In any human culture the telling of stories for representing past events is likely to have a centralplace. The aim of this dissertation is to describe storytelling among Swedish adolescents from astructural, interactional and functional perspective, and to demonstrate how the meaning of thestory is interactionally constructed. The material consists of a corpus of 258 stories taken from 30 hours of tape recordings of conversations between adolescents, aged 10-15, of both sexes, mostly in naturally occurring situations. The majority of the recordings were made in the late 80's and early 90's, while others datefrom 1974-1984. The study tries to combine the theoretical and methodological ideas of conversational analysis(CA) and sociolinguistic discourse analysis. The method is basically qualitative and the analysesare carried out through detailed scrutiny of pieces of recordings and transcriptions. The aspects ofstorytelling that arc studied include the way the stories are introduced and accounted for in the ongoing conversation, how they are designed by the teller in order to propose and make the listeneraccept a certain version of what happened, and how the listener through his contributions duringthe telling can accept, modify, reject and negotiate the meaning proposed by the teller. Another aspect studied is how the stories serve as means for self- and other-presentations. The results show that, both as tellers and listeners, Swedish adolescents make use of many different strategies to structure the telling and evaluate the story. These include verb tense, word orderand different kinds of discourse markers as well as highly emotional and dramatizing features suchas reported speech, onomatopoetic expressions and laughter. A very important evaluative deviceis the discourse marker ba. Dramatization is also found in many of the listener's contributions tothe telling. It is also shown that there are substantial differences between boys and girls, both in the use of (some of) these dramatizing features and in the way they construct and present themselves and others in the stories. This seems to be due to the fact that storytelling serves different functions in groups of boys and girls. Finally, it is argued that there are some indications of an ongoing change in the narrative style of Swedish adolescents.

This thesis deals with what happens linguistically and interactionally in naturally occurring bilingual talk-in-interaction between Danes and Swedes. In the data – collected within the elderly care in a Danish municipality – three Swedish caregivers interact with Danish pensioners and colleagues. Previous research on inter-Scandinavian interaction has mostly been concerned with talk-in-interaction in arranged situations and/or situations where the participants do not interact regularly with other Scandinavians. The talk-in-interaction in the present data, however, has a clear activity context, and the participants are used to talking to people speaking the neighbour language. The aim of this study was to examine how comprehension, understanding and social affiliation were achieved and demonstrated across differences in language, age, nationality and institutional roles. The theoretical and methodological framework includes accommodation theory and conversation analysis. The linguistic aspects of the Swedish speakers’ accommodation to Danish were studied both in a detailed analysis of accommodation on five linguistic levels, and quantitatively in a study of five linguistic variables. One result was that the Swedish caregivers had individual ways of accommodating their language to Danish. The linguistic analyses also indicated that one reason for this accommodation was to make communication flow more efficiently. A CA-study of other-initiated repair showed that four factors in the interactional situation influenced understanding: context, physical distance and orientation, clearness of speech, and neighbour language and accommodation. It could, however, not be shown that the speakers’ use of different linguistic varieties caused a significant number of problems in understanding, or that the participants frequently oriented to such linguistic differences as part of the problem. Compliment sequences and their role in creating social affiliation were studied in another CA-study. They often played the role of introducing a new topic and leading the talk away from the practical chores at hand, thereby reducing the institutional aspect of the situation. The interactional ways of creating comprehension, understanding and social affiliation are likely to be at least as important as linguistic convergence in achieving these goals.

