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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.

Within the framework of communicative accommodation theory, this study investigates the phonostylistic behaviour of French native speakers engaged in casual conversation. It examines some of the features speakers use to structure their discourse, particularly prosodic responses to the interlocutor and interaction management devices.  Part One gives an outline of previous research in the fields of conversation analysis, prosodic analysis and accommodation theory.  These insights are developed in Part Two into a framework that allows investigation of the following hypotheses: Accommodation and prosodic variation at topic change: this study examines the role of accommodation and prosodic variation as they occur at topic change in four case studies.  The management role of the pause at theme change will operate above the consensual/non-consensual categories, and hence variation in terms of melodic difference will be greater at such pauses.  By examining the thematic structure as it is reflected in prosodic behaviour around the pause by both speakers, the study demonstrates that at topic change there is a marked difference in the size of melodic gap in Hz around the pause. Accommodation and prosodic variation by length of pause:  It is contended that in consensual dialogue, the longer the duration of the empty pause which divides two consecutive turns, (1) the less the difference in intensity (dB) between the two speakers, and (2) the greater the difference in f0 between them, despite differences in their own vocal range. In non-consensual dialogue, it is contended that in instances where dispute or thematic refusal occurs (as witnessed through lexical indices), inversion of the two hypotheses above is possible. It was found that speakers can converge by matching each other’s pitch or by following a speech pattern whereby they both rise at small but regular intervals forming a smooth pattern in general pitch direction.

Ce travail est une contribution à l'analyse des situations de travail à distance, dans une perspective psychosociale. Il porte, en particulier, sur l'étude de situations d'assistance-dépannage informatique, et notamment de conversations téléphoniques entre experts et utilisateurs. L'assistance-dépannage informatique par téléphone désigne, en fait, le support ou l'aide aux utilisateurs, et consiste à « réparer à travers l'usage du langage ». L'objectif de cette étude est, à la fois, de mieux comprendre ces situations de travail, et cette nouvelle professionnalité « être dépanneur à distance » ; et également de mettre en évidence les mécanismes en jeu dans les conversations entre experts et utilisateurs. Nous nous intéressons donc, ici, à la structure générale des appels et aux différentes séquences qui les composent ; à la façon dont l'expert s'adapte à son interlocuteur ; aux activités de gestion du problème et à celles de gestion du dialogue ; aux connaissances et aux compétences des partenaires de cet échange. / The dissertation offers a contribution from a psychosocial perspective to the analysis of distant work situations. It is concerned with situations in informatics involving helpdesk and support service, and focuses on telephone conversations between experts and users. Telephone-based helpdesk in informatics refers to a service of help and support and actually consists in "repairing through the use of language". The aim of this study is both to understand these particular working situations better, and to stress the mechanisms involved in an expert-user relationship. The point of interest is therefore the general structure of the different phone calls and of the different sequences composing those calls. In particular, the analysis is concerned with the way the expert adapt himself to the client in the conversation, with the various activities of problem management on a technical level and of dialogue management on a relational level, and with the skills and knowledge of the two participants in the exchange.

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.

What function does self-disclosing conversation play in the conversations of young children? Two studies were conducted to investigate how 5 14 year old children self-disclose in their everyday conversations. Both studies video-recorded children’s self-disclosing conversations while they participated in an art activity. Study 1 investigated the effect of two conversational partner characteristics (age of partner and partner familiarity), and of the conversational context on children’s self-disclosing behavior. Children were paired with an unfamiliar adult, an unfamiliar peer, or a familiar peer play partner, and conversations were recorded in three interaction contexts. Self-disclosure was found to be a more frequent topic of conversation in a fairly barren conversational environment than during an art activity. In each context, however, children self-disclosed at least twice as often with an unfamiliar as with a familiar play partner. There was no difference in self-disclosing behavior for children paired with an unfamiliar adult or an unfamiliar peer. Study 2 was designed to investigate a possible function for increased self-disclosing with an unfamiliar partner: that children use self-disclosure in early conversations with unfamiliar partners to gauge the desirability of future interaction. It was hypothesized that children would evaluate unfamiliar partners who did not participate in self-disclosure less favorably than children paired with a self-disclosing partner. A methodology was designed to allow children to think they were talking to another child when they were actually speaking with a researcher trained to talk like a five-year-old. Children were randomly paired with a play partner who either reciprocated or did not reciprocate self-disclosing conversation, and behavioral and evaluative] reactions were measured. Results indicated that children paired with a non-reciprocating partner became less persistent in their self-disclosing initiations over time. Children paired with a reciprocating partner self-disclosed at similar levels throughout the interaction. Evaluative differences were also found. Children paired with a non-reciprocating partner rated the unfamiliar peer significantly lower than children paired with a partner who reciprocated self-disclosure. Based on these findings, it was concluded that young children are differentially sensitive to the self-disclosing behavior of unfamiliar conversation partners, and that they use participation in self-disclosure as a gauge for establishing initial connections with unfamiliar partners. / This thesis was digitized as part of a project begun in 2014 to increase the number of Duke psychology theses available online. The digitization project was spearheaded by Ciara Healy.

