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This study examines political accountability within the context of ministerial accountability towards the Scottish parliamentary committees. A review of the existing literature on accountability identified striking discrepancies between different disciplinary perspectives. In particular, political science research (e.g. Mayer, 1999) focuses on describing the structural mechanisms available for constraining the behaviour of those being made accountable. This literature includes research on ministerial accountability (e.g. Flinders, 1991), although largely focusing on accountability towards the parliamentary Chamber rather than the committees. By contrast, the psychological literature does not focus on accountability, but rather on developing a classification of accounts (e.g. Scott and Lyman, 1968) doing the kind of work that is examined in political science under ‘accountability’ (i.e. providing excuses and justifications to explain problematic behaviours), and testing these accounts using experimental designs (e.g. Weiner et al., 1987). However, given its focus on classification and experimental designs, the psychological literature on accounts treats language as reified and abstract. A third (discourse and conversation analytic) research tradition uses recordings of real-life verbal interactions to examine the turn-by-turn unfolding of interactions (e.g. Atkinson and Drew, 1979), but few studies focus on accountability, and none specifically investigate political accountability. My study is the first to bridge the gap between these three disciplinary perspectives by examining the practice of political accountability through the turn-by-turn unfolding of interactions between ministers and members of Scottish parliamentary committees. The thesis aims to contribute to an understanding of democracy in action by providing an insight into the practical ways in which accountability is accomplished within this specific real-life setting. The corpus of data was compiled from 27 hours of video recordings of interactions between ministers and members of four Scottish parliamentary committees. I analysed the data using conversation analysis (CA). Use of CA led me to identify indirectness as a pervading characteristic of the ways in which challenges are formulated and attended to in the interactions between committee members and ministers, as well as a number of ways in which committee members and ministers attended to matters of stake and interest in relation to such challenges. In addition, CA has allowed an insight into the limits of accountability by showing how ministers can avoid answering particular questions. These findings stand in stark contrast to the political science literature, which emphasises the adversarial nature of interactions within parliamentary settings and the availability of mechanisms for holding ministers to account (e.g. parliamentary committees) without investigating the way in which these mechanisms are used in practice. Furthermore, these findings contribute to the psychological literature on accounts by investigating their use within a real-life setting, and to the discourse and conversation analytic literature by showing the way in which well-known conversational devices (e.g. footing) are adapted to suit the specific context of parliamentary committee meetings with ministers.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Duquesne University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 138-149) and index.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Waikato, 2008. / Title from PDF cover (viewed May 11, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 196-215)

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This thesis explores the long-standing debate in the field of psychotherapy around the use of humour in psychotherapy and the shift from outcome to process research in psychotherapy research. In line with the social constructionist framework of this study, the researcher’s position is outlined. The literature review describes the link between language and the construction of both the therapeutic relationship and humour. The functions of humour in psychotherapy are outlined, and the contribution that Conversation Analysis (CA) can make in this evolution. CA, with its focus on the social action of talk, is employed on three audio-tapes of psychotherapy within this research to identify the resources drawn upon by interactants, and to examine the sequential environments in which humour arises and the responses to humorous utterances. Linguistic devices used to create humour included hyperbole, irony in conveying contrasting incongruent frames of reference, repetition, empathic self-disclosure, sarcasm, facetiousness, normalising statements, humorous impersonation and anthropomorphic personification. Humour emerged in the sequential environment of repeating and elaborating on diverging viewpoints outside of therapy. Humour in the context of persuasion and resistance functioned to dismantle client resistance and contrast their competing perspectives. Humour made in the context of uncertainty exaggerated pre-existing conversational disruption, allowing a move into repair. Humour was used to contrast new and old ways of viewing situations in the process of therapeutic change. Therapists used humour strategically to move into therapeutic tasks such as formulation, reinterpretation, lexical substitution, invitation to express emotion, praise for following an intervention and empathy. Results are discussed in relation to humour's potential place in pertinent areas of therapy such as the therapeutic relationship, empathy and emotional connectedness, unconditional positive regard, congruence, resistance, uncertainty and change. Clinical implications are summarised drawing on these concepts. Strengths and limitations of the project are outlined, future research suggested and reflections by the researcher conclude this thesis.

Knowledge of successful Business English as a lingua franca (BELF) has been recognized to be an essential element in overall business know-how (Kankaanranta & Louhiala-Salminen, 2010). In line with this notion, research has found that professionals use BELF and exploit a variety of discourse and pragmatic strategies that aid the process of cooperation and agreement so that mutual understanding can be reached (Firth, 1996; Kankaanranta & Planken, 2010; Pitzl, 2005). However, research has reported situations where business negotiators need to handle discord while maintaining a working rapport with the opposing party (e.g. Bjørge, 2012), indicating that the ability to produce the appropriate expression of disagreement is an imperative skill. Nonetheless, while there is now a better understanding of how business professionals establish common ground through using BELF, little work has been carried out on the subject on how professionals express disagreement in the same aspect (but see e.g. Bjørge, 2012; Stalpers, 1995). The present study aims to address this gap and expand the current knowledge on how business professionals express and handle disagreement in naturally-occurring face-to-face negotiations. The collected material consists of approximately 4 hours of BELF discourse recorded at a business convention in Germany. Fifteen disagreement episodes were identified, transcribed and analyzed using Conversation Analytic (CA) procedures. The present paper seeks to explore two aspects of the current topic, namely how business professionals (using BELF) express disagreement during business negotiations, and whether mitigation strategies are used when disagreement is expressed. The findings suggest that disagreements are solely content-related and are expressed in a variety of ways as they are coupled with a varied use of mitigation devices (i.e. delay and added support). Furthermore, there were instances of unmitigated expressions in the form of blunt contradictions. It is suggested that disagreements in BELF negotiations are required actions and may serve a dual purpose. The main goal of expressing disagreement is to increase clarity in cases where essential information may be misinterpreted or misguided; additionally, it indicates the speaker’s stance in the argument. Lastly, as there is a need for better knowledge of successful BELF, the present study is likely to be of interest for those who are engaged in the global business discourse community as well as researchers studying international business settings.

This research report examines telephonic and written data from an emergency medical services centre in the Western Cape and seeks to uncover the language practices that speakers use in order to create what I term “extraordinary emergencies”. Since one of the overarching institutional aims of the emergency call centre is that of “preservation of life”, the majority of emergencies are reproduced by emergency call-takers as routine events, specifically for the purpose of managing them most efficiently and thus working towards the institutional aim of preserving life. However, in certain instances, this institutional agenda is temporarily halted or abandoned in favour of a competing agenda, what I have termed the “personal” agenda enacted by the speaker. This personal agenda works to the reproduction of particular norms and values, and speakers are seen as morally accountable for reproducing them. This research report makes use of discursive analytic practices, specifically conversation analysis, as a method by which to highlight subtle and delicate moments in the interaction that recreate the shared value of the “sacred child” in real-time interaction. Keywords: emergency, childhood, sexual assault, conversation analysis, institutions