The aspect of gender and language has been thoroughly studied by sociolinguists. Research has however mainly focused on adults. This study investigates whether the concepts of male competitiveness and female cooperation are valid among Swedish high school students and if boys and girls use different turn-taking strategies when engaging in a conversation. Eight high school students participated in a conversation which was recorded. The topic, the justification for the existence of Systembolaget, which is a government run off-license, was chosen as it is a controversial subject on which young people have diversified opinions.Hedges, minimal responses, tag questions, interruptions and overlaps were categories used as parameters to quantify how cooperative or competitive the participants were. Categories were chosen as other sociolinguists have found that these are areas where men and women use language differently.The behaviours of the participants were also connected to Grice’s conversational maxims. The maxims serve as an explanation as to how turn-taking and turn-taking order took place in the recorded interaction.The concept of female cooperation and male competitiveness proved to be ambiguous, as the girls adopted cooperative strategies, such as hedges and minimal responses, as well as a more competitive strategy by using far more overlaps and interruptions than the participating boys did.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka användningen av "ju" i vardagliga samtal. Det primära materialet för undersökningen är därför en ljud- och bildinspelning av ett vardagligt samtal mellan tre unga kvinnor. Ur detta samtal analyseras en sekvens där "ju" förekommer med samtalsanalys (CA) som metod. Analysen visar att den främsta funktionen hos "ju" i denna sekvens är att skapa gemenskap och engagemang.

Uppsatsen utforskar positiva värderingar i social interaktion under handarbetsträffar. Det teore­tiska och metodologiska perspektivet är den samtals­analys som kallas conversation ana­lysis, CA. Merparten av samtalsanalytisk forskning har studerat värderingar som parvisa eller sekvensavslutande handlingar, och tidiga studier tog lite hänsyn till den sociala kontex­ten. Hur värderingar uppkommer ur och strukturerar sociala aktiviteter och hur värderingar formar och formas av den sociala kontexten är därmed mindre utforskat. Det övergripande syftet är att ge en mer nyanserad bild av positiva värderingars struktur samt sociala och multimodala organisation. Materialet består av videoinspelad interaktion som förekommer naturligt under träffar med tre olika handarbetsgrupper. Det videoinspelade materialet möjliggör för en multimodal analys, dvs. en analys av hur talad interaktion sam­spelar med gester, blickar och närvarande objekt. Analysen fokuserar på hur positiva värde­ringar initieras, samkonstrueras och bemöts samt vilka relationer som görs relevanta när sam­tals­deltagarna värderar handarbete positivt.  Av analyserna framkommer att positiva värderingar både uppkommer ur och formar den sociala kontexten. De positiva värderingarna är dynamiska värderingsaktiviteter som utformas med både talad och multimodal interaktion. I handarbetsgrupperna skapar positiva värde­ringar gemenskap runt ett handarbets­intresse. Samtidigt uppstår olika kunskaps­relationer, då deltagarna kan positioneras och positionera sig som mer eller mindre kunniga. Att värdera positivt fungerar därmed som gemenskapande och kunskapande aktiviteter.

I den här undersökningen kartläggs och analyseras sambandet mellan olika lektioners struktur och uppbyggnad samt talartidsfördelningen i klassrummet. Jag har valt att undersöka elever och lärare mellan årskurs 3 upp till andra året på gymnasiet för att kunna jämföra talartidsfördelningen vid olika tillfällen. Mina resultat ställs också mot tidigare forskning för att se om det skett någon förändring i talartidsfördelningen i klassrummet under det senaste decenniet. För att kunna undersöka talartidsfördelningen har jag spelat in 7 klassers samtal. För att studera orsakerna till talartidsfördelningen har jag valt att använda mig av Conversation Analysis (CA). Min teoretiska utgångspunkt i uppsatsen är det etno-metodologiska perspektivet som CA vilar på. Ett övergripande resultat är att lektionens struktur hänger nära samman med talartidsfördelningen och att lärarens roll som samtalsledare spelar en central roll. Med tydligare nomineringar och avgränsningar kommer fler elever till tals och blir uppmärksammade i klassrummet. Åldersmässigt sjunker kraven på struktur ju högre ålder eleverna når och i samband med detta sjunker även elevtalartiden. Generellt sett talar pojkarna mer än flickorna i de klasser jag har undersökt, även med hjälp av lärarens samtalsledning.

Power displays itself through talk-in-interaction in social situations; it can also present itself through appearances. Appearance is a personal feature that is immediately obvious and available to others to see. A person’s appearance makes a strong statement about ones values, attitude, abilities etc. People display power through different modalities of talk-in-interactions. This study investigates the linguistic tools that people with power tend to use and how a normal everyday person can change their social status by changing and giving out different linguistic signals. Tracing the patterns of what the verbal cues of power is and describes how an everyday character mastered the relationship between language and power.

