Conversation Analysis and Electronic Interactions

Author(s):  
Joanne Meredith ◽  
Jonathan Potter

This chapter proposes that, as a method which has engaged with interaction in other contexts, conversation analysis (CA) should be used to analyze electronic interactions. The adoption of CA leads to a number of methodological pointers and this chapter reviews some of these. The authors firstly overview previous research on electronic discourse, including work which has also applied CA to electronic interactions. The authors then describe the main elements of CA, and also briefly discuss the closely related approach of discursive psychology. Using a corpus of quasi-synchronous instant messaging chats, the authors show how data can be collected which captures how users actually conduct online interactions. The authors discuss the ethical issues inherent in collecting such data. Finally, using examples from the corpus, the authors demonstrate the importance of making timed transcripts and working with screen capture data.

Author(s):  
Hannah Ditchfield

Social media platforms such as Facebook have been understood to present new possibilities for interaction. Yet, there have been concerns surrounding the reducing quality of our interaction and conversation. Such debates, however, have not considered the pre-post dimension of online environments: that is, the preparatory work that occurs to online posts before they are shared with their audience. Based on real time recordings of Facebook Messenger interactions, this paper asks what the pre-post perspective tells us about the quality of our interactions online. The analysis is theoretically informed by Goffman and methodologically by conversation analysis and addresses this question with a focus on processes of identity construction. Specifically, this paper questions how the practice of pre-post editing (the editing of messages before sending) is used by users to represent self online and what this then tells us about the quality of our online talk. In presenting innovative screen capture data, this paper argues against claims that our interaction online is declining in quality instead showing the ways users perfect their online posts by elaborating a new stage of online communication: the ‘rehearsal’ stage. In doing this, this work reflects on the wider implications the affordance of pre-post editing has on users’ social media experiences questioning the impacts constructing ‘perfect lives’ has and the potential for creating ‘reduced’ versions of self within our online interactions.


Young ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 110330882110158
Author(s):  
Fanny Edenroth-Cato ◽  
Björn Sjöblom

This article examines how young people in a Swedish online forum and in blogs engage in discussions of one popularized psychological personality trait, the highly sensitive person (HSP), and how they draw on different positionings in discursive struggles around this category. The material is analysed with concepts from discursive psychology and post-structuralist theory in order to investigate youths’ interactions. The first is a nuanced positioning, from which youths disclose the weaknesses and strengths of being highly sensitive. Some youths become deeply invested in this kind of positioning, hence forming a HSP subjectivity. This can be opposed using contrasting positionings, which objects to norms of biosociality connected to the HSP. Lastly, there are rather distanced and investigative approaches to the HSP category. We conclude that while young people are negotiating the HSP category, they are establishing an epistemological community.


Author(s):  
Louise Tranekjær

The article demonstrates how the combination of discursive psychology and conversation analysis enables an examination of culture as a product of discursive processes which are influenced and permeated by a broader social, discursive and cultural context. In this way an understanding is presented of cultural encounters as something which is not only determined by the background of the participants but is a product of interaction and the resources used in the negotiation of meaning and identity. The article is based on research of internship interviews, that is, interactions between Danish employers and adult second language speakers seeking an internship placement. Through examples from these interviews, it is argued that culture can be analyzed by combining a micro-perspective on the negotiation and organization of meaning in interaction with a macro-perspective on interactions as a manifestation of a broader social, discursive and cultural practice and organization.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (9) ◽  
pp. 524-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice Mars ◽  
Christopher Morris ◽  
Richard E Scott

Introduction Instant messaging (IM) is pervasive in modern society, including healthcare. WhatsApp, the most cited IM application in healthcare, is used to share sensitive patient information between clinicians. Its use raises legal, regulatory and ethical concerns. Are there guidelines for the clinical use of WhatsApp? Can generic guidelines be developed for the use of IM, for one-to-one and one-to-many healthcare professional communication using WhatsApp as an example? Aim We aimed to investigate if there are guidelines for using WhatsApp in clinical practice. Method Nine electronic databases were searched in January 2019 for articles on WhatsApp in clinical service. Inclusion criteria: paper was in English, reported on WhatsApp use or potential use in clinical practice, addressed legal, regulatory or ethical issues and presented some form of guideline or guidance for WhatsApp use. Results In total, 590 unique articles were found and 167 titles and abstracts met the inclusion criteria. Twenty-one articles identified the need for general guidelines. Twelve articles provided some form of guidance for using WhatsApp. Issues addressed were confidentiality, identification and privacy (eight articles), security (seven), record keeping (four) and storage (three). Mandatory national guidelines for the use of IM for patient-sensitive information do not appear to exist, only advisories that counsel against its use. Conclusion The literature showed clinicians use IM because of its simplicity, timeliness and cost effectiveness. No suitable guidelines exist. Generic guidelines are required for the use of IM for healthcare delivery which can be adapted to local circumstance and messaging service used.


