When technological affordances meet interactional norms: the value of pre-screening in online chat counseling

We present a conversation analysis of openings sequences of online text-based chat counseling. Particular about this chat counseling is that the clients made available their help question through pre-screening. The data consisted of 40 chat sessions with pre-screening and 34 sessions without pre-screening from the Dutch alcohol and drugs chat service. In the chat sessions with pre-screening, the participants displayed accountability with regard to the norms relevant to pre-given information, which took up space and time and frequently involved interactional misalignment. In chat sessions without pre-screening of the question, the openings followed a more fluent interactional course. We discuss how affordances of digital communication media may work as constraints when the participants orient to interactional norms known from other, offline environments

Dealing with the dual demands of expertise and democracy:How experts create proximity to the public without undermining their status as experts

Credible expertise is no longer a given in our contemporary democracy: for knowledge to be authoritative, experts must take into account a wider audience than just scientific colleagues. This study uses conversation analysis and discursive psychology to investigate how experts deal with this role in practice. We show that experts in a Dutch public hearing on GM food orient to ‘speaking on behalf of the public’ without undermining their status as experts. They do this by (1) animating but not overlapping the voices of the public (2) speaking on behalf of ‘the consumer’ and (3) presenting hypothetical public opinions. In this way, experts reconcile what they treat as the dual requirement of distance to support an expert opinion and the proximity to the public required for good democracy. We further discuss what implications this research has for the role of experts in a modern democracy

Talking cognition: mapping and making the terrain

This book addresses issues of talk and cognition. For the first time some of the world‟s experts on interaction analysis have been brought together to consider the nature and role of cognition. They address the question of what part, if any, cognitive entities should play in the analysis of interaction. They develop different answers. Some are consistent with current thinking in cognitive psychology and cognitive science; others are more critical, questioning the idea that cognition is the obvious and necessary start point for the study of human action

Wat kopen we voor die kennis?

Waarde van wetenschap (What do we buy for that knowledge? The value of science). Newspaper interview for the science section of NRC Weeken

Dietary intake at stake:Clients’ adjusted diagnostic explanations during dietary treatment of malnutrition (risk)

In this article, we show how elderly clients in Dutch dietary consultations adjust dietitians’ history taking questions that suggest a cause for weight loss. Using conversation analysis and discursive psychology, we analyzed the history taking phase of recorded primary care conversations of 7 dietitians with 17 clients with malnutrition (risk). In response to the dietitian's history taking question, clients repeatedly present: 1) a problem in which weight loss is presented as unexpected and a conscious reduction in dietary intake is (therefore) not an issue, 2) a problem for which they cannot be held responsible, but which at the same time acts as a reason for reduced dietary intake, 3) a problem in which higher dietary intakes have been recommended by a third party that have proved impracticable. In these adjusted diagnostic explanations, clients emphasize the multidimensionality of their weight loss, which concurrently provides an explanation as to why they cannot be (solely) held responsible for their reduced dietary intake. Clients’ adjusted diagnostic explanations make relevant an evaluation by the dietitian. Dietitians’ subsequent lack of uptake leads to clients recycling diagnostic explanations to still get a response from the dietitian. Our findings offer insight into improving client-centered counseling by paying attention to clients’ adjusted diagnostic explanations.</p