Guest blog: The Oulu University Multi-Tasking Research Team (iTask)

I’m delighted to welcome back Antti Kamunen to report again on the exciting activities of the iTask research team, based at Oulu University (Finland). “Multi-tasking” in interaction with other people means synchronising multiple activities between participants, and is, as you can imagine, as complex as it is rewarding to analyse. Antti takes up the story.

In the previous post a few months ago, as the iTask project was just beginning, I introduced the team, the initial research questions and the method. Since then, research has shown that interactional multitasking is a pervasive phenomenon; it is everywhere and nowhere! So there is lots more to report, which I think will be of interest to ROLSI blog readers. Continue reading →

Guest blog: Bethan Benwell on patients’ small talk while being assessed for surgery

Even the most sober-sided institutional interaction can be infused with ordinary human concerns, expressed in everyday terms. In this very welcome guest blog trailing her and May MacCreaddie‘s article in the new issue of ROLSI, Bethan Benwell casts a humane yet analytic eye over the talk that goes on in a highly charged medical encounter. Continue reading →

Guest blog: Weatherall and Keevallik on claims about others’ mental states

Some forms of words are so completely familiar that we never notice the work they do. In this guest blog, Ann Weatherall and Leelo Keevallik make us look afresh at the formulation I [mental appreciation] that you X, where X is some state of mind – so things like I know that you’re angry, or  I thought that you’d like that and so on. Are they as innocent as they seem? Their article is in the latest issue, but to see how they got there, read on….

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Ann Weatherall, Victoria University of Wellington

This paper had a long and sometimes fraught gestation. In this blog we describe how the research began, the difficulties we encountered in defining/refining our target phenomenon and the challenges of establishing the interactional matter it was mobilised to address. The research process has been a roller coaster ride of highs from the thrill of discovery to the lows of (at first!) failing to convince reviewers. It is very satisfying to have the end result finally published. Continue reading →

Guest blog: Alexandra Kent and Kobin Kendrick on Imperatives

How do you get someone to do something? The range is from making a gentle hint through to barking out a peremptory order (and further on out to issuing an undisguised threat). In the latest issue of ROLSI Alexandra Kent and Kobin Kendrick tease out the subtle elements of actions done and undone in a blow-by-blow analysis of directives in interaction. Here Alexandra and Kobin recruit the British royals into an illustration of their study.

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Alexandra Kent, Keele University

During the 2016 Trooping the Colour Parade to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s official birthday, the British Royal Family stood on the Buckingham Palace Balcony together to watch an aircraft fly-past by the Royal Air Force (RAF). Continue reading →

Guest blog: Catrin Rhys on strange interview questions

Sometimes a Conversation Analysis study makes you realise that you’d seen an odd bit of talk somewhere, and half-registered it as being strange in some way. So I’m delighted that Catrin Rhys has written a guest blog on her article in the upcoming issue of ROLSI – on the strangeness of interviews in (British) football-land. 

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Catrin Rhys, University of Ulster

One of the joys of teaching is that students sometimes, usually unwittingly, deliver up golden nuggets of data. That was how I ended up analysing post-match interviewing in football, despite having absolutely no interest in football. Continue reading →

Guest blog: Ethically sound video research in healthcare

Interactional analyses have increasingly, and fruitfully, been applied to the communication of healthcare workers and their patients. But there are ethical risks and dangers, given the sensitivity of the issues involved. Marco Pino and Ruth Parry have kindly offered their reflections on how to handle the difficulties, and to come out with data that are as ethically sound as they are analytically useful. Continue reading →

Vol 49(2): Gifs, Empathy, Aphasia, Turn-extension and Proposals

The current issue of ROLSI is just out online (hardcopies will take a little more time to reach subscribers) and I’m delighted to report that we have another excellent set of articles, covering the range from basic elements of face-to-face interaction to the most up-to-date usages of mobile technology. Here are the titles and abstracts, with the authors’  names linked to the article on the publishers’ website. Continue reading →