scholarly journals Distributing Agency and Experience in Therapeutic Interaction: Person References in Therapists' Responses to Complaints

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marja Etelämäki ◽  
Liisa Voutilainen ◽  
Elina Weiste

The primary means for psychotherapy interaction is language. Since talk-in-interaction is accomplished and rendered interpretable by the systematic use of linguistic resources, this study focuses on one of the central issues in psychotherapy, namely agency, and the ways in which linguistic resources, person references in particular, are used for constructing different types of agency in psychotherapy interaction. The study investigates therapists' responses to turns where the client complains about a third party. It focuses on the way therapists' responses distribute experience and agency between the therapist and the client by comparing responses formulated with the zero-person (a formulation that lacks a grammatical subject, that is, a reference to the agent) to responses formulated with a second person singular pronoun that refers to the client. The study thus approaches agency as situated, dynamic and interactional: an agent is a social unit whose elements (flexibility and accountability) are distributed in the therapist-client interaction. The data consist of 70 audio-recorded sessions of cognitive psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, and the method of analysis is conversation analysis and interactional linguistics. The main findings are that therapists use the zero-person for two types of responses: affiliating and empathetic responses that distribute the emotional experience between the client and the therapist, and responses that invite clients to interpret their own experiences, thereby distributing control and responsibility to the clients. In contrast, the second person references are used for re-constructing the client's past history. The conclusion is that therapists use the zero-person for both immediate emotional work and interpretative co-work on the client's experiences. The study suggests that therapists' use of the zero-person does not necessarily attribute “weak agency” to the client but instead might strengthen the clients' agency in the sense of control and responsibility in the long term.

Pragmatics ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Pepe Droste ◽  
Susanne Günthner

Abstract The German second person personal pronoun du is commonly described as a deictic “shifter” or a T-address term, which is incorporated as an argument of a predicate. Exploring the ways in which participants use pronouns in everyday interaction, however, shows that these are not the only uses of du. In this paper, we examine vocative uses of du in German everyday interaction. Drawing on methods of Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics, we will show that speakers use vocative du for the management of being ‘with’ the other in terms of alignment as well as affiliation. What du locally accomplishes, however, is sensitive to its positioning within the temporal unfolding of turns and sequences as well as to the sequential environments in which it is used. Our findings demonstrate the context-sensitivity of du and underscore the importance of linguistic resources for the interactional establishment and maintenance of social togetherness and sociability.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0257866
Author(s):  
Selina A. Ruzi ◽  
Nicole M. Lee ◽  
Adrian A. Smith

Communication of science through online media has become a primary means of disseminating and connecting science with a public audience. However, online media can come in many forms and stories of scientific discovery can be told by many individuals. We tested whether the relationship of a spokesperson to the science story being told (i.e., the narrative perspective) influences how people react and respond to online science media. We created five video stimuli that fell into three treatments: a scientist presenting their own research (male or female), a third-party summarizing research (male or female), and an infographic-like video with no on-screen presenter. Each of these videos presented the same fabricated science story about the discovery of a new ant species (Formicidae). We used Qualtrics to administer and obtain survey responses from 515 participants (~100 per video). Participants were randomly assigned to one of the videos and after viewing the stimulus answered questions assessing their perceptions of the video (trustworthiness and enjoyment), the spokesperson (trustworthiness and competence), scientists in general (competence and warmth), and attitudes towards the research topic and funding. Participants were also asked to recall what they had seen and heard. We determined that when participants watched a video in which a scientist presented their own research, participants perceived the spokesperson as having more expertise than a third-party presenter, and as more trustworthy and having more expertise than the no-spokesperson stimuli. Viewing a scientist presenting their own work also humanized the research, with participants more often including a person in their answer to the recall question. Overall, manipulating the narrative perspective of the source of a single online video communication effort is effective at impacting immediate objective outcomes related to spokesperson perceptions, but whether those objectives can positively influence long-term goals requires more investigation.


