This dissertation offers a micro-analytic study of the use of language and body during storytelling in American English and Japanese conversations. Specifically, I focus on its beginning and explore how a story is projected. A beginning of an action or activity is where an incipient speaker negotiates the floor with co-participants; they pre-indicate their intention to speak while informing the recipients of how they are expected to listen to the following talk. In particular, storytelling involves a specific need to secure long turn space before it begins since unlike other types of talk, a story usually requires more than an utterance to complete. Drawing on conversation analysis, I investigate how various communicative resources, including language, gesture, gaze, and body posture, manage such negotiation of the floor during entry into a story. This study involves two focuses. First, it examines not only vocal means, but also non-vocal devices. Thus, I explore the linguistic resources employed to project the relationship between a forthcoming telling and ongoing talk. Specifically, I investigate how coherence and disjunction are projected differently – some stories are continuous with prior talk while others may start as a new activity. I also investigate the vocal resources for projection of a return to an abandoned story. Specifically, I demonstrate how a continuation and resumption are projected differently. Finally, I investigate the employment of non-vocal devices relevant to the projection of story entry. Secondly, this study takes a cross-linguistic perspective. By examining conversations in two typologically different languages, American English and Japanese, I investigate how linguistic resources are consequential to the way projection is accomplished. Also, since only few studies have been conducted on storytelling in Japanese conversation, I aim to contribute to a better understanding of how the previous findings from English storytelling can be applied to Japanese conversations. Storytelling is an important activity for human social life; telling of what we did, saw, heard about, or know helps us build good relationships with our interactants. This dissertation thus aims to explore how interactants co-construct a site for an important interpersonal activity in everyday interaction. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Curriculum and Educational Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Mandarin tone categories are universally thought to center on pitch information, but previous work (Berry, 2009; Brenner, 2013) has shown that pitch cues reduce in the conversational context, as do the other concurrent cues such as duration or intensity that secondarily signal tone categories. This dissertation presents two experiments (an isolated word perception experiment, and a dictation experiment) aimed at discovering how Mandarin listeners deal with these reduced cues under everyday conversational conditions. It is found that detailed spectral information is far more useful in the perception of Mandarin tones—both in isolated words and in the perception of full conversational utterances—than pitch contours, and that the removal of pitch from the recordings does not greatly influence perception of the tone categories.

This qualitative study focused on the stories told by five, White, female teachers with a long-term commitment to teach at a predominantly Hispanic high school. The stories of these teachers' life experiences were part of a teaching journey that began long before their formal teacher preparation. Understanding the personal, practical knowledge embedded in the events and experiences of these teachers' journeys was important to study, as these teachers possessed an extremely positive personal and academic reputation with their mostly Hispanic students. This study shed light on possible reasons for these teachers' longetivity in the profession of teaching as well as their ability to bridge cultural differences potentially dividing them from their students.Data collection came from classroom observations, a questionnaire, and a series of three, semi-structured interviews. In a cross-case analysis of the narratives compiled from the data, three main types of stories were told: stories of cross-cultural experiences, difficult challenges, and conversations with students. The highs and lows of these unusual women's experiences provide cases for preservice teachers to consider as they prepare to teach an increasingly diverse student population. These cases also reinforce the importance of cross-cultural experiences and intimate knowledge of challenging issues facing Hispanic communities as a prerequisite both before and throughout teacher preparation programs. These cases also emphasize the importance of conversation as a cultural strategy in bridging the cultural divide with Hispanic students.