This paper explores the interaction of children with language impairment (LI). The present essay is a conversation analytic study of child-child and child-therapist dyads. The aim was to explore in what ways children with LI reach common understanding. Another purpose was to investigate if there are differences in interaction between dyads with children with LI and dyads with children with LI and speech language therapist. Seven children, three girls and four boys, with LI participated in the study. All the children are enrolled at a language unit. The dialogues were recorded, transcribed and analysed. The results revealed no differences in the children’s length of utterance between the child-child dyads and the child-SLT dyads. Another important finding was that it became more of a course of event in the play between child and SLT in contrast to the child-child dyads, where the communication more concerned one or a couple of objects. In general, the children managed to initiate, respond, give feedback, negotiate and make requests of clarification and repair utterances in conversation with each other. One important conclusion is that conversation analysis could be used in identification of strengths and weaknesses in children’s communication. The knowledge from the analyses ought to be applicable in intervention with children with LI. / Föreliggande studie behandlar hur barn med språkstörning interagerar. Vidare är den en samtalsanalytisk studie av samtal barn-barn och barn-logoped. Syftet var att studera hur gemensam förståelse uppnås i kommunikation samt att undersöka om skillnader förelåg mellan de två samtalstyperna. Sju barn, tre flickor och fyra pojkar, med generell språkstörning deltog i studien. Samtliga går på språkförskola i södra Sverige. Samtalen spelades in, transkriberades samt analyserades. Resultaten visade att barnen initierade och responderade, återkopplade, förhandlade, begärde förtydligande samt reparerade yttranden relativt väl. Vidare framkom ingen skillnad i yttrandelängd hos barnen beroende på vem de kommunicerade med. Barnen upprätthöll ett samtalsämne tämligen adekvat. I logopedbarnsamtalen utvecklades samspelet mer till ett längre händelseförlopp, till skillnad från barnbarnsamtalen, där samtalen centrerades kring ett eller ett par föremål. Samtalsanalys förefaller vara ett bra verktyg vid bedömning av kommunikation. Metoden visar barns språkliga styrkor och svagheter i vardagligt samspel. Samtalsanalysens resultat kan därefter användas för att träna social interaktion i vardagen, och där torde logopeden ha en betydande roll gällande handledning av kommunikativ träning.

Speech intervention for children with language impairment aims to both strengthen specific language skills and to reinforce the ability to participate in interactional contexts. Children with language impairment often have problems in interaction; therefore the contributions of the conversational partner are of great importance. Thus, the demands are high on the speech and language pathologist (SLP) for sense and cohesion in intervention. The aim of the present study was to examine how SLPs and children with language impairment interact in language intervention. An approach influenced by Conversation Analysis was used in order to identify various phenomena that occurred, and their effect on the structure of the interaction was analyzed. Four SLPs, two men and two women, were enrolled in the study.  They participated in intervention with two children with language impairment each, i.e. eight conversations. The analysis showed that different forms of feedback and different repair strategies had an impact on the interaction. In addition, it was shown that the interactions contained several situations related to social face work.  Both differences and similarities were found between the participants in the analyzed material. Different interactional patterns of the SLPs appeared to affect the outcome of the intervention in different ways. / Logopedisk intervention för barn med språkstörning har för avsikt att både stärka de specifika språkförmågor som brister och att göra barnet mer redo för kommunikativa sammanhang. Språkstörning hos barn innebär ofta svårigheter i interaktionen med andra, därför är samtalspartnerns agerande av stor betydelse. Således är kraven på logopeden stora för att skapa mening och sammanhållning i interventionen. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka hur logopeder och barn med språkstörning interagerar vid behandling av språkstörning. Ett arbetssätt influerat av Conversation Analysis användes för att belysa olika fenomen som förekom i interaktionen och vilken inverkan dessa hade på interaktionens struktur. I studien deltog fyra logopeder, två män och två kvinnor med två behandlingsbesök av barn med språkstörning vardera, således åtta samtal. Intressanta fenomen som förekom var olika typer av återkopplingar, reparationer och ansiktshotande situationer. Det förelåg både skillnader och likheter mellan deltagarna i det analyserade materialet. Logopedernas olika interaktionsmönster förefaller påverka interventionen på olika sätt.

