The existing literature on information disclosure commonly assumes full commitment to truthful disclosure and therefore revelations are always credible, which can be quite unrealistic in many circumstances. This thesis mainly contributes to the literature by studying information disclosure in the form of cheap-talk in auctions and monopoly pricing, which allows for mis-reporting and false disclosure. The thesis is composed mainly of three research papers. The first paper (Chapter 2), also the major chapter of this thesis, investigates cheap-talk information disclosure in auctions, where bidders' preferences are horizontally differentiated. The seller may reveal information of product attributes before the auction, and the disclosure policy is characterized by a partition of the attribute space. In a symmetric setting, I first show that informative equilibria reveal the feature that more precise information is provided for less popular product attributes. Second, I prove an equilibrium existence theorem that an informative equilibrium can be supported by an information partition of any degree, as long as the number of bidders is sufficiently large. And finally, the optimal disclosure policy reveals a complementarity relationship between the number of bidders and the optimal degree of equilibrium partitions. In this chapter, optimal information structure is endogenously determined. In the second paper (Chapter 3), I turn to study how a monopoly seller should reveal a product's horizontal attributes, when consumer preferences conform to a mixture distribution. I show that the optimal disclosure policy largely depends on the characteristics of the mixture distribution. Specifically, when consumer preferences are highly heterogenous, it is better for the seller to reveal information and serve different groups of consumers separately. And when the preference distribution becomes more asymmetric, cheap-talk disclosure is more likely to be dominated by no disclosure at all. In this chapter, information structure is taken as given. The third paper (Chapter 4) studies optimal regulation of risk-averse producers, in a setting of complementary production with independent cost realization. The production can be organized in the form of either component, or integrated production. I show in this paper that the relative virtues of these two forms of production depend on the degree of risk aversion of the producers.

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Adolescent obesity has increased exponentially over the past three decades in the United States. In response, behavioral interventions have been developed and implemented to address this epidemic; however, treatment adherence is often suboptimal. Motivational interviewing (MI) is a directive, person centered approach to reducing patient ambivalence about change, which has been shown to increase engagement in obesity interventions. The current study investigated the underlying process of MI by exploring two different, but related pathways that explain how change happens (e.g., the technical and relational hypotheses) in the context of a multidisciplinary obesity intervention with African American adolescent girls (N = 30). Results demonstrated that MI-consistent skills were associated with client “change talk,” or language consistent with their desire, ability, reasons, need, taking steps or commitment to change. Specifically, clinician reflection of client change language and support of client autonomy were especially important for increasing change language. Furthermore, client language related to change was associated with three-month treatment adherence, and increased fruit and vegetable intake. However, the clinician’s ability to embody the MI “spirit” was not related to either client language or three-month treatment adherence. Findings suggest that the technical aspect of MI helps explain this approach's effects on treatment adherence among African American girls with obesity.

The contemporary United States is at a crossroads with race: some believe achieving political equality rests in the ability to wilfully ignore race, while others assess colorblindness is a racial frame that only serves to prolong and irritate inequalities. Higher ed institutions have become involved in this conversation due to critiques of higher ed devaluing racial minorities both in the curriculum and in hiring practices. As a response, higher ed has promised to restructure their institution with diversity and PoC in mind. This research study seeks to understand if higher ed has maintained this promise. Twelve participants were qualitatively interviewed to assess their satisfaction with higher ed and the curriculum as it pertains to race. It was found that students were generally heavily critical of their education, particularly in the “diversity” claims made by the school. Their narratives additionally highlight the importance of sociological spaces within a neoliberal university.

Diploma thesis "Talk show Uvolněte se, prosím and its political guests (qualitative and quantitative analysis of politicians' attendance in the show)" deals with the topic of convergence of entertainment and politics, hence politics and the media as such. The theoretical part of the thesis deals with the wider context of the issue - presentation of the politicians on television, interconnection of politics and humor, and the role of talk shows in political communication. The theoretical part presents the issue of political celebrities as one of the factors that affect communication between the politicians and the citizens. The practical part deals with the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the political guests' performance in the czech version of American talk shows Uvolněte se, prosím.

This dissertation examines mealtime conversations between parents and children in eight Swedish and eight Italian middle class, dual-earner households, exploring the ways in which children are engaged in the cooperative construction of social order. The study is part of an international project (cf. Aronsson & Pontecorvo, 2002), coordinated with prior work in the US (cf. Ochs & Kremer-Sadlik, 2013). Study I explores how children’s accounts work during family dinner conversations. So called proto-accounts (laments, multiple repeats, want-statements) and varied verbal accounts are analyzed in relation to age class or prior language socialization experiences. Study II focuses on the use of endearment terms in directive sequences between parents and children. The findings show an asymmetrical distribution of endearment terms, in that only parents make use of them when interactional problems – children’s non-compliance with parental requests in particular – arise.   Study III examines the ways in which Italian parents deploy the discourse marker dai (‘come on’) in directive sequences. This is a flexible linguistic resource that is employed by parents as a cajoling token when children fail to comply with parental requests, hindering the advancement of the in-progress activity. This thesis describes family mealtimes as parent-directed activities where sociality, morality and local understandings of the world (Ochs & Shohet, 2006) are collaboratively re-created and enacted. This confirms the crucial role of everyday family meals as rich cultural sites (Ochs & Shohet, 2006) for reasserting moral attitudes of the family: participants learn moment by moment how to be competent actors that are able to choose between alternative courses of action and that can therefore be held accountable for their actions (Bergmann, 1998: 284). From this point of view, a dinner is paradigmatic of the deep moral sense that permeates the making of a family.

Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Emma Betz / This conversation analytic study aims to describe how advice is re-issued in German in an institutional setting. Schank (1979) has shown that conversation during German advice programs consists of five different phases, one of which is the advice-giving phase. For the current study, four conversations from a radio advice program were analyzed. The data show that the advice-giving phase identified by Schank is further characterized by three sub-phases: 1) issuing of initial advice, 2) negotiation of rejected advice through reformulations of the initial advice, and 3) offer to move to the closing phase, done via generalization of the previously-given advice. I focus on the delivery of the second phase, in which the advice, previously rejected by the recipient, is re-issued using a number of discourse strategies on the part of the advice giver. These strategies include a change in recipient, a shift in source of the advice, the selection or change in reference (i.e. du ‘you’ vs. ich ‘I’), a change in advised action, and a change in strength. In selecting one of these identified discourse strategies, the advice giver addresses the reason for the rejection of the advice on which the reformulation is based. Finally, in looking at the third phase, I explain the function of generalizations and their role in situating the interlocutors interactionally within the larger advice-giving phase, thus sequencing the complex action (Schank, 1981).

Our society has become less physically active (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010) and less connected to nature than ever before (Berger & Mcleod, 2006). Spending leisure time indoors, technological advancements, urban living, and car dependent communities have led to these changes (Dustin, Bricker, & Schwab, 2010; Hansen-Ketchum, Marck, & Reutter, 2009; Norman & Mills, 2004). As a result, physical health and mental health is deteriorating (Dustin et al., 2010; Maller, Townsend, Pryor, Brown & Leger, 2005). Physical activity and nature can each produce mental and physical health benefits; some approaches such as adventure-based counseling and wilderness therapy already incorporate these elements. A promising alternative approach using physical activity and nature has received attention in recent years. Walk and talk therapy has been described as an intervention that combines counseling, walking, and the outdoors (Doucette, 2004). Despite, a small number of therapists using the approach (Gontang, 2009), anecdotal research (Hays, 1994), and a description of the approach (Doucette, 2004), little is known about walk and talk therapy. In this qualitative study 11 therapists were interviewed about their experiences with walk and talk therapy. Main themes of the study suggested characteristics, a procedure, reasons walk and talk therapy evolved, limitations, outcomes, and a framework for practice for walk and talk therapy. Therapists believe walk and talk therapy is beneficial for clients as well as therapists. Implications for therapists, researchers, and counselor educators are provided.

Research has established a close link between talk and cognition; that talk is central to the meaning-making process and thus to learning science. However, the challenge is shifting teacher pedagogical practices to those that promote meaningful learner talk and mediate substantive engagement with science concepts. Research suggests that long-term school based teacher support programmes do bring about changes in teacher beliefs and classroom practices. My study was part of a five year project to investigate teaching strategies for the implementation of South Africa’s new science curriculum in Soweto high schools. Taking a socio-cultural perspective I sought to understand the use of science talk as a tool for teachers to mediate meaningful engagement with and understanding of high school science. I investigated teacher-learner interactions in three experienced teachers’ classrooms following their participation in the intervention programme. I wanted to understand how they used talk to create dialogic discourse and how meaning making was negotiated within this discourse. Taking a collaborative research approach I used case study methodology to collect and analyse observational data from each teachers’ lessons. Data analysis was informed by Mortimer and Scott’s model for analysing classroom interactions and Toulmin’s Argument Pattern (TAP). My findings indicated that classrooms had become interactive. Although teachers took up a largely authoritative stance there was tendency to a dialogic communicative approach. That is, while traditional IRE discourse persisted, there was significant evidence that teachers created dialogic discourse (eliciting and taking up learners’ ideas). Teachers both opened up and shut down talk, through evaluative and elaborative feedback, respectively. I observed the emergence of spontaneous argumentation in two teachers’ lessons. Argumentation differed from forms reported in literature in two significant ways. First, arguments were co-constructed by the teacher and learners and secondly, an unusual form of argumentation to make sense of conventional science concepts as opposed to the usual argumentation on socio-scientific issues as observed in local South African studies so far. Whereas most argumentation research has focused on the structure of arguments constructed by individual participants, I observed arguments co-constructed collaboratively by several participants. These findings have been published in a peer reviewed journal. A further, unrecorded finding for South Africa was engagement in talk within hybrid spaces, which are combinations of formal scientific ways of talking with context-based and culturally informed forms of talk. Lastly, science talk was enriched in these classrooms by linking it to other forms of engagement, such as reading, writing, practical activities and computer technology. This too has not been reported in South Africa. Some methodological findings emanating from my study included the positive effects of the model adopted by the Project on Implementation of Curriculum Change (ICC Project). The project employed a model of sustained on-site teacher support, systematic teacher-researcher collaboration, co-teaching and modelling of teaching strategies. I also discuss the implications of my findings for teacher professional development as well as for science teacher education in South Africa and further afield.

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.