Denna uppsats avser att undersöka och analysera fem verksamma behöriga bildlärares syn på bildsamtalets betydelse och användande i bildundervisningen. Detta eftersom bildsamtal är en viktig del i bildundervisningen enligt den gällande kursplanen i bildämnet (2000) och den kommande kursplanen i bildämnet (Lgr 11). I kursplanens mål står det utskrivet att reflektion och samtal ska ingå i undervisningen, trots det är mina egna erfarenheter att dessa delar ej förekommer så ofta i undervisningen.      För att undersöka fem lärares syn på bildsamtalets betydelse och användning av bildsamtal i bildundervisningen, har kvalitativa intervjuer genomförts i grundskolan med fem verksamma lärare i år 6-9. Min förhoppning var att dessa intervjuer skulle frambringa en bild av verksamma lärares uppfattningar om bildsamtal och hur de gestaltas i undervisningssammanhang.      Litteraturstudier har genomförts för att ge tyngd åt arbetet samt förståelse för vad samtal kan innebära för elevers utveckling.      I resultatdelen i uppsatsen redovisas de fem lärarnas uppfattningar om bildsamtalet i undervisningen.      Utifrån denna studie kan jag inte dra några generella slutsatser om hur bildlärare i allmänhet upplever att de arbetar med bildsamtal i sin undervisning. Utan studien redovisar dessa fem lärares tankar om bildsamtalet i deras undervisning. / The purpose of this essay is to examine and analyze the views of five active and competent teachers’ perceptions about pictures conversation significance in art education, because it is an important part of art education due to the current curriculum in the subject. The goal of the curriculum says that reflection and conversation should be a part of the education though my own experiences are that this doesn’t occur very often in the education.      To explore some teacher’s views about picture conversation and its significance in art education, I have done some qualitative interviews with five teachers active in the primary school, grades six to nine. My hope was that these interviews would produce a picture of active teachers’ perceptions about pictures conversations and how they are actually made in an educational context.       Studies of literature have been made to bring importance to the work and bring comprehension to what pictures conversations can mean for the development of the students.      In the result part of the essay, the different comprehension and views of the five teachers are shown.      It is not possible to make any general conclusions about how art teachers in common experience that they work with pictures conversations in their teaching.       But the study reports about these five teachers thoughts about pictures conversations in their teaching.

We are living in a society where the digital technology is a tool that integrates into our life and changes our daily life and the way we communicate. The easy access to information and the opportunity to communication change the schools organization and demands new ways of teaching with and in contact with the surrounding world. That is why it is interesting to know how teachers can create an education environment with support of digital tools that fulfills a meaning for themselves, the pupils and the goals of the curriculum. This study is about how six teachers in one elementary school creates an education environment with support of digital tools and how they think the affect the pupils cooperation, communication and participation. The theoretical frame for this study is built in a sociocultural perspective, where people learn and develop through participation in social practices. To get the understanding of how teachers are thinking about the challenges and possibilities that digital tools have in the education environment, I choose a qualitative research method. When I interviewed the teachers I used a semi structured interview form. With the focus on a dialogic perspective have I interpreted and analyzed the teachers’ story. Thereby, to highlight the teachers’ stories have I structured the interviews by tree aspects: Interactivity, Cooperation and Conversation. The result of this study has an interesting pivot in the perspective of the purpose, where my observation notes while searching for information and during the interviews became a very important material. This study can be of interest for all who are working with teaching and to them who has an interest of education and the future of our children.

Conversation analysis (CA) was used to examine descriptions of pain, the design of questions and answers, and patterns of elaboration. I analysed audio- and video-recorded consultations involving six physicians and one patient in a supportive/palliative care clinic. The physicians enquired about a diversity of aspects of pain (e.g., severity). The patient’s answers aligned with questions indicating that his pain was stable (i.e., no change, no new pain, managed pain), which was consistent with the Clinic’s optimal health outcomes. Questions designed for a ‘no-pain’ answer were relatively infrequent. Whether or not these questions were problematic for the patient depended on when they were asked. The physicians used both single- and multi-unit questioning turns and an assortment of question types (i.e., yes/no interrogatives, yes/no declaratives, alternative questions and WH-questions). The questions were analyzed using four dimensions of question design (agenda, presuppositions, preferences and epistemic stance). While the patient accepted the topic agenda of aspects of pain, he rejected the topic agenda of pain management evaluation. He also rejected presuppositions that implied disease progression. Analysis of the action agenda showed that the physicians relied heavily on yes/no-type polar questions. Some of these encouraged elaboration (e.g., were problem attentive); however, a number of them discouraged elaboration (e.g., were optimized or included a negative polarity item such as any). Some questions that discouraged elaboration allowed the physicians to progress efficiently through a checklist of standardized questions, thus aiding in the progressivity of the talk. Change-implicative talk was pervasive in the physicians’ and patient’s talk; the patient’s answers often rejected the implication that his pain was worse. The characterization of the consultations as “difficult” by some of the physicians is considered in relation to the design of questions that elicited minimal information about the patient’s pain. Study limitations (e.g., the data sample) and directions for future research (e.g., on what constitutes an optimal health outcome) are discussed, and my findings are considered in relation to palliative care practice and training. The study fills some gaps in current palliative care literature regarding the dynamics of physician-patient interactions and contributes to the CA literature on medical interactions.