The present study deals with task-oriented conversations between a person with hearing loss and a relative or friend. The purpose was to investigate how the participants in the task-oriented context co-construct understanding, and to focus on different kind of repair strategies that the participants may use to make the hearing loss relevant in the conversation. The method used was Conversation Analysis (CA). The material consisted of eight videotaped task-oriented conversations between a person with hearing loss and their significant other. Altogether eight persons participated in the study – four of them had a hearing loss and the other four had normal hearing. The essay also presents a summary of previous research on communication involving persons with hearing loss. The occurrence and usage of repair strategies was brought to focus as this was of particular interest for this study. It was revealed that quantitative measures of these phenomena previously have been the most commonly used method. The analysis demonstrated that the participants used several different types of repair initiatives during the studied sequences. The categorization was based upon these repair initiatives. The different initiatives were primarily classified according to the manner in whish they specified the nature of the repairable. The study pointed out that the underlying phenomena that were addressed in these sequences were of a complex and various nature. It was proposed that this might demonstrate a need to complement the approaches made earlier in this area with a more qualitative one. / Föreliggande studie behandlar uppgiftsorienterad interaktion mellan en person med hörselnedsättning och dennes anhörig eller vän. Syftet var att undersöka hur deltagarna i den uppgiftsorienterade kontexten samkonstruerar förståelse, och att fokusera på olika reparationssekvenser som deltagarna eventuellt använder för att göra hörselnedsättningen relevant för samtalet. Arbetsmetoden omfattade samtalsanalys i bemärkelsen Conversation Analysis (CA). Materialet bestod av åtta videoinspelningar av uppgiftsorienterade samtal mellan person med hörselnedsättning och anhörig. I studien deltog sammanlagt åtta personer, varav fyra hade hörselnedsättning och fyra var normalhörande. I uppsatsen presenteras även en sammanfattning av tidigare forskning kring kommunikation hos personer med hörselnedsättning. Fokus lades på studier om förekomsten och användandet av reparationsstrategier eftersom dessa var av särskilt intresse för studien. Det visade sig att mer kvantitativa mätmetoder av dessa fenomen tidigare varit det vanligaste tillvägagångssättet. Genom analys av samtalen framkom att deltagarna under aktuella reparationssekvenser använde sig av flera olika typer av reparationsinitiativ. Kategoriseringen i analysen utgick från dessa reparationsinitiativ. Initiativen indelades främst utifrån vilket sätt de preciserade vad som behövde repareras. I studien framkom att de bakomliggande fenomenen som adresserades i dessa reparationer var av komplex och varierande natur. Det föreslogs att detta demonstrerar ett behov av att kunna komplettera de metoder som tidigare använts inom detta forskningsområde med en ett mer kvalitativt synsätt.

Successful interaction makes sense to its participants – it is, in other words, coherent. As different resources are employed to indicate mutual orientation by showing which actions are linked and where attention is paid, coherent conversation can be said to be achieved multimodally. This thesis builds on an interactional and ecological theoretical basis, and investigates how strategies for sense-making vary depending on the context of interaction. Specifically, this is a study of interaction in different types of multimodal and multiplex communication situations. The characteristics of these technology-rich communication situations are mapped and, primarily through ethnographic methods and interaction analysis, it is investigated how conversational coherence is maintained. Furthermore, it is suggested how the findings can be applied to inform interaction design. The analysis presented is based on results from four case studies, dealing with different aspects of coherence creation in different English speaking contexts. Study 1 investigates coherence in intertwined threads in dyad instant messaging (IM) interaction, and Study 2 focuses on coherence through conversational feedback strategies in interaction in a multimodal desktop video conferencing system. Study 3 has a somewhat broader focus, as the multiple communication channels in which one participant is involved are all taken into consideration in the investigation of sequential coherence. Finally, in Study 4, the physical and digital interaction in a partly shared studio space is investigated, with an emphasis on how mutual orientation is established during conversation initiation. The findings show that when addressing coherence it is important to acknowledge both dynamic aspects of context, such as activity and participants, and more static aspects, such as communicative affordances of environments and tools. In online and mixed-mode interaction, the notion of context becomes particularly complex, as participants are simultaneously part of both the individual context, which may include digital tools for communication, and the shared context of interaction (polycontextuality). In this thesis, it is further shown that this has consequences for coherent conversation initiation and possibilities to engage in multiple semi-simultaneous conversations (polyfocality). Additionally, the results emphasize the importance of explicit linguistic strategies in computer-mediated interaction.

