“I just thought… ” is one of those phrases whose meaning we think we know, but there are intriguing subtleties in what people do with it in conversation. In a recent article for the journal, Jason Turowetz delved into some of its main uses. Here he gives the background to the story. 

Jason Turowetz

My article on ‘I just thought formulations’ has its origins in a study of speed dating I conducted with a colleague, Matthew Hollander, in 2009, when we were graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It seems a long way back, but that shows how a phenomenon can lodge in your head and inspire a continuing thread of research. Continue reading →

Quite often a ROLSI article touches on a matter than will interest a very wide range of readers, and Gareth Walker‘s account of how acoustic data is represented is a very good example. The range of representations is wide, and not all are equally good for the same things; some may even be misleading. I’m delighted that Gareth has agreed to go into some of the thinking that prompted him to write the piece. Continue reading →

The community of interactional researchers in Loughborough’s Discourse and Rhetoric Group occasionally put on an informal themed day of presentations and data sessions. In September this year the theme was “Resistance”, meant to encompass all kinds of practices. Doctoral student Jack Joyce takes up the story.

Jack Joyce, Loughborough DARG

On 13 September 2017, the first ‘Resistance in Talk-in-Interaction’ seminar day was hosted at Loughborough University as a joint-DARG event, funded by the Loughborough Doctoral College. Continue reading →

In this, the second report on the busy International Pragmatics Association conference, we have the reflections of the organiser, Catrin Rhys, intercontinental visitor Chase Raymond, and Twitter follower Saul Albert.

Catrin Rhys, University of Ulster

The organiser’s view: Catrin Rhys #IPrA2017

Hosting IPrA begins with creating the bid and an appropriate theme and ends, after everyone has left, with report writing for the local sponsors. In between is a three-year rollercoaster with periods of intense busy-ness and quiet periods where you wake up in the middle of the night panicking that you’ve forgotten something. Continue reading →

Every two years the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) holds a huge conference – this year some 1,300 people gathered in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for a jamboree of language scholarship. As ever, it was a bazaar of wonders, from historical pragmatics through to eye-tracking experiments, with everything in between, in dozens  of languages. Conversation Analysis was well represented; I asked a number of colleagues to send their reflections, and in this, the first of two Guest Blogs, Liz Stokoe, Melisa Stevanovic and Marina Cantarutti tell us what it was like for them.

The Plenarist: Liz Stokoe @LizStokoe Continue reading →

Helsinki’s Centre of Excellence for Intersubjectivity in Interaction has over its short history become an international powerhouse of interaction research. A celebratory conference was held in May, and I’m delighted that two of the Centre’s key personnel Taru Auranne and Taina Valkeapää, agreed to reflect on how it all went.

Taru Auranne

Taina Valkeapää

The conference “Intersubjectivity in Action” (IIA) was organized in the hesitant spring of Finland on May 11-13, 2017. It celebrated the final year of the Centre of Excellence in Intersubjectivity in Interaction, which has been running at the University of Helsinki since 2012.

Continue reading →