2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Bond

Mismatches in the morphosyntactic features of controllers and targets in the Eleme (Ogonoid, Niger-Congo) participant reference system allow for a subject agreement paradigm in which the person of the grammatical subject is indicated by a verbal prefix, while plural number is marked by a suffix on different targets — either lexical verbs or auxiliaries — based on the person value of the controller. I examine the distribution of Eleme ‘Default Subject’ agreement affixes and the intra-paradigmatic asymmetry found between second-person plural and third-person plural subjects in Auxiliary Verb Constructions (AVC) and Serial Verb Constructions (SVC). I argue that the criteria by which the various agreement affixes select an appropriate morphological host can be modelled in terms of agreement prerequisites even when distributional variation is paradigm internal.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauliina Siitonen ◽  
Mirka Rauniomaa ◽  
Tiina Keisanen

The article explores how social interaction is accomplished through intertwined verbal and bodily conduct, focusing on directive actions that include a second-person imperative form of the Finnish verb katsoa “to look,” typically kato. The study draws on video recordings of various outdoor activities in nature, mostly from family interaction with small children, and employs interactional linguistics and conversation analysis as its analytic framework. The directive kato actions in focus are produced (1) as noticings, to initiate a new course of action by directing the recipient to look at and possibly talk about a target that the speaker treats as newsworthy; (2) as showings, to initiate an evaluative course of action by directing the recipient to look at and align with the speaker’s stance toward the target; or (3) as prompts, to contribute to an ongoing course of action by directing the recipient to do something relevant to or with the target. Apart from the use of kato, the actions differ in their design. In noticings, the target is typically named verbally and pointed at through embodied means, but the participants remain at some distance from it (e.g., kato muurahaispesä tuossa “look an anthill there”). In showings, the participant producing the action typically approaches the recipient with the target in hand, so that the naming of the target is not necessary but, by evaluating the target themselves, the shower explicates how the target should be seen (e.g., kato kuinka jättejä “look how giant {ones}”). In prompts, neither the target nor the intended action is named, but the target is typically indicated by embodied means, for example, by the participants’ approaching and pointing at it, and the intended action is inferable from the participants’ prior conduct (e.g., kato tuossa “look there” and pointing at a berry in the participants’ vicinity when berry picking has been established as relevant). By examining these three grammar-body assemblages, the article uncovers regularities in the co-occurrence of multiple modalities and contributes to new understandings of language use in its natural ecology – in co-present social interaction.


Author(s):  
Marie Christelle Couyavah ◽  
Michael Zuniga

The purpose of this research was to determine, first, how a plurilingual or monolingual posture adopted during a collaborative writing task influences the emotional experience of Creole learners of French as a second language (FL2), and second, how this emotional experience interacts with the quality of the written production. To this end, 39 FL2 Creole-speaking learners collaboratively wrote texts under two experimental conditions: one imposing the exclusive use of FL2 during the collaborative activity and the other allowing free choice as to the languages to be used. After each task, participants individually answered a self-evaluation questionnaire to measure their emotional state while doing the task. In order to establish a relationship between the emotions experienced by the learners and their writing performance, the texts from both conditions were evaluated using an analytical rubric. The results showed that the participants experienced more positive emotions when they were free to use all their linguistic resources, including their native language (L1). Thus, their emotional experience was significantly more positive in the condition without linguistic constraints. While having access to L1 use contributed to a more positive learning climate, obligatory second language (L2) use was primarily associated with tension and anxiety. Also, participants who experienced positive emotions, regardless of the task, wrote better texts and scored highest on overall quality.


Author(s):  
Ralph E. Rodriguez

This chapter analyzes the rare focalization of fiction through the first-person plural (we) and the second person (you). It is particularly interested in the affective textures these narrative perspectives create in terms of intimacy and distance, within the story and between narrator and reader. In carrying out this analysis, it examines Manuel Muñoz’s story “Monkey, Sí,” Patricia Engel’s story “Green”, and Ana Menéndez’s story “Why We Left.” In each of the stories, the narrators navigate traumatic life experiences—rape, eating disorders, and a miscarriage, respectively. The chapter does a close reading of how pronominal use affects the characters’ and readers’ emotional experience of the story before them.


