News and Events
Just published
Celia Kitzinger and Merran Toerien. 2009. The turn of talk. The Association for Qualitative Research In-Depth Papers
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Finland, June 2009
Celia Kitzinger taught a course on "Doing Politically Engaged Conversation Analysis" at University of Tampere, Finland June 10-11 2009.
Past Events
July 07 October 07 November 07 December 07
January 08 February 08 March 08 May 08
July 08
August 08 September 08 October 2008
January 09 February 09 May 09
May 2009
Recognizability in the Interactions of Very Young Children:
Showing vs. Giving
Mardi Kidwell, University of New Hampshire
A seminar and data workshop on children’s interactions
Wednesday 27th May at 2.15pm, in W222, Department of Sociology
University of York
Anyone interested in interaction, children’s interactions and development,
and conversation analysis, is warmly invited to this seminar.
Abstract
How do children in the pre- and early stages of language development initiate
engagement with others? What embodied, material, and sequential resources do they
use? In this talk, I examine ‘showing’ and ‘giving’ as early engage techniques in the
interactions of very young children (aged 1 to 2 1/2 years). ‘Showing’, which turns on
such practical moves as drawing and sustaining another’s attention to an object, can
easily be mistaken for - even exploited as - another sort of action that it resembles,
‘giving.’ As such, ‘showing’ and ‘giving’, and the structural opportunities these
actions afford parties (child and other) to display and modify their understandings of
what sort of social exchange is transpiring between them, provide children an early
training ground for 1) learning how one action can be taken for another, and for 2)
managing and pressing the recognizability of their actions.
Data Session
In the data session to follow, we will examine a stretch of interaction in which
children (aged 14 and 15 months) are participating in meal time. There will be very
little talk, but the segment is rich in the sort of early communicative behaviours
discussed in the presentation.
Bionote
Mardi Kidwell is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the
University of New Hampshire. Using the method of conversation analysis, she
focuses on the early communicative conduct of very young children and, more
recently, on police-citizen interactions. Across these two lines of research, she is
interested in understanding very fundamental aspects of human sociality, as well as
the institutional and interactive work of social control.
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February 2009
Pre-closings in consumer complaint calls to a telephone helpline
Brian Torode
Data Session: 10.15-12.15 Wednesday 25 February W/222
This data session presented recordings of one complete call to the Office of Consumer Affairs, Dublin; together with extracts from a further seven calls. Discussion focused on recognisable pre-closing devices which provoke re-opening rather than closing of the call.
Brian Torode is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Trinity College, Dublin. He was co-author with David Silverman of The Material Word (1980) and editor ofText and Talk as Social Practise (1989). He has published a number of articles on classroom discourse and on telephone helplines.
Repair Course
16th to 19th February 2009
Fourteen people attended the CPD course on Repair (16-19 February 2009). Celia Kitzinger led the group through discussion and hands-on data analysis of key topics including self-initiated and other-initiated repair, the repair segment, (from repair initiation to resumption of the suspended TCU or sequence), the operations that repair can perform (replacement, insertion, deletion etc), and the interactional relevances of repair.
The people in the photo (left to right) are:
Celia Kitzinger,
Jorg Zinken,
Beatrix Futak-Campbell,
Katie Simmons,
Stuart Ekberg, Colleen Heenan,
Alex Tulloch,
Sonja Ellis,
Goklem Tekdemir,
Alexsandra Borak,
Brandy Tygstad,
Anna Madill,
Israel Beren,
(Rowena Viney took the photo)
Analysing Workplace Interaction Workshop
Wednesday 4th February, University of York
This one-day workshop provided an opportunity to consider the use of conversation analysis in analysing workplace interaction and demonstrated through examples of research in this area and through hands-on work in data sessions, the value of this approach. The Keynote speaker was Tanya Stivers - a leading researcher in the study of social interaction using conversation analysis and multi-method approaches. Tanya works on physician-patient communication -- particularly treatment negotiation in primary care and is author of Prescribing Under Pressure: Parent- Physician Interaction and Antibiotics (2007; Oxford University Press). Celia Kitzinger, Director of the Feminist CA Unit, which hosted this event, provided a brief introduction to the field. The afternoon data sessions covered a broad range of topics including: police interviews with sex offenders; agency calls coordinating in-home support for older people; cognitive behavioral therapy; talk-in-interaction in the beauty salon; and help-line calls.
