This paper aims to show how people use and understand metaphorical language in conversational discourse. Specifically, I examine how metaphorical language has the potential to be either effective or ineffective in its usage, and how they are bound to the contextual environment of the conversation. This particular setting is a conversation between a researcher and a participant involved in a therapeutic program. Metaphorical language is shown to be helpful for understanding difficult subjects; however, I found most metaphorical occurrences ineffective in meaning-making. Often these ineffective metaphors are elaborated or repeated throughout the discourse event, creating problems with cohesion and understanding. Metaphor use in conversation is an effective rhetorical tool for creating meaning, but it is also a problematic device when it comes to aligning participants' conversational goal.

Introduktion Alla samtal karaktäriseras av en önskan att förstå varandra och av ett samarbete för att nå dit. Det är välkänt att samtal mellan personer med nedsatt kommunikationsförmåga och normaltalare ofta är ojämlika och att deltagaren utan funktionsnedsättning dominerar samspelet.   Syfte: Syftet med föreliggande arbete är att kartlägga vardagliga kommunikationssituationer där en deltagare med kommunikativt funktionshinder interagerar med olika samtalspartners.   Metod: I studien deltog två förskolebarn som använder tecken som alternativ och/ eller kompletterande kommunikation, TAKK. Barnen filmades i vardagliga miljöer hemma och på förskolan med olika samspelspartners. Materialet analyserades utifrån principer från Conversation Analysis.   Resultat: Flera fenomen framkom som stöder tidigare forskningsresultat. Samtalens innehåll utgick till stor del från ett här- och nuperspektiv. Många exempel fanns på hur samtalet övergick till en tydligare inlärningssituation där fokus riktades mot kommunikationens form, snarare än dess innehåll. Det noterades även att den vuxne återanvände barnets uttryck för att repetera det korrekt och på så sätt ge en modell för det talade ordet och tecknet samt att utvidga barnets sats. När det gällde barnens samtal med varandra, visade det sig att den vuxne som fanns närvarande i rummet ofta lämnade egna bidrag i samtalet.     Konklusion: En viktig iakttagelse för den kliniska verksamheten är att en kommunikationssituation ofta övergår från informell till formell genom att fokusera på kommunikationens form istället för på dess innehåll. Det är av stor vikt att poängtera detta för de vuxna i barnens omgivning vid introduktion av AKK då barnen behöver uppleva att man samarbetar för att uppnå gemensam förståelse .

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

ABSTRACT Successful communication with patients in a multicultural, multilinguistic environment is a challenge to health professionals, particularly in the context of HIV/Aids and antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. Although the introduction of ARVs has brought hope, high levels of adherence are required to ensure treatment success and numerous barriers to adherence exist. Pharmacists play an important role in encouraging adherence to ARV treatment regimens by providing education and counselling. However, previous research indicates that interactions are often dominated by the pharmacist. Also, verification of patients’ understanding of information is infrequent and that patients are often passive recipients of instructions. This study aims to identify and describe interactive processes in pharmacy interactions while considering the impact of the disease and macro context on communication. Twenty-six cross-cultural, cross-linguistic pharmacist-patient interactions from a South African HIV/Aids pharmacy are described. Data collection included video recordings, interviews with participants and ethnographic observations in the pharmacy. A hybrid analytical approach incorporated aspects of Conversation Analysis (CA) and Discourse Analysis (DA). The results of this study are particularly encouraging. They demonstrate that despite the presence of cultural, linguistic and other contextual barriers, pharmacist-patient interactions can be efficient. The use of facilitative verbal and non-verbal communication strategies ensures that dosage instructions are successfully communicated by the pharmacist to the patient. In line with prior research, collaboration is promoted when pharmacists create rapport and focus on the lifeworld of the patient. The study shows that intuition and sensitivity to atmosphere in interactions is essential for achieving concordance. The disease context of HIV/Aids has a profound influence on the pharmacistpatient interaction and this study demonstrates the significant impact of the macro ii context on micro aspects of communication. The evidence suggests that the nature of humanity and the daily interface between culture and language in South Africa enables pharmacists and patients to transcend some of the barriers to communication and collaboration that have been identified in previous studies. The findings imply that the diversity of South Africa provides both hope and a resource which can inform policy and future practice.