Author(s):  
Eric W. Campbell

This chapter presents Zenzontepec Chatino (Otomanguean, Zapotecan) data from naturally occurring discourse and describes the linguistic resources that speakers draw from to express a wide range of command types. Canonical imperatives, addressee-directed commands of basic force, are morphologically complex and display many forms for one category, determined by the inflectional class of the verb. In contrast, all non-canonical directives, those targeting first or third persons or the negative second person directives, are formally simple, all being expressed with Potential Mood inflection (one category for many functions). The full range of command forms and strategies is a reflection of Zenzontepec Chatino grammar more broadly, which has idiosyncratic and prodigiously complex inflectional morphology but formally simple and fluid syntax in discourse. The Imperative Mood category has been previously little studied in Zapotecan languages, and it offers insight into other aspects of the inflectional system and its history.


Author(s):  
Elena Mihas

This chapter’s goal is to survey Ashaninka Satipo (Arawak) commanding communicative moves. It argues that imperatives form a paradigm consisting of the first person cohortative construction with the discourse particle tsame ‘come on’, second person canonical imperative construction characterized by a special intonation, and the third person jussive construction formed either with the intentional =ta on the lexical verb or on the copula kant ‘be this way’. In positive commands, the verbs are inflected for irrealis. The canonical imperative has a negative counterpart, whereas the cohortative and jussive verb forms lack them. While commanding, conversationalists tend to select specific linguistic resources which reflect their group membership status. Social equals have recourse to the same linguistic means as conversationalists in superior roles, but they also use the ‘want’ and ‘wish’ constructions and counter-assertive pronouns. The basic second person imperative forms are employed irrespective of the social status.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-35
Author(s):  
Hitomi Chijiiwa ◽  
Saho Takagi ◽  
Minori Arahori ◽  
James R. Anderson ◽  
Kazuo Fujita ◽  
...  

Humans evaluate others based on interactions between third parties, even when those interactions are of no direct relevance to the observer. Such social evaluation is not limited to humans. We previously showed that dogs avoided a person who behaved negatively to their owner (Chijiiwa et al., 2015). Here, we explored whether domestic cats, another common companion animal, similarly evaluate humans based on third-party interactions. We used the same procedure that we used with dogs: cats watched as their owner first tried unsuccessfully to open a transparent container to take out an object, and then requested help from a person sitting nearby. In the Helper condition, this second person (helper) helped the owner to open the container, whereas in the Non-Helper condition the actor refused to help, turning away instead. A third, passive (neutral) person sat on the other side of the owner in both conditions. After the interaction, the actor and the neutral person each offered a piece of food to the cat, and we recorded which person the cat took food from. Cats completed four trials and showed neither a preference for the helper nor avoidance of the non-helper. We consider that cats might not possess the same social evaluation abilities as dogs, at least in this situation, because unlike the latter, they have not been selected to cooperate with humans. However, further work on cats’ social evaluation capacities needs to consider ecological validity, notably with regard to the species’ sociality.


Virittäjä ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 122 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karita Suomalainen

