessly), but for second language speakers, familiar as they may be with turn-taking and action formation from their own first languages, such an apparently effortless launching of the turn may be impeded by the greater efforts they require to draw on the linguistic and interactional resources they need to construct the turn.

Liminality in multitasking: where talk and task collide in computer collaborations

This article investigates the effect of computer activity on talk during collaboration at the computer by two pairs of high school students during a webbased task. The work is located in relation to research in the wider world of the workplace and informal settings where multitasking involving talk and the operation of artifacts is known to occur. The current study focuses on how, when two students are working at the computer, talk continues or is disrupted during multitasking. Five examples are described in detail, beginning with a relatively straightforward case of serial multitasking and leading up to an example of complex simultaneous multitasking. Overwhelmingly in our data, only routine on-screen actions accompany talk, whereas complex actions occur with hitches or restarts in the talk, and true simultaneous multitasking happens on just three occasions in the data set. (Collaborative activity, computers, Conversation Analysis, interaction, language and technology, multimodality, multitasking)*

Language for Learning in Indigenous Classrooms: Foundations for Literacy and Numeracy

In this chapter we report on a project concerning the nature and use of language in classes in a Queensland Indigenous school. Language differences between Indigenous students and non-Indigenous teachers are a potential factor in the poor education outcomes of Indigenous children compared with non-Indigenous children. As part of a 3-year project based in a remote school, we have begun will be audio and video-recording Prep and Year 1 classes during lessons in which the focus is on literacy and numeracy. Relevant phases of the lessons are being transcribed in fine detail and subjected to microanalysis using Conversation Analysis. We will examine sequences in which to focus in on knowledge transmission, and focus on evidence of understanding between teachers and students, and displays of newly acquired and old knowledge. Results of the project will be used in developing teacher professional development materials.

Question and Answer Sequences in Garrwa Talk

For question–answer sequences in Australian Aboriginal talk, it has been claimed that answers are not necessarily a required response. This would contrast with findings reported in recent cross-linguistic work on such sequences. In a corpus of 62 question sequences from conversations in two Garrwa communities on the west side of the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia, 34 questions were answered, and a further 12 dealt with the question in some other way. Sixteen received no response in the proximally subsequent talk. Whilst most of these questions were answered, the offset time between question and response was long compared to previous studies. There was also a higher rate of non-answers and non-responses. For some cases of non-responses, contingent factors easily explained the lack, but in a few the reasons were not so apparent. It is argued that a significant factor in the relatively long silence between question and answer, and the relatively high rate of non-answers or non-responses, is that the parties in the talk spend much of the time in ‘continuing states of incipient talk’, rather than in tightly focused and temporally bound conversation, which may help to account for the apparent relaxation of gap minimization and response mobilization.

Expanded transition spaces: the case of Garrwa

Accounts of turn-taking in much of the CA literature have largely focused on talk which progresses with minimal gaps between turns at talk, longer gaps being found to be symptomatic of, for example, engagement in non-talk activities, or as indicators of some kind of trouble in the interaction. In this paper we present an account of turn-taking in conversations between Indigenous Australians where longer gaps are frequent and regular. We show that in sequences of such slow-paced conversation, gaps are not always treated as problematic, nor are they associated with non-talk activities that might inhibit talk. In such contexts we argue that there is less orientation to gap minimization, reflecting a lack of pressure for continuous talk. We also discuss qualitative differences in the nature of the gaps between turns in which there is a selection of next speaker, and those where no next speaker has been selected. Finally we consider whether such talk is a feature of Indigenous Australian conversation, or a more widespread practice.

Framing the Consultation: The Role of the Referral in Surgeon–Patient Consultations

This study describes and analyzes the impact of the referral process on communication at the beginning of surgeon–patient consultations. We used conversation analysis to analyze the opening interactional activities of surgeon–patient consultations in New Zealand. This study focuses on 20 video-recorded consultations recorded between 2004 and 2006. Participants in surgeon–patient consultations began referred consultations by discussing the referral letter in what we have termed “referral recognition sequences.” These sequences are coconstructed activities that can be implicit or explicit and address the minimized epistemic distance between surgeons and patients that is caused by the referral process. These sequences can be simple or complex, and this complexity may be determined by the quality of the referral letter received. Acknowledgment of the referral letter assists in achieving alignment between surgeon, patient, and referring doctor regarding the presenting problem. If this alignment is not achieved, progressivity of the consultation is affected, as there is disagreement as to why the patient is seeing the surgeon. This research shows that to assist in the progressivity of surgeon–patient consultations, referral letters should be clear and patients made aware of the reason for referral. Surgeons should also overtly address the minimized epistemic distance caused by the referral letter to ensure patients present their problems in full.

Enriching CA through MCA? Stokoe’s MCA keys

In this commentary on Stokoe’s article, ‘Moving forward with membership categorization analysis’, I take up the challenge to apply her keys for MCA to an extract of conversation recorded in a restaurant. The strengths of conversation analysis have not included – and indeed have not attempted to achieve – successful engagement with beyond-the-immediate-talk aspects of culture and the commonsense workings of society. The aim of the article is to explore what MCA might add to an analysis of a stretch of talk using conversation analytic tools. It was found that a systematic application of the keys did indeed provide a richer account of what was going on. Whereas categories alone did not appear to provide more insights than commonsense can tell us, when the broader array of MCA tools and keys were applied, an enhanced analysis of the passage of talk emerged. An exploration of whether this can be extended as a method for a rigorous investigation of culture and society while still being grounded in participants’ mutual, moment-by-moment orientations to categories seems at the very least worth the serious attention of scholars interested in interaction.

Understanding communication between surgeon and patient in outpatient consultations

There is an assumption that there is a similarity between surgeon‐patient and primary care consultations. Yet, surgeon communication has had far less analytic attention than its primary care counterparts. Therefore, this assumption of similarity (and the proposition here of dissimilarity) has yet to be evidenced through detailed interactional analysis.