The present study aims to examine teacher questions in an English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom with a conversation analytic (CA) approach. Specifically, the study focuses on the sequential position of the teacher questions, and on their function in the management of classroom activities. Two activities in an intermediate leveled English classroom in Cambodia with students aged 20-24 were recorded and subsequently transcribed according to CA conventions. Thereafter, the teacher questions were identified and categorized. The findings showed that there were five categories of questions used by the teacher; that is, understanding checks, activity managing questions, repair regarding understanding and repair regarding accomplishment of task and lastly topic elaboration questions. Each category of question was used in a specific time in order to manage classroom activities, however, the findings also reveal that questions can interfere with the pedagogical focus when they appear out of context and can limit students’ participation in class.

I den här uppsatsen studeras rådgivning inom ramen för en ideell stödlinje för amningsrådgivning. Uppsatsens övergripande syfte är att visa hur amnings­rådgivningen är strukturerad samt att belysa dess sociala dimensioner. Mönster för att efterfråga och ge råd studeras, liksom hur kunskap om och förhållnings­sätt till amning synliggörs i samtalen. Vidare undersöks hur särskilt känsliga aspekter av amning behandlas i samtalen. Materialet består av 16 telefonsamtal från en ideell amningsrådgivning, med en total samtals­tid om drygt 3,5 timmar. Det analyseras med hjälp av conversation analysis (CA). Analysen visar en stor variation av rådgivningsformat med såväl direkta som indirekta råd. Rådgivningen framstår ofta som en samkonstruktion mellan rådgivare och mot­tagare, där båda arbetar för att positionera inringaren som en kompetent förälder med rätt till självbestämmande. Sam­hälleliga normer och moraliska aspekter av amning blir synliga i den lokala samtals­kon­texten genom att samtals­deltagarna orienterar sig mot dem, och kan ge upphov till inter­aktionella utmaningar.

This thesis investigates human-robot interaction using an Interaction Analysis methodology. Posing the question how humans manage the interaction with a robot, the study focuses on humans and how they adapt to the robot’s limited conversational and interactional capabilities. As Conversation Analytic research suggests that humans always adjust their actions to a specific recipient, the author assumed to also find this in the interaction with an artificial communicative partner. For this purpose a conventional robot was programmed to play a charade game with human participants. The interaction of the humans with the robot was filmed and analysed within an interaction analytic framework. The study suggests that humans adapt their recipient design with their changing assumptions about the conversational partner. Starting off with different conversational expectations, participants adapt turn design (word selection, turn size, loudness and prosody) first and turn-taking in a second step. Adaptation to the robot is deployed as a means to accomplish a successful interaction. The detailed study of the human perspective in this interaction can yield conclusions for how robots could be improved to facilitate the interaction. As humans adjust to the interactional limitations with varying speed and ease, the limits to which adaptation is most difficult should be addressed first.

The thesis is an exploratory qualitative analysis of conversations between two out of three leading characters in Woody Allen’s motion picture Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). Due to a perception of invisible power relations, it is hypothesized that what seems like a powerful position in discourse, in fact is an indication of the opposite, and that what seems like a powerless position, is an indication of power. Three features based on scholarship connected to Conversation Analysis (CA), Dyadic Power Theory (DPT) and power relations in verbal interaction are chosen to test the hypotheses: first and second positions in sequences as dicussed by Hutchby (1996), control attempts as elaborated by DPT, and mitigating strategies as argued for by Mullany (2004). Findings confirm the hypotheses, but also reveal ambiguities and contrasting results. Connecting the data to sources based on talk in the private sphere, in particular within family discourse, is mentioned as one way to further illuminate the subject in future research.