This dissertation explores the impact of technology on social life. Focusing on webcam-mediated audio-visual conversations between Japanese families in the United States and their extended family members in Japan, I examine how technology participates in creating an interactional space for the families to manage intra- and intergenerational relationships. Combining ethnography with turn-by-turn analyses of naturally occurring webcam interactions, I specifically investigate how cultural, discursive, and family practices are transformed in innovative ways and how families adapt to the emerging mediated space. Looking at how interactional activities are coordinated across spaces, I show that webcam interactions constitute a new type of shared living space in which multigenerational family relationships are created and managed. I call this emerging space the virtual ie (‘house’ and ‘stem-family system’). In this virtually conjoined space, children, parents, and grandparents are visually familiarized with each other’s households and socialized to each other’s virtual presence. Even though the ie is no longer a juridical unit of co-residence, my goal is to discuss the significance of the ie in understanding how transnational Japanese families can dwell in a shared living space created by webcam interactions. My analyses demonstrate how webcam encounters create a stage for participants to perform various identities in interactions. Learning to talk and participate in such webcam interactions, children are socialized to their ie belongings and identities. Additionally, even though far-flung children do not provide physical and daily care for their parents in Japan, they actively take care of elder parents’ media environments. I demonstrate that what I call media care practices add another context for adult children living abroad to carry out their filial responsibilities. I also show that the management of webcam visual fields creates a type of social field that reflects local understandings of social positioning in ie structures. How participants decide to display themselves to others by manipulating the webcam’s visual fields provides a new way to demonstrate various social relationships and responsibilities over long distances. From this perspective, a virtual ie is not merely a reflection of an ideological understanding of Japanese families, but an interactional achievement facilitated by webcams. / text

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Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

This dissertation examines decision making as discourse to capture subtle characteristics and processes within top management team discussions and examines their influence on decision outcomes. Additionally, this approach allows for exploration of decision making processes in real time by utilizing audio analysis techniques that can provide a more dynamic and integrative view of conversations and discussions as they relate to the dialogue and debate that goes on within top management teams, as well as providing an alternate pathway of study for top management team and group research, decision making studies, and the fields of communication and conversational analysis.

Recent research in Interpreting Studies has favoured the argument that, in practice, the interpreter plays an active role, rather than the prescribed role stipulated in professional codes of conduct. Cutting-edge studies utilising multimodal research methods have taken a more comprehensive approach to investigating this argument, searching for evidence of the interpreter’s active involvement not only through textual analysis, but also by examining a range of non-verbal communicative means. Studies using multimodal analysis, such as those by Pasquandrea (2011) and Davitti (2012), have succeeded in offering new insights into the interpreter’s role in interaction. This research presents further investigation into the interpreter’s role through multimodal analysis by focusing on the use of gesture movements, gaze and body orientation in interpreter-mediated communication; it also looks at the impact of the state of knowledge asymmetry on the interpreter’s role. This thesis presents findings from six simulated face-to-face dialogue interpreting cases featuring three different groups of participants and interpreters representing different interpreting settings (e.g. parent-teacher meeting, business meeting, doctor-patient meeting, etc.). By adapting a multimodal approach, findings of this study (a) contribute to our understanding of the active role of the interpreter in Interpreting Studies by exploring new insights from a multimodal approach, and (b) offer new empirical findings from interpreter-mediated interactions to the technical analysis of multimodal communication.

Möten är idag en viktig arena för organisationer att ta beslut, lösa problem och sprida information. I vår studie har vi valt att fördjupa oss i hur dessa möten går till inom förskolan när man samlar all personal i ett APT-möte. Studiens övergripande syfte är att skapa mer kunskap om hur ledarskapet skapas och markeras under APT-möten inom förskolan. Syftet är även att se hur APT-möten går till samt hur de institutionella rollerna skapas och upprätthålls. Vi har även valt att studera hur distansledarskapet som finns i denna verksamhet synliggörs.     Studien bygger på tre APT-möten som är inspelade med videokamera och som sedan analyserades med samtalsanalys som teoretiskt perspektiv. Resultatet visade att APT-mötet till stor del följde de faser som finns i ett institutionellt samtal, att olika roller markeras genom hur turtagning går till, hur man förhåller sig till agendan samt på vilket sätt man ledaren tolkar och sammanfattar det som deltagarna säger. Distansledarskapet gick att identifiera i avsaknad av kunskap om problem i den operativa verksamheten och att det fanns ett önskemål av medarbetarna att chefen skulle komma ut i den operativa verksamheten. / Organisational meetings are an important occasion to make decisions, solve problems and to share information with each other. In this study, the focus has been on how these meetings are created by its participants within preschool. The purpose of this study is to gain deeper knowledge in how leadership is created and identified during these meetings. The purpose of this study is also to see how the institutional roles within this organisation is created and recreated and also to see how the distance leadership that is in this specific organisation can get identified.   The study include a video observation of three meetings at three different preschools. These three meetings gave us a result that were analysed through CA (Conversational analysis). The result shows that these meetings follows the institutional phases that are included in institutional meetings, that institutional roles are created in interaction and especially through the way in which the leader takes responsibility to the meeting agenda and in the way the leader creates meaning of what the participants says. A distance leadership was identified through the leaders lack of knowledge in problems related to day-to-day work and also through a wish from the co-workers to have the leader more present in their everyday work.