Artikkeli käsittelee yksikön 2. persoonan viittauksia suomenkielisissä arkikeskusteluissa. Aihetta lähestytään tarkastelemalla rinnakkain deiktisesti spesifejä, yhteen tiettyyn vastaanottajaan viittaavia yksikön 2. persoonan muotoja ja yksikön 2. persoonan viittaussuhteiltaan avoimia esiintymiä, joissa yksikön 2. persoona ei viittaa ainoastaan yhteen vastaanottajaan vaan laajemmin. Artikkelin tavoitteena on kuvata yksikön 2. persoonan käytön variaatiota viittaussuhteiden näkökulmasta, tarkastella, kuinka viittaussuhteet rakentuvat osana vuorovaikutuksessa meneillään olevaa toimintaa, ja hahmotella yksikön 2. persoonan avointen viittausten erityispiirteitä suhteessa deiktisesti spesifeihin viittauksiin. Tutkimuksen näkökulma on vuorovaikutuslingvistinen, mutta siinä hyödynnetään myös kognitiivisen kieliopin käsitteistöä. Aineisto koostuu 11,5 tunnista videoituja kahden- ja monenkeskisiä kasvokkaiskeskusteluja. Analyysia varten kerätty aineistokokoelma kattaa 1 035 puheenvuoroa, jotka sisältävät yhden tai useamman yksikön 2. persoonan esiintymän. Analyysissa on käytetty keskustelunanalyyttistä menetelmää. Yksikön 2. persoonan deiktisesti spesifit viittaukset ovat aineistossa huomattavasti yksikön 2. persoonan avoimia viittauksia yleisempiä. Deiktisesti spesifit viittaukset esiintyvät tavallisimmin vakiintuneen vierusparin muodostavissa keskustelun toiminnoissa, kuten kysymyksissä ja pyynnöissä, sekä kuvailevissa tai kantaa ottavissa vuoroissa, jotka kohdistuvat tiettyyn osanottajaan tai tämän toimintaan. Avoimet viittaukset puolestaan ovat tyypillisiä kerrontasekvensseissä, joissa jaetaan kokemuksia, arvioidaan asioita ja asiaintiloja sekä kuvataan hypoteettisia tilanteita. Avoin viittaus sijoittuu useimmiten sellaiseen kohtaan kerrontajaksoa, jossa havainnollistetaan jotakin aiemmin esillä ollutta ja annetaan siitä esimerkki. Artikkelissa osoitetaan, että siinä missä deiktisesti spesifit yksikön 2. persoonan viittaukset yksilöivät yhden tietyn osanottajan, avoimet yksikön 2. persoonan viittaukset viittaavat yksittäisten tarkoitteiden sijaan pikemminkin kokemuksiin taikka tietyssä tilanteessa tapahtuneeseen tai mahdolliseen toimintaan. Tulokset osoittavat, että persoonaviittaus on aina osa laajempaa keskustelussa tapahtuvaa toimintaa ja tällaisena se jäsentää myös puhetilannetta ja sen osallistumiskehikkoa. Yksikön 2. persoonan deiktisesti spesifit viittaukset siirtävät useimmiten vuoron yhdeltä puhujalta toiselle, kun taas yksikön 2. persoonan avoimella viittauksella voidaan nostaa tietty kokemus yhteisen tarkastelun kohteeksi ja tarjota sitä muille osanottajille tunnistettavaksi ja mahdollisesti myös samastuttavaksi.   Sinä ‘you’, context, and ambiguity: Second-person singular reference in everyday Finnish conversation This article examines the second-person singular reference in everyday Finnish conversation. Second-person singular forms are primarily used to refer to the addressee, but they can also be employed to create open reference, so that they do not refer exclusively to the addressee, but rather are more generic in their sphere of reference. The aim of the article is to describe the variation in the usage of second-person singular forms in Finnish conversations from the point of view of reference, and to analyse the special characteristics of open second-person singular reference forms in contrast to deictically specific ones. The study adopts the framework of interactional linguistics, supplemented by cognitive grammar. The data employed in the study consists of approximately 11.5 hours of video recordings of everyday face-to-face conversation in Finnish. In the data, deictically specific second-person singular forms are the most frequent. They occur in the first turns of adjacency pairs like questions or requests, as well as in such turns that describe or evaluate the addressee or her actions. Open second-person singular forms are less frequent, but they are typical in sequences that involve evaluation, accounts of personal experience, and the description of hypothetical states of affairs. In such sequences, the open second-person singular is frequently used to exemplify concrete action in a specific situation. The article shows that while deictically specific second-person singular forms refer to a particular individual, open secondperson singular forms refer to a specific state of affairs on a general level or identify a certain experience. The results of the study highlight the fact that creating personal reference is always part of a wider sequential action and can be used to modify the participation framework of the speech situation. Deictically specific second-person singular reference forms are typically used for selecting a particular party to produce the next turn, whereas the second-person singular with open reference is often employed in the course of interaction to establish beliefs and experiences that are construed as mutual and potentially shared.  


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