The purpose of the research reported in this monograph has been twofold. First, it aims at contributing to an inquiry of the ways in which language and context are intertwined. Second, it aims at giving a characterization of a specific communicative event, second language teaching. The study starts out from a broad social-theoretical perspective, inspired by language game theory and ethnomethodology, as well as Goffman's (1974) 'frame analysis' and the work of Ragnar Rommetveit (1974, 1987). Levinson's (1979) notion 'activity type' is used in exploring how relevance criteria and frames of interpretation vary with the context of the activity in which language is used. The empirical material for the study consists of eight dyadic lessons of Swedish as a second language in grades 4-6 of the Swedish comprehensive, compulsory school. As material for comparison, the pupils, 10-12 year old boys from the Middle East, also participate in two non-didactic conversations around tasks defined by the research team, one together with his teacher of Swedish, one together with a class-mate of his. The first of the three empirical studies is a qualitative, discursive analysis of salient dialogue processes in language teaching activities. Abrupt shifts and breaks in the dialogue, misunderstandings, and lack of tuning between the conversational parties are interpreted as results of a tension between language at two levels in the language lesson. The dialogue in the language lessons of the corpus is characterized by an ambivalence between two perspectives on language, the ordinary, everyday perspective on language as a means for constructing and conveying messages versus the 'level 2 perspective', where language is seen as anabstract system of decontextualized linguistic items. The two other empirical studies are quantitatively oriented. In the first of these, important differences in dialogue processes, concerning dynamics, coherence and fluency are found between the lessons and the non-didactic conversations, as well as between different activities within the confines of a lesson. One of the most important results is that the teacher's interactional dominance seems to be systematically related to the content of lesson activities. The results of the last study suggest that in lessons, and especially language lessons proper, the pupil is givenfewer opportunities for talking and, also, that he refrains from taking the opportunities actually given to him. The main significance of the research is the demonstration of the dynamic character of linguistic communication and of the way in which linguistic meaning is the product of utterances being embedded in activities on which activity-specific premisses for communication are brought to bear. Also, the second language teaching situation is characterized as connected with particular communicative practices that are imbued with a certain degree of ambivalence and ambiguity.

Conversation Analysis (CA) is a tool to facilitate analysis of everyday conversations. A small number of studies have used CA as an intervention for people with aphasia and have seen positive effects as an outcome of the intervention. The authors of the present study have not found any other studies where CA was used as an intervention in other target groups. The purpose of this study was to investigate if CA may be used in intervention with an adolescent who uses Bliss. The main participants in the present study, which the intervention was based upon, were a sixteen year old girl who communicates through Bliss, and her assistant. The participants were filmed in everyday situations. The video recordings were transcribed and primarily analysed according to CA principles by the authors. The authors of the present study observed both well functioning and not so well functioning communication patterns. The three interventions were based on video recordings, transcriptions and analyses. During the interventions, the authors of the study discussed patterns in communication with the participants. The participants were then given information about selected transcriptions, video recordings and analyses that the authors considered contained interesting patterns. Focus of each intervention was on turn-taking, repair, topic and non-verbal communication. The results of the intervention showed that certain communication patterns that the authors had previously regarded to be less functioning had subsequently improved in certain aspects. Comparisons made before and after the intervention showed that the girl had been given more emancipation to decide topic of conversation and take own initiative in the communication after the intervention. The results also showed that CA can be used to find new Bliss symbols that could be used in addition to the Swedish Bliss standard chart. In regard to turn-taking, repairs and non-verbal communication, similar patterns were observed prior to and after the intervention was carried out. / Conversation Analysis (CA) tillhandahåller verktyg för att analysera samtal i vardagen. Ett fåtal studier har använt CA i intervention med personer med afasi och har sett positiva effekter av interventionen. Författarna till föreliggande studie har inte funnit några andra studier där CA används som intervention för andra målgrupper. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka om CA kan användas vid intervention med en ungdom som använder sig av bliss i kommunikationen. Huvuddeltagarna i studien, som interventionen baserades på, var en 16-årig flicka som kommunicerar genom bliss, samt hennes assistent. Deltagarna filmades i vardagliga situationer. Videoinspelningarna transkriberades och analyserades huvudsakligen enligt CAs principer av uppsatsförfattarna. Kommunikationsmönster, både välfungerande och mindre välfungerande, konstaterades. Videoinspelningarna, transkriptionerna och analyserna låg sedan till grund för de tre interventionstillfällena där nya videoinspelningar utfördes mellan interventionerna. Under interventionerna diskuterade uppsatsförfattarna, tillsammans med deltagarna, mönster i kommunikationen. Deltagarna fick då ta del av utvalda transkriptioner, videoinspelningar samt analyser som ansågs ha intressanta mönster. De områden som interventionerna fokuserade på var turtagning, reparation, samtalsämne och icke-verbal kommunikation. Resultatet av interventionen i studien visar att vissa mönster i kommunikationen, som uppsatsförfattarna innan interventionen ansåg fungerade mindre bra, nu hade förbättrats i vissa avseenden. Jämförelserna innan samt efter intervention visade att flickan givits mer utrymme att bestämma samtalsämne och ta egna initiativ i kommunikationen efter intervention. Resultatet visade även att CA kan användas för att upptäcka vilka nya blissymboler som skulle behövas som komplement till standardblisskartan. Inom områdena turtagning, reparation och icke-verbal kommunikation konstaterades liknande mönster både före samt efter intervention.