In this study it is argued that spelling correction as a collaborative process benefits students. It is also argued that the correction process is a structured process which means that pupils tend to follow a pattern when it comes to who initiates and who executes the correction. As a teacher student within the subject of English as a foreign language, I find it interesting and useful to know more about spelling correction in collaborative writing and what pedagogical implications it has. Correction and repair from a Conversation Analytical point of view is a phenomenon which has been the main object of investigation for many researchers. I noticed that correction is used a lot in written assignments among the students as well as in conversational contexts. In the literature it is also clear that research about written correction is limited and hard to find. Hence, there was a need to investigate this area in the field of correction and repair.The process of spelling correction was investigated using conversation analysis and from a sociocultural point of view the pedagogical implications of this process were considered. The study is based on video-recordings of four pairs in an upper secondary school in Sweden within the subject of English as a foreign language. I found that there is a preference for self correction and that the pupils only intervene in the correction process when necessary. I also found correction to be a collaborative process which benefits the construction of knowledge as students scaffold each other during a correction sequence.

The present dissertation concerns social organization of feedback in ongoing hairdressing education. The central aim is to explore feedback between teacher and student in multimodal interaction within classroom assessment, as co-production of action and student’s participation. Classroom assessment and feedback are understood as social actions situated in interaction. The empirical data consists of video recordings from two vocational schools. From 31 hours of video material, selections of feedback interactions were made. At first, teacher and student communication in feedback cycles and loops was analysed from a social semiotic perspective. Secondly, examples of student initiated feedback loops were analysed from a conversation analytic perspective. Thirdly, a single case of a teacher and a student interacting through feedback related to creative subject content was analysed from a conversation analytic perspective.  The analyses show the importance of collaborative use of artefacts and embodied communication in the production of mutual understanding; opening for student initiatives in actions of assessment as well as feedback. Silence and body position were found to be important resources giving the student space to display concern. Participation in feedback practices within creative subject content emerged in a trajectory of problem detection to problem solving, resulting in tacit dimensions of hairdressers’ knowing made explicit. The findings indicate the importance of taking a participatory perspective on multimodal interaction when exploring actions of assessment and feedback between teacher and student. This study shows how feedback is not only given from the teacher, but also locally produced as a collaborative practice between teachers and students, displaying tacit dimensions of professional knowledge and subject content. / Den här sammanläggningsavhandlingen handlar om återkoppling mellan lärare och elever i frisörutbildning. Med hjälp av videoinspelningar under pågående undervisning utforskas klassrumsbaserad bedömning och återkopplingspraktiker. Eleverna är dels nybörjare som arbetar på övningsdockor, dels elever i slutet av sin utbildning som tar emot kunder i sitt klassrum. Videoanalyserna ger möjlighet att få syn på multimodala aspekter av interaktionen och resultatet visar tydligt hur både kropp och material är viktiga resurser i deltagarnas samspel. Avhandlingen visar genomgående hur bedömning och återkoppling utgår både från lärares professionella yrkeskunnande och från elevernas egna initiativ på specifika områden där något problem behöver redas ut i relation till deras pågående arbeten. Studiernas detaljerade analyser av deltagarnas multimodala interaktion synliggör hur bedömning och återkoppling kan förstås som sociala handlingar där tal, kropp och artefakter samordnas för att skapa gemensam förståelse och mening. Avhandlingens bidrag riktar sig mot yrkesutbildning men även andra former för utbildning, eftersom bedömning och återkoppling praktiseras i varje klassrum och utbildningskontext. Avhandlingens delstudier ökar kunskapen om hur återkoppling kan förstås som sociala handlingar där varje deltagare bidrar i skapandet av ömsesidig respons. Att förstå interaktion som multimodal, synliggör hur återkoppling i pågående undervisning möjliggörs genom deltagande och samspel mellan lärare och elever.

