Displays of concession in university faculty meetings

Pragmatics ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Saft
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Sequential Analysis ◽  
University Faculty ◽  
Japanese University ◽  
Cultural Concepts ◽  
Faculty Meetings ◽  
Do So

In light of the tendency in studies of Japanese discourse and communication to account for patterns of social interaction in terms of cultural concepts such as wa (“harmony”), omoiyari (“empathy”), and enryo (“restraint”), this report sets out to demonstrate how much of an endogenously produced, local achievement social interaction can be in Japanese. To do so, the techniques and principles of conversation analysis are employed to describe how a particular social action, the expression of concession to statements of opposition, is produced by participants in a set of Japanese university faculty meetings. Although it is suggested that the very direct and explicit design of the concession displays could be explained in terms of concepts such as wa and/or enryo, it is nonetheless argued that the interactional significance of this action can be best understood by undertaking a detailed, sequential analysis of the interaction. The analysis itself is divided into two parts: First it is demonstrated that the concessions are products of the participants’ close attendance to and monitoring of the details of the unfolding interaction; second it is shown that instead of turning to pre-determined cultural concepts to account for the trajectory of the interaction, it is possible to understand the concession displays by situating them within the flow of the interaction itself.

Absent appreciation in Mandarin Chinese interaction

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyan Liang
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Sequential Analysis ◽  
Complete Sequence ◽  
Normative Expectation ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
The Social

When receiving something beneficial, interlocutors are expected to express their appreciation in the second pair part (SPP) or the sequence-closing third position with linguistic resources such as ‘thanks’ and ‘thank you’, thus forming an adjency pair or a complete sequence. However, under some circumstances, relevant or appropriate appreciation is expected but does not appear. Adopting conversation analysis as the research methodology, this article examines the absence of appreciation in ordinary Mandarin interactions where gratitude and appreciation are often socially prescribed. Its sequential analysis of talks demonstrates that at times a verbal appreciative response in situations such as offering and requesting does not occur until a later conversational turn rather than in the preferred second pair part, whereas at other times the social action, although expected, is actually absent in social interaction. The analysis of the data shows that when interlocutors transgress the normative expectation of appreciation, the expected pattern of action and interactional organisation will be evidenced circumstantially within the ongoing interaction itself. The present study proves that deviations from standard forms in the interactional organisation can give rise to additional accounts or other visible interactional behaviour.

scholarly journals “Mijn stoma is een #superstoma” : Een discursieve analyse van blogs over stoma’s1

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce Lamerichs ◽  
Charlotte van Hooijdonk
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Normative Claim ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Micro Analysis ◽  
Do So

Abstract In this article we present a micro-analysis of 27 English blogs of people who reflect on their illness experience and the ostomy surgery they had to undergo as a result of that illness. We adopt an approach based on two related perspectives: conversation analysis and discursive psychology. Both perspectives consider language as a tool for social action. Our findings demonstrate that the discourse of the blogs serves three important social functions. First, the bloggers are able to describe how they have managed their ill-health for a long time, and how ostomy surgery became an inevitable next step. Second, bloggers can demonstrate their acceptance of the ostomy bag in embodied and personified ways (e.g., naming their bag) as well as emphasizing a return to a new normal. Third, ostomates present their stoma as a transformational occurrence. They do so by emphasizing extraordinary achievements in their lives after their stoma surgery and by displaying a strong normative claim to act as a role model. With this micro-analysis we have attempted to uncover how ostomates engage in identity work vis-à-vis their illness and how this is accomplished in the discourse of their blogs. This fine-grained analysis may be of importance to fellow ostomates and medical professionals, as it highlights the main concerns of ostomates in their experiential account of ostomy surgery.

scholarly journals How grammar grows out of social interaction: From multi-unit to single-unit question

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 837-864
Author(s):  
Simona Pekarek Doehler
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Single Unit ◽  
Sequential Analysis ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Single Turn ◽  
Usage Patterns ◽  
Prosodic Boundaries