<p>This paper explores the interaction of children with language impairment (LI). The present essay is a conversation analytic study of child-child and child-therapist dyads. The aim was to explore in what ways children with LI reach common understanding. Another purpose was to investigate if there are differences in interaction between dyads with children with LI and dyads with children with LI and speech language therapist. Seven children, three girls and four boys, with LI participated in the study. All the children are enrolled at a language unit. The dialogues were recorded, transcribed and analysed. The results revealed no differences in the children’s length of utterance between the child-child dyads and the child-SLT dyads. Another important finding was that it became more of a course of event in the play between child and SLT in contrast to the child-child dyads, where the communication more concerned one or a couple of objects. In general, the children managed to initiate, respond, give feedback, negotiate and make requests of clarification and repair utterances in conversation with each other. One important conclusion is that conversation analysis could be used in identification of strengths and weaknesses in children’s communication. The knowledge from the analyses ought to be applicable in intervention with children with LI.</p> / <p>Föreliggande studie behandlar hur barn med språkstörning interagerar. Vidare är den en samtalsanalytisk studie av samtal barn-barn och barn-logoped. Syftet var att studera hur gemensam förståelse uppnås i kommunikation samt att undersöka om skillnader förelåg mellan de två samtalstyperna. Sju barn, tre flickor och fyra pojkar, med generell språkstörning deltog i studien. Samtliga går på språkförskola i södra Sverige. Samtalen spelades in, transkriberades samt analyserades. Resultaten visade att barnen initierade och responderade, återkopplade, förhandlade, begärde förtydligande samt reparerade yttranden relativt väl. Vidare framkom ingen skillnad i yttrandelängd hos barnen beroende på vem de kommunicerade med. Barnen upprätthöll ett samtalsämne tämligen adekvat. I logopedbarnsamtalen utvecklades samspelet mer till ett längre händelseförlopp, till skillnad från barnbarnsamtalen, där samtalen centrerades kring ett eller ett par föremål. Samtalsanalys förefaller vara ett bra verktyg vid bedömning av kommunikation. Metoden visar barns språkliga styrkor och svagheter i vardagligt samspel. Samtalsanalysens resultat kan därefter användas för att träna social interaktion i vardagen, och där torde logopeden ha en betydande roll gällande handledning av kommunikativ träning.</p>

This dissertation examines classroom conversations involving refugee and immigrant youth in a second language (L2) introduction program, exploring how L2 Swedish emerges as a multiparty accomplishment by both the teacher and the students. Drawing on forty hours of video-recorded Swedish L2 classroom conversations, as well as on observations and informal interviews, it focuses on talk as a form of social action. Theoretically and methodologically, the dissertation primarily combines insights from language socialization and social constructionist frameworks and detailed transcriptions informed by conversation analysis. Study I documents how schooled Swedish as a second language (SSL) student identities emerged as performative effects of how the students in school activities were addressed as “ethnic” students, and how they managed to handle, adopt, and contest being positioned as the Other. Study II records classroom performances and the formation of a community of practice. The analyses cover how students’ verbal improvisations (repetitions, stylizations, and laughter) and alignments to local registers authenticate SSL identities. The findings show how stylizations were important resources for metalinguistic reflections on correctness, and for the establishment of a local language ideology. Study III documents the interactional nature of classroom repair work. Detailed analyses of correction sequences and trajectories show that both the teacher and the students produced ambiguous other-corrections, illuminating the intricate multiparty work in correction trajectories. In brief, this dissertation illuminates multiparty aspects of classroom L2 socialization. The analyses of classroom talk show how both teacher and student investments in language competencies and local ideologies of correct Swedish or style, as well as participation and identity work, are co-constructed through participants’ tailoring of talk. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Manuscript. Paper 3: Accepted.</p>