This workshop was sponsored by the Feminist CA Unit at the University of York.
Click here for abstracts.
Keynote speaker Tanya Stivers explaining national variations in antibiotic prescribing rates and their strong correlation with bacterial resistance levels. Her talk (see Abstract) reported her discoveries about why doctors prescribe antibiotics inappropriately and the methods they can use to resist patient pressure
Workshop participants in discussion with Tanya Stivers. From left to right: Susan Hansen, Chiara Monzoni, Stuart Ekberg, Tanya Stivers.
The Presenters.
From left to right: Chiara Monzoni, Stuart Ekberg, Tanya Stivers, Celia Kitzinger, Merran Toerien, Katie Simmons, Kelly Benneworth.
January 2009
Couples Sharing Chores: Data Session with Joerg Zinken
Tuesday 27 January
10.15-12.15 W/222
This data session, hosted by the Feminist CA Unit, is based on Joerg's collection of interactional sequences in which members of a couple raise a household task as a topic of conversation. The interactions between British couples and families who recorded their breakfasts (three video-recordings and three audio-recordings) as part of a project that will investigate how English, Polish, and ‘mixed’ couples share household chores during mealtime conversations. (All of the data in this session will be in English.)
Jörg Zinken is a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Portsmouth. His research interests concern the mediating role of talk in human activities, and the study of universal and (cross-culturally) particular aspects of activities. He has a background in discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics, but has recently moved towards a conversation analytic approach.
October 2008
Sequence Organisation Short Course
29th September to 2nd October 2008
Celia Kitzinger led a short-course on sequence organisation and is shown here with the course delegates standing in front of a video of Professor Emanuel Schegloff teaching at UCLA.
From left to right:
Sonja Ellis, Anna Madill, Rowena Viney, Rein Sikveland, Danielle Jones, Celia Kitzinger, Joanne Greenhalgh, Colleen Heenan, Liz Trinder, Margaret Hearnden.
Birth Crisis Workshop
October 2008
Celia Kitzinger running a Birth Crisis workshop with Sheila Kitzinger, October 2008: Thirty doulas, midwives, and antenatal teachers learn conversation analysis while listening to helpline calls with women in trauma after childbirth
Outstanding Research Award
Congratulations to Sue Wilkinson (an Associate of the Feminist CA Unit, based at Loughborough University) and Celia Kitzinger for their CA article on surprise which has won the British Psychological Society Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section Outstanding Research Award 2008. Here's an Abstract of the winning article:
Surprise as an interactional achievement: Reaction tokens in conversation. by Sue Wilknson and Celia Kitzinger, Social Psychology Quarterly 2006. 69(2): 150-182.
Abstract
The expression of suprise - at something unexpected - is a key form of emotional display. Focussing on displays of surprise performed by means of reaction tokens (akin to Goffman's "response cries") such as wow, gosh, oh my god ooh! phew, we use an ethnomethodological conversation-analytic approach to analyse surprise in talk-in-interaction. Our key contribution is to detach the psychology of surprise from its social expression by showing how co-conversationalists collaborate to bring off an interactionally achieved performance of surprise. Far from being a visceral eruption of emotion, the production of a surprise token is often prepared for several turns in advance. We also show how surprise can be recycled on an occasion subsequent to its initial production, and how surprise displays may be delayed by silence, ritualised disbelief and other repair initiations. Finally, we consider some of the uses of surprise as an interactional resource, including its role in the reflection and reproduction of culture.
