Indexing Inferables and Organizational Shifts: 'No'-Prefaces in English Conversation

This dissertation uses conversation analysis to examine three non-disagreeing functions of the token `no' when it prefaces a turn at talk. In the first function, `no'-prefaces index and respond to an inferential component of a prior turn. This practice entails a number of sub-practices, in which speakers use `no'-prefaced responses to deny face-threatening actions produced through "off-record" formulations, display affiliation with a recipient by managing incongruent stance displays, manage inferences regarding the speaker's epistemic stance or rights, deny an inference conveyed through a prior polar question, or produce a preferred response to delicate formulations that index a recipient's accountability, blame, or guilt. In the second function, `no'-prefaces mark a shift in how the turn is organized with regard to the speaker's footing. In this practice, speakers employ `no'-prefaced turns to shift between non-serious and serious interactional frames, or retroactively assert the serious footing of a prior utterance. In the third function, `no'-prefaces mark a shift in how the turn is organized with regard to the surrounding talk. In this practice, `no'-prefaced turns may be used to mark a unit of talk as hearably "misplaced", connect back to a prior segment of talk, or close an extended telling sequence. As a study situated within the framework of interactional linguistics, this dissertation examines these functions of `no'-prefaces in the context of naturally-occurring English conversation

Punctuation as Social Action: The Ellipsis as a Discourse Marker in Computer-Mediated Communication

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Doing being an ordinary technology and social media user

This paper uses discourse and conversation analysis of naturally-occuring conversations to describe how participants construct themselves as “ordinary” users of communication technologies—devices such as mobile phones, their communicative affordances, and the mediated interaction they enable (e.g., access to online communication via social media platforms). The three practices analyzed are (1) managing motivations by downplaying interest and stake in using technology and participating in online activities; (2) calibrating quantities of one's time and involvement using social media; (3) identifying investments in social media use through categories and identities that position users as appropriate or inappropriate. These techniques comprise an accounting practice that accomplishes identity construction in service of situated social actions to manage the moral implications of communication technology use

Providing epistemic support for assessments through mobile-supported sharing activities

This paper examines how participants in face-to-face conversation employ mobile phones as a resource for social action. We focus on what we call mobile-supported sharing activities, in which participants use a mobile phone to share text or images with others by voicing text aloud from their mobile or providing others with visual access to the device’s display screen. Drawing from naturalistic video recordings, we focus on how mobile-supported sharing activities invite assessments by providing access to an object that is not locally accessible to the participants. Such practices make relevant co-participants’ assessment of these objects and allow for different forms of co-participation across sequence types. We additionally examine how the organization of assessments during these sharing activities displays sensitivity to preference structure. The analysis illustrates the relevance of embodiment, local objects, and new communicative technologies to the production of action in co-present interaction. Data are in American English

Low agreement among reviewers evaluating the same NIH grant applications

Obtaining grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is increasingly competitive, as funding success rates have declined over the past decade. To allocate relatively scarce funds, scientific peer reviewers must differentiate the very best applications from comparatively weaker ones. Despite the importance of this determination, little research has explored how reviewers assign ratings to the applications they review and whether there is consistency in the reviewers’ evaluation of the same application. Replicating all aspects of the NIH peer-review process, we examined 43 individual reviewers’ ratings and written critiques of the same group of 25 NIH grant applications. Results showed no agreement among reviewers regarding the quality of the applications in either their qualitative or quantitative evaluations. Although all reviewers received the same instructions on how to rate applications and format their written critiques, we also found no agreement in how reviewers “translated” a given number of strengths and weaknesses into a numeric rating. It appeared that the outcome of the grant review depended more on the reviewer to whom the grant was assigned than the research proposed in the grant. This research replicates the NIH peer-review process to examine in detail the qualitative and quantitative judgments of different reviewers examining the same application, and our results have broad relevance for scientific grant peer review

Attending to the mobile text summons: Managing multiple communicative activities across physically copresent and technologically mediated interpersonal interactions

© The Author(s) 2018. This article presents a qualitative investigation of communication practices interactants use to manage mobile phone activity while they are engaged in a copresent conversation. Drawing from conversation analysis and a collection of naturalistic video recordings, our study of mobile phone use in situ focuses on how participants orient to the mobile text summons, the audible chimes or vibrations that indicate the receipt of a text message (or short message service [SMS]). In these moments, interactants must simultaneously manage attending to their phone and the copresent conversation. Our analysis shows how people may use nonverbal and verbal techniques to attend to their mobile phone based on their identity respective to the copresent activity. The study contributes to scholarly understandings of technology use, multitasking, and the management of attention in interpersonal communication