Masters of Art / Meaning in human relations has always been based on inferred similarities (Holyoak & Thagard,1995). We are quick to liken the new to an old type. In this study, South African bi- or multilingual citizens post-1994 are perceived to hold the same ethno-linguistic perceptions as their progenitors. This explains the growing amount of literature on bilingual language ideology which is dissected upon the language attitude and space table. Following the same line but from a different perspective, Rampton (1995, 1999, 2003) discusses the relativity involved in labelling a bi- or multilingual repertoire. He suggests that the performative act of a bilingual through his/her linguistic repertoire should be structured according to expertise (instrumental), affiliation(integration) or inheritance (ethnicity). Starting with a note on the attitudinal myth, and closing with possible implications for various educational strata, the research explores Rampton’s notions in a rapidly changing educational context and proposes a revised understanding of ‘appellation’ as a complementary concept, an agentive and non-essentialist form of approaching bi- or multilingual identity enactment. It asserts that each enactment is informed by and carries an element of one or all the other facets of the bi-or multilingual multiply identity. Central to the study’s argument is that a bi-or multilingual is not oblivious of the socio-cultural elements that come with each linguistic capital. So, while earlier literature on identity views appellation as ‘other- ascribed’ identity, this study defines appellation as the construction of ‘self’ using all the elements provided by one’s linguistic basket.Further, with its innovative use of spoken interactional data, the study is able to contribute to the ongoing research on the appropriate medium of instruction in the South African educational system. With a special focus on the primary stage, the study sheds light on the fluidity of bi- or multilingual identity formation and enactment inside and outside the classroom. It uses an analytical framework based on Conversation Analysis, the Ethnography of Speaking, Systemic Functional Linguistics, and Critical Discourse Analysis to test the fit of Rampton’s original categories of inheritance, expertise, and affiliation with learners’ actual conversations.In all, the study in a linguistically substantiated stance, argues for more situated perspectives on the mother tongue based educational policy.

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This research paper presents a study exploring if using the Conversational Analysis (CA) method in design research could result in designing more socioculturally contextual conversational agents. The research specifically focused on understanding the 1) effect on the design outcome and 2) the role in the design process. This was studied through practice-based design research, participant evaluation of the design outcome, and expert interviews on the design method. The findings were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively and showed, that socioculturally contextual design could potentially be a data-rich field of study with connections to design concepts such as inclusive design, affective design, design ethics, increased user experience, and further studies are therefore recommended. Furthermore, the study provided an understanding of the contexts in which the CA method may be useful in design, how it can potentially impact the design, and how to apply it to the design process and showed a positive effect on the design outcome in terms of socioculturally contextual design.

Please read the abstract in the section, 00front, of this document / Dissertation (MLog)--University of Pretoria, 2001. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / MLog / Unrestricted

This study explores identity negotiation through talk-in-interaction by undergraduate female students at a male dominated study program of Computer and Systems Sciences at Stockholm University. The main aim of this study is to investigate what interactional identities are occupied by the female students in relation to Membership Categorisation Device “Gender”. Theoretical framework that has been developed and used in this study is a combination of Grounded Theory and Membership Categorisation Analysis which is a part of Conversation Analysis developed by Harvey Sacks. The data has been collected through ten semi-structured interviews that have been conducted with undergraduate female students of Computer and Systems Sciences at Stockholm University. The results demonstrate that there are various ways in which the female students negotiate their interactional identity in relation to Membership Categorisation Device “Gender”. The use of Membership Categorisation Device “Gender” is both appropriated and rejected in negotiation of interactional identity. The results of this study might be useful in providing a better understanding of how interactional identity is negotiated by undergraduate female students of Computer and Systems Sciences at Stockholm University. In turn, that might facilitate effort of making gender ratio in male dominated IT-areas more equal. Moreover, the results of this study may contribute to further research on the relationship between gender identity negotiation by women in male dominated IT-areas and the phenomenon of “Gender Paradox”.

In conversation, participants operate under the condition that they must demonstrate to each other what they assume to be the nature of their talk. This happens on a sequential basis. Every turn in conversation is typically followed by another one, and therefore it is paramount for the second turn in line, for its own intelligibility, to make clear how it relates to the preceding turn. In this way, by tracing the interpretations that are made `available´ by the participants themselves as they assemble their talk, one can obtain a technical specification from within of the procedures conversationalists use for eo-constructing their encounter. This approach to the study of talk and interaction, heavily influenced by Harold Garfinkel´s (1967) ethnomethodological program, became known as Conversation Analysis (CA). This paper, then, is an attempt to reconceptualize the notion of institutionality in CA. At the same time, because it uses real conversational materials for doing so, it contains a substantive analysis of some of the procedures and situated practices the people in the sample resort to for accomplishing their interaction.