Abstract This article scrutinizes interactional motivations for the sedimentation of grammatical usage patterns. It investigates how multi-unit questioning turns may have routinized into a single-unit social action format. Multimodal sequential analysis of French conversational data identifies a recurrent pattern in which a question-word question is followed by a candidate answer (formally: [question-word question + phrase/clause]). The data show a continuum of synchronic usage, the pattern being implemented as either two or one turn-constructional unit(s), with intermediate cases displaying fuzzy boundaries. In usage (i), a candidate answer emerges in response to the recipient’s lack of uptake as a way of pursuing response; in (ii) the candidate answer occurs immediately after the question, with fuzzy prosodic boundaries between the two units; in (iii) the pattern is produced as a single turn-constructional unit, showing important lexico-syntactic and prosodic consistency. It is argued that the integrated format (iii) originates in the repeated interactional sequencing of two subsequent actions, as in (i), and serves as a resource for proffering a highly tentative guess: It is the routinized product of frequent combinations in use, emerging from the interactionally motivated two-unit format. The findings support an understanding of interaction as a driving force for the routinization of patterns of language use.

scholarly journals Pandemic morality-in-action: Accounting for social action during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 095792652110232
Author(s):  
Katie Ekberg ◽  
Stuart Ekberg ◽  
Lara Weinglass ◽  
Susan Danby
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Public Health Crisis ◽  
Paediatric Palliative Care ◽  
Rapid Changes

Global health pandemics (such as COVID-19) can result in rapid changes to sanctionable behaviour, impacting society and culture in a multitude of ways. This study examined how pandemic culture and accompanying moral order was produced within and through social interaction during the first and second waves of COVID-19 in Australia. The data consisted of a corpus of 29 video-recorded paediatric palliative care consultations and were analysed using conversation analysis. Analysis showed how adherence to pandemic rules became morally expected, and moral concerns about actual or potential violations to these rules became relevant in and through social interaction during this period. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a natural experiment for how accountable actions and a moral order are negotiated in and through our social interactions when our taken-for-granted ‘natural facts of life’ change in response to a global public health crisis.

scholarly journals Eye-tracking Recordings as Data in EMCA Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Dalby Kristiansen ◽  
Gitte Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Video Camera ◽  
Analytic Procedure ◽  
Social Conduct ◽  
Mobile Eye Tracking

The article contributes to the ongoing discussion of the potential of using eye-tracking recordings in ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA) by exploring to what extent and under what circumstances such recordings may be useful for EMCA studies of multimodal social interaction. For this purpose, it analyzes examples of social conduct recorded by one video camera and one set of eye-tracking glasses. The article concludes that while eye-tracking recordings may, in some specific cases, provide new analytic possibilities for studying social action, they are by no means indispensable for EMCA research in multimodal social interaction, and making use of mobile eye-tracking equipment and recordings may compromise the data as well as the analytic procedure.

scholarly journals Why visiting one’s ageing mother is not enough: on filial duties to prevent and alleviate parental loneliness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bouke de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Reasonable Cost ◽  
Ageing Parents ◽  
Do So

AbstractAs people grow old, many risk becoming chronically lonely which is associated with e.g. depression, dementia, and increased mortality. Whoever else should help to protect them from this risk, various philosophers have argued that any children that they might have will often be among them. Proceeding on this assumption, this article considers what filial duties to protect ageing parents from loneliness consist of, or might consist of. I develop my answer by showing that a view that may be intuitively plausible, namely that they simply require children to visit their ageing parents regularly when they can do so at reasonable cost and call, text, and/or email them from time to time, is defective in three respects. First, it ignores children’s potential responsibilities to encourage and/or facilitate social interaction between their parents and third parties. Second, it ignores their potential responsibilities to help provide their parents with non-human companionship. Third, it elides over their duties to coordinate their efforts to offer loneliness protection with others. What I end up proposing instead, then, is an approach for protecting ageing parents from loneliness that is multi-faceted.

scholarly journals Longitudinal association between autistic traits and affinity for hikikomori in Japanese university students