Magister Artium - MA / Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a global problem that affects various communities. FASD denotes a pattern of abnormalities intermittently seen in children born to women who consume huge quantities of alcohol during pregnancy (Church & Kaltenbach, 1997). Church and Kaltenbach (1997) suggest that FAS may be one of the primary causes of hearing, speech and other language problems in children. The two main approaches used to determine the effects of FASD on language are standardised language test (using a statistical approach to test some or all four domains of language, namely, phonology, syntax, morphology and semantics) applied to close-ended questionnaire answers and, to some extent, narrative analysis (in the course of which researchers use wordless picture books to analyse narratives in order to determine the social-communicative characteristics of individuals with FASD). Although the use of standardized measures of language might be helpful to determine problematic areas in relation to the different language domains (Wyper & Rasmussen, 2011), they do not show the difficulty with social-communicative functions which these children might be facing (Coggins, Friet, & Morgan, 1998). On the other hand, while narrative analysis addresses an important level of language (discourse level), it does not foreground the inherently interactive nature of language use and the problems that may be associated with communicative interactions. These shortcomings, in turn, suggest possible limitations in the interventions intended to address the language needs of children with FASD. There is, therefore, a need for complementary approaches that offer a more rounded picture of language impairment in children with FASD. In this study, three approaches are used in identifying features of the speech of children with FASD against the backdrop of comparisons with features in the speech of normally developing children. Firstly, conversational analysis (applied to spontaneous, open-ended speech) is introduced as a means to determine the more social-interactive aspects of speech impairment in children with FASD. Secondly, measures of linguistic aspects of speech (the mean length of utterance, Index of Productive Syntax and the number of different word roots) designed specifically for spontaneous speech are employed (they are applied to the same spontaneous data as the conversational analysis data). Thirdly, the more traditional standardized language test measures applied to non-spontaneous speech are used (covering the four domains of syntax, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics). The study’s objectives are to (1) compare patterns in the interactive speech of FASD children and normally developing children; (2) explore the relationship between FASD children and normally developing children in relation to both spontaneous speech measures and standardized measures of language; and (3) compare the impact of the primary caregiver's level of education on testing through spontaneous measures versus standardised measures. Using data from 14 children in the Bellville suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, the study finds that, on the conversational analysis measures, children with FASD, in contrast to normally developing children, tend to obey fewer rules of turn-taking, to overlap less, to engage less in self-repair and to struggle with management and maintenance of topics. The study also finds that children whose scores on the standardized language tests (with non-spontaneous data) suggest they have no language difficulty, especially in terms of phonology, obtained scores in measures of spontaneous speech that indicated language difficulty. The study also found that the socio-economic status of caregivers was a credible explanation for certain features in the speech of children with FASD is very similar to features in the speech of normally developing children. This finding highlights the role of family setting in mitigating the effects of FASD. / National Research Foundation (NRF)

Magister Educationis - MEd / This thesis aims to explore the ways in which space patterns regimes of language use and language attitudes among Cameroonian immigrant children in a primary school in Cape Town. The presence of migrants in any classroom represents a significant challenge from the theoretical as well as practical point of view, given that schools are responsible for both socialization and learning (Gajo & Mondada 1996). Most African countries are going through large-scale migration from rural to urban areas as well as increasing transnational migration due to recent socio-economic and socio-political trends. These flows affect the sociolinguistic economy of the places concerned, not only the individuals within them. Thus immigrants' movement into an urban area not only affects their repertoires, as they find themselves confronted with the task of acquiring the communicative resources of the autochthonous population, but also those of the autochthonous population who find themselves confronted with linguistic communicative processes and resources ‘alien’ to their environment. Similar effects are felt by local educational and other institutions, now faced with learners with widely varying degrees of competence in the required communicative skills. The participants in this study are a group of young migrants from Cameroon where English and French are the two official languages. These learners already have some languages in their repertoire, which may include their mother tongue or either of the two official languages. My focus will be on the multilingual resources of these learners and how they make use of these in the daily life of their new spaces, the school, the homes and community spaces, to construct new social identities. / South Africa

People with presbyacusis commonly report difficulties in conversation in everyday settings. Although previous research has focused on self-report inventories concerning conversation difficulties in age related hearing difficulties, there is a lack of published work describing the interactions between people with presbyacusis and their conversational partners. The aim of this study is to describe conversational interactions between people with presbyacusis and their main everyday conversational partner and to determine whether there is evidence of change in interaction before and after the fitting of hearing aids. Ten participants recruited from a larger cohort were included in this study, consisting of 5 participants with diagnosed presbyacusis and 5 frequent conversation partners. A battery of audiological assessments was completed for each participant with presbyacusis. Each participant with presbyacusis was videotaped in conversation at home with their main everyday conversational partner: once before hearing aid fitting and once two months following hearing aid fitting. The conversational interactions before and after hearing aid fitting were analysed using Conversation Analysis. The results of the study revealed that both the people with presbyacusis and the conversation partners used patterns of interaction in instances of mishearings in conversation. The person with presbyacusis shifted gaze direction to show a need for repair. In addition, the conversation partner used physical prompting to gain gaze directed attention from the person with presbyacusis. The person with presbyacusis also made verbal requests for a repair as a result of mishearings. These patterns in interaction showed co-ordination and timing of the repair recognition, initiation and completion by both parties. The phenomena uncovered in this study indicate that the responsibility to monitor and maintain conversation was increasingly placed on the conversation partner of the person with presbyacusis. This could explain why people with presbyacusis and their conversation partners frequently complain of frustration in conversation activities. In the postamplification conversations, no mishearings occurred, suggesting a trend towards fewer mishearings on conversation as a result of amplification of hearing. The research findings contribute to the evidence base concerning the real benefit of digital hearing aids to these elderly clients. The findings of this study can be used to design assessment and intervention tools in the future. / Dissertation (M (Communication Pathology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / M (Communication Pathology) / Unrestricted