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

This thesis presents a discursive analysis of clients’ and counsellors’ metaphorical talk in counselling sessions. Permission was granted for access to, and the research use of, existing data originally collected from the Pluralistic Therapy for Depression Clinic at the University of Strathclyde. This data took the form of audio recordings of counsellors’ and clients’ oneto- one counselling sessions. Of the data obtained, a total of thirteen counselling sessions from the therapy of three client-counsellor pairs’ were transcribed using a modified version of Jeffersonian notation. Transcriptions were then coded to distinguish occasions of metaphorical talk. Subsequently they were analysed using a discursive psychology approach which drew on conversation analytic and ethnomethodological principles. This method considered the consequentiality of metaphorical talk on the surrounding interaction, how metaphorical constructions were assembled, and what actions were performed with metaphorical talk in the situated context of the therapeutic discourse. This was followed by a critical revisiting of some of the findings. The analysis found clients’ and counsellors’ uses of metaphor within the data related to three spheres of activity. The first related to constructions of identity through metaphorical talk – in particular a) the construction of relationships by both clients and counsellors using metaphors related to familial role categories, and b) clients’ metaphorical constructions of past versus present identities. The second involved clients’ use of metaphor to do topic management and resistance. The third involved the use of metaphor as a discursive resource in the construction of shared-meaning. Following this the implications of these findings for counselling psychology practice and other psychological therapists were discussed. In particular, a greater awareness of the possible impact of metaphorical talk and claims, and reflection on their impact in both limiting and freeing what is possible in the discourse was suggested.

In recent decades, the field of assessing speaking has seen an increasing emphasis on ‘interaction’. In defining the construct of interactional competence (IC), both the theoretical formulation and empirical evidence suggest that the competence is coconstructed and context-specific. This poses a multitude of conundrums for language testing practitioners and researchers, one of which is the extent to which we can extrapolate candidates’ performance in the target non-testing context from their performance in a test. This thesis considers these questions in the case of the Group Interaction (GI) task in the School-based Assessment (SBA) for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE). Validation studies on the SBA Group Interaction task to date have generated somewhat contradictory results as to whether the task elicits authentic oral language use. Moreover, studies to date have not compared students’ interactions under different task implementation conditions (such as the amount of preparation time), or have investigated in detail what exactly students do during preparation time and how that might impact on their subsequent assessed interaction. This study explores what kinds of interactional features constitute interactional competence; how IC is co-constructed in discourse, and what complexities there might be in assessing the competence through a group interaction task. It also investigates whether the SBA GI task elicits authentic oral language use, and how the task implementation condition of preparation time might influence the validity of the task. Video-recordings of the assessed group interactions were obtained from two schools, with students given extended preparation time in one school but not the other. The assessed group interactions are analyzed using a Conversation Analytic approach, supplemented by data from mock assessments and stimulated recall interviews with student-candidates and teacher-raters. This study contributes to the construct definition of interactional competence – its components and the specific ways they are performed in discourse. Drawing on findings about students’ overhearer-oriented talk, it also problematizes the assumption that a group interaction task is necessarily eliciting and assessing candidates’ competence for interacting in a peer group only. More specifically to the SBA GI task, this study has produced evidence that group interactions with and without extended preparation time are qualitatively different, and has identified some of the ways in which extended preparation time might compromise the task’s validity in assessing interactional competence.

This project details the development of a novel and practical framework for the development of conversation agents (CAs), or conversation robots. CAs, are software programs which can be used to provide a natural interface between human and computers. In this study, ‘conversation’ refers to real-time dialogue exchange between human and machine which may range from web chatting to “on-the-go” conversation through mobile devices. In essence, the project proposes a “smart and effective” communication technology where an autonomous agent is able to carry out simulated human conversation via multiple channels. The CA developed in this project is termed “Artificial Intelligence Natural-language Identity” (AINI) and AINI is used to illustrate the implementation and testing carried out in this project. Up to now, most CAs have been developed with a short term objective to serve as tools to convince users that they are talking with real humans as in the case of the Turing Test. The traditional designs have mainly relied on ad-hoc approach and hand-crafted domain knowledge. Such approaches make it difficult for a fully integrated system to be developed and modified for other domain applications and tasks. The proposed framework in this thesis addresses such limitations. Overcoming the weaknesses of previous systems have been the key challenges in this study. The research in this study has provided a better understanding of the system requirements and the development of a systematic approach for the construction of intelligent CAs based on agent architecture using a modular N-tiered approach. This study demonstrates an effective implementation and exploration of the new paradigm of Computer Mediated Conversation (CMC) through CAs. The most significant aspect of the proposed framework is its ability to re-use and encapsulate expertise such as domain knowledge, natural language query and human-computer interface through plug-in components. As a result, the developer does not need to change the framework implementation for different applications. This proposed system provides interoperability among heterogeneous systems and it has the flexibility to be adapted for other languages, interface designs and domain applications. A modular design of knowledge representation facilitates the creation of the CA knowledge bases. This enables easier integration of open-domain and domain-specific knowledge with the ability to provide answers for broader queries. In order to build the knowledge base for the CAs, this study has also proposed a mechanism to gather information from commonsense collaborative knowledge and online web documents. The proposed Automated Knowledge Extraction Agent (AKEA) has been used for the extraction of unstructured knowledge from the Web. On the other hand, it is also realised that it is important to establish the trustworthiness of the sources of information. This thesis introduces a Web Knowledge Trust Model (WKTM) to establish the trustworthiness of the sources. In order to assess the proposed framework, relevant tools and application modules have been developed and an evaluation of their effectiveness has been carried out to validate the performance and accuracy of the system. Both laboratory and public experiments with online users in real-time have been carried out. The results have shown that the proposed system is effective. In addition, it has been demonstrated that the CA could be implemented on the Web, mobile services and Instant Messaging (IM). In the real-time human-machine conversation experiment, it was shown that AINI is able to carry out conversations with human users by providing spontaneous interaction in an unconstrained setting. The study observed that AINI and humans share common properties in linguistic features and paralinguistic cues. These human-computer interactions have been analysed and contributed to the understanding of how the users interact with CAs. Such knowledge is also useful for the development of conversation systems utilising the commonalities found in these interactions. While AINI is found having difficulties in responding to some forms of paralinguistic cues, this could lead to research directions for further work to improve the CA performance in the future.