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuuki Shimono ◽  
Akira Hasegawa ◽  
Kohei Tsuchihara ◽  
Keisuke Tanaka ◽  
Yuko Matsuda ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
University Students ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Autistic Traits ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Autism Spectrum Quotient ◽  
Japanese University ◽  
Longitudinal Association ◽  
Academic Failures

AbstractThe affinity for hikikomori represents the desire to be withdrawn, as well as to entertain an empathetic attitude towards withdrawn individuals. It is composed of two subdimensions, the maladaptive desire for hikikomori, and empathy for others with hikikomori. This longitudinal study examined whether autistic traits predicted the affinity for hikikomori. At the baseline assessment, undergraduate and graduate students in Japan (N = 272) completed the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ), the Affinity for Hikikomori Scale in University Students, and measures assessing academic failures and interpersonal conflicts. They also completed all measures excluding the AQ eight weeks later. Structural equation modeling indicated that difficulties in social interaction aspects of autistic traits were positively associated with academic failures at Time 2 even after controlling for academic failures at Time 1. In addition, difficulties in social interaction were positively related to the desire for hikikomori at Time 2 indirectly via academic failures at Time 2 after controlling for the desire for hikikomori at Time 1. Difficulties in social interaction were also directly associated with the increased desire for hikikomori at Time 2. These findings suggest that autistic traits, and especially difficulties in social interaction, are predictors of the maladaptive aspect of the affinity for hikikomori.

Conversation and Culture

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simeon Floyd
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Sequential Analysis ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative Methods ◽  
Language Studies ◽  
Speech Communities

Conversation analysis is a method for the systematic study of interaction in terms of a sequential turn-taking system. Research in conversation analysis has traditionally focused on speakers of English, and it is still unclear to what extent the system observed in that research applies to conversation more generally around the world. However, as this method is now being applied to conversation in a broader range of languages, it is increasingly possible to address questions about the nature of interactional diversity across different speech communities. The approach of pragmatic typology first applies sequential analysis to conversation from different speech communities and then compares interactional patterns in ways analogous to how traditional linguistic typology compares morphosyntax. This article discusses contemporary literature in pragmatic typology, including single-language studies and multilanguage comparisons reflecting both qualitative and quantitative methods. This research finds that microanalysis of face-to-face interaction can identify both universal trends and culture-specific interactional tendencies. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 50 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Walking through the city soundscape: an audio-visual analysis of sensory experience for people with psychosis

2022 ◽  
pp. 147035722110526
Author(s):  
Sara Merlino ◽  
Lorenza Mondada ◽  
Ola Söderström
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Visual Analysis ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Noisy Environments ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

This article discusses how an aspect of urban environments – sound and noise – is experienced by people walking in the city; it particularly focuses on atypical populations such as people diagnosed with psychosis, who are reported to be particularly sensitive to noisy environments. Through an analysis of video-recordings of naturalistic activities in an urban context and of video-elicitations based on these recordings, the study details the way participants orient to sound and noise in naturalistic settings, and how sound and noise are reported and reexperienced during interviews. By bringing together urban context, psychosis and social interaction, this study shows that, thanks to video recordings and conversation analysis, it is possible to analyse in detail the multimodal organization of action (talk, gesture, gaze, walking bodies) and of the sensory experience(s) of aural factors, as well as the way this organization is affected by the ecology of the situation.

The moral construction of worry about radiation exposure: Emotion, knowledge, and tests

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 635-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aug Nishizaka
Keyword(s):  
Radiation Exposure ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Internal Exposure ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Moral Construction ◽  
Fukushima Disaster ◽  
Do So

In the analysis of video recordings of the interactions between a doctor and the examinees following internal radiation exposure tests at a hospital in Fukushima Prefecture, I explore how the participants address one of the most serious consequences of the Fukushima disaster, that is, their concerns about radioactive materials. To do so, this study employs conversation analysis. The doctor’s presentation of the test results provides the examinees with a place to express relief and also makes relevant the justification work related to the expression of relief. In conclusion, I consider how the internal exposure tests also function as a communication tool in the context in which residents from affected areas face potential difficulties in expressing their worry about radiation.

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