Denna studie syftar till att undersöka äldre människors upplevelser av åldrande och vad samtal kan ha för betydelse för dem. Studien avser att skapa en ökad förståelse för vilka faktorer som kan påverka upplevelsen av åldrandet och vilken funktion samtal kan ha när det gäller äldre människors livskvalitet. Då gruppen äldre i Sverige fortsätter att öka behövs mer kunskap om hur samhället skall bemöta de utmaningar som följer och kunna främja äldres livskvalitet. Av denna anledning har studien hög relevans för socialt arbete och utvecklingen inom äldreomsorgen både som praktik och forskningsfält. Studien utgår från en kvalitativ ansats där empirin har insamlats genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Materialet har sedan analyserats och bearbetats i en kvalitativ innehållsanalys, där likheter och olikheter urskilts för att sedan delas in i kategorier och teman. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna i studien är teorin om gerotranscendens och det interaktionistiska perspektivet. Den forskning som studien tar avstamp ifrån handlar om äldre människors upplevelser av åldrande, betydelsen av samtal, reflektion, självständighet och förändringar. I studiens resultatredovisning och analys återfinns de intervjuade personernas berättelser indelade i tre teman; Åldrande & identitet, Förändringar och Samtal & reflektion. Åldrande & identitet inbegriper synen på den egna åldern, identitet, meningsfullhet samt farhågorna inför att åldras. Under Förändringar behandlas de förändringar som åldrandet kan medföra vad gäller den äldre själv, personer i den äldres omgivning samt inställningen till att ta emot hjälp. Det sista temat Samtal & reflektion innefattar vilka de äldre pratar med, vad de reflekterar över och vilken funktion samtal fyller. I resultatet framkommer det bland annat att samtal spelar en viktig roll både när det gäller att hantera förändringar och för den äldres upplevelse av livskvalitet. Även inställningen till åldrandet tycks ha en avgörande betydelse.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

The Functions and the Ordering of Conditional `If Clauses' in English---A Genre AnalysisPrevious research studies are in agreement that the canonical order for English if conditionals is sentence-initial rather than final. However, earlier findings regarding the distribution of the ordering between initial and final if-conditionals represent only those patterns specific to the limited number of genres examined. This corpus linguistic study is based on a research approach which includes a larger sampling pool and a selection of representative genres as well as detailed statistical and content analyses. It examines the variations in the distributional patterns between initial and final if-clauses within each individual genre and across different genres. The findings of this study suggest that if-conditionals have significantly different distributional pattern across genres. In contrast to the consensus view in current literature that initial if-clause rather than final is the dominant clause order, in 3 of the genres examined in this study (Letters to the Editor, Recipes and Sports News) final if-clauses occur more frequently than initial. In addition, in 3 other genres (News Reportage, Science Fiction and Romance Fiction) these two clause types are equally distributed. This study thus identifies genre as a significant factor influencing sentential if-conditional placement.The study also argues that in addition to the expression of topic and focus discourse relations, the ordering of the conditional and consequence clauses is often used to convey specific pragmatic effects and to perform functions related to genre-specific needs, including social politeness and showing power deixis, hedging or strengthening a proposition. / Department of English