Letrônica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 33885
Author(s):  
Bethany Anne Aull

While mobile communication technologies have been exploited for instructional second and foreign language (L2) research, authentic mobile instant messaging (MIM) interactions remain virtually unexamined. As a result, decidedly little is known about L2 users’ interlinguistic behavior in genuine MIM conversation. This type of communication may nevertheless be of interest to interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) research, particularly for what it may reveal about the intersection of cultures and electronically-mediated communities. This article traces the current state of related research and contemplates some preliminary conceptual and methodological considerations for future inquiries. It first reviews previous L1 and L2 studies involving mobile and instant messaging mediums. From among these, it notes two underexplored concepts which are relevant to ILP: namely, interculture and cultures-of-use. Respectively related to co-constructed culture and communities of practice, these aspects may shed light on and be illuminated by interlinguistic MIM interaction. Finally, the article looks to future investigations and, while not specifying analytical procedures, it recommends emic methods such as conversation analysis for examining these phenomena.


Author(s):  
Lisa Loloma Froholdt

AbstractThe maritime industry is a dangerous and highly technologically saturated sector. Unfortunately, advancement in automation and technology have not minimised human error as intended. Interaction between humans and technology in the industry is also overtly pre-scripted. The main reason for this is to reduce human error by ensuring predictability in interaction. Ultimately, investigations of non-routine interaction are often based on a hindsight view of what went wrong in a given situation. This article analyses a collection of non-routine interactions that derive from a larger data corpus, using Discursive Psychology and Conversation Analysis. It argues that such a study can capture what is missing from some investigations, namely, what makes sense for crews in the context of a given non-routine situation. Despite the constraints and the challenges of technological complexity, this article argues that reframing psychological matters in non-routine technologically mediated interaction can be a new way of showing how such matters are dynamic, visible and manageable. This can inform the general debate of how to minimise human error, and more specifically, provide insight into the increasing inclusion of technology and as a consequence, the equally increasing amount of technologically mediated interaction that we will see in the future.


Author(s):  
Ava D. Horowitz ◽  
Laura Kilby

Abstract Early work in discursive psychology highlighted the rhetorical strength of devices that serve to establish matters as objective facts. More recently, there has been increasing interest within this discipline concerning mental state invocations (e.g. imagining; knowing; intending), which typically convey speaker subjectivity. Elsewhere, linguists have examined the social business enabled by speakers’ deployment of cognitive verbs, a prime example of which deals with overt references to thinking. The current article sets out to extend the work on thinking by synthesizing research from discursive psychology, linguistics, and conversation analysis in order to undertake an integrated analysis of thinking. In our examination of a UK talk radio corpus, comprising data from 11 talk radio shows, we demonstrate three discursive functions of deploying a thinking device: setting an intersubjective agenda; doing opinion; and managing ‘facts’. An integrated approach allows us to examine the rhetorical strength of these subjectivizing maneuvers, and contribute to the existing body of work concerning the discursive deployment of thinking and mental state terms.


Author(s):  
Anna Filipi ◽  
Sophie Lissonnet

This chapter reports an investigation of online interactions occurring in the context of the development of a suite of foreign language tests known as the Assessment of Language Competence (ALC) (http://www.acer.edu.au/alc/). The interactions took place in a wiki environment from 2007 to 2009. The aim of the investigation was twofold. The first was to identify the features of the organization of online postings in an asynchronous online environment and to compare them with the organization of face-to-face interaction. The second was to examine how expertise is invoked in interactions centered on the vetting of test items. The chapter uses selected findings from Conversation Analysis and applies them to the postings on the wiki. Findings from the analysis include the rarity of self-repair, similarities in the organization of sequence structure and the same orientations to affiliative behavior found in conversation.


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