Click here if you would like to request a copy of the article
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September 08
Data Session: Calls to the New Zealand Electricity and Gas Complaints Commission
with Ann Weatherall
Thursday 25 September, 3pm
W/222, Wentworth, University of York
Ann Weatherall (pictured below), a Reader in the Psychology Department at Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand, presented recordings drawn from her new data corpus of complaints to the NZ Electricity and Gas Commission. You can find out more about Anne's research interests at:
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/
Qualitative Methods in Psychology
Inaugural Conference
University of Leeds
2nd to 4th September 2008
Clare Jackson presented on the Gendered-I in the symposium on Conversation Analysis. Anne Weatherall presented on insertion repairs in a joint paper with Sue Wilkinson. Following the papers, there was a lively and productive data session.
August 08
Data Session: Medical Interaction (video data)
With Maria Stubbe
Thursday 21 August, 2pm
W/222 Wentworth, University of York
Maria Stubbe (pictured below), a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand, presented videodata drawn from medical consultations. You can find out more about her research interests at:
http://www.otago.ac.nz/wsmhs/academic/gp/staff/Maria_Stubbe.html
July 08
Conversation Analysis Master Class
taught by Gene Lerner and Celia Kitzinger
University of York 23-25 July 2008.
In July 2008, Gene Lerner and Celia Kitzinger co-taught an intensive and stimulating Master Class on self-initiated repair to a group of fourteen participants (pictured below). A group project has emerged out of this class (on self-initiated repair to indexicals) which we will be working on collaboratively over the coming months. We are developing a method of ‘team working’ for 16 conversation analysts in three different countries drawing on data from settings ranging from beauty salons to police stations and in languages including English, Brazilian Portuguese and Italian. We hope to develop this work for a collaborative publication and would love to hear from anyone else working in this area.
Above: |
Above back row from left to right: |
| Middle row: Clare Jackson, Danielle Jones, Piera Margutti | |
Front row: Celia Kitzinger, Gene Lerner, Chiara Monzoni |
Gene Lerner Lecture
Professor Gene Lerner gave a talk, sponsored by the Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society, entitled;
Body Trouble: Some Sources of Interactional Trouble and their Embodied Solution
Abstract:
In this talk (based on work carried out jointly with my colleague Geoff Raymond) I develop an appreciation for interactional troubles that find their source, not in the talk, but in the instrumental embodied actions of everyday life in the material world. I focus on manual actions and thus much of what I have to say concerns the deployment of the hands. I first introduce two sources of misunderstanding in interaction that can be targeted by remedial action: the misidentification of material possessions used in interaction, and the misprojection of the action implication of body behavior. Building on early work that describes a ‘Home-Away-Home’ pathway for gesture and other body behavior (Sacks & Schegloff, 2002 [1975]), I introduce a formal “phase structure” for manual action, and then ground its relevance by showing that onset of body trouble remediation (both self and other-initiated) can be described in terms of its position within this “manual action pathway.” At each phase I show how remediation is achieved and then conclude the talk by expanding the analysis beyond misunderstanding to include sources of trouble in the coordination of manual interaction and in the coordination of manual conduct with talk-in-interaction.
Introducing Conversation Analysis for Psychologists
26th July 2008
The Unit hosted a one-day workshop on “Conversation Analysis for Psychologists” held at York on 26 July, sponsored by the British Psychological Society Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section, attended by nearly 40 participants. Professor Gene Lerner (UCSB) gave a stimulating talk on "The search for delicate formulations" and there were lively and well-attended data sessions on laughter and crying in help-line calls (Alexa Hepburn), self-deprecation in the talk of an Alzheimer's patient (Danielle Jones), gender in interaction (Clare Jackson, the social construction of ethnicity monitoring (Sue Wilkinson), birth crisis helpline talk (Celia Kitzinger), and social interaction among very young children (Gene Lerner)
This seminar was sponsored by the BPS Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section and the University of York.
Click here for promotional poster
Sydney
Celia Kitzinger gave a keynote address on “Gift-giving and Reciprocity in Human interaction” to the Australian Linguistics Society and the Australian Applied Linguistics Association at their annual conferences in Sydney (4 July). She also taught a five-day course on “Feminist Conversation Analysis” at the Australian Linguistics Institute (7-11 July).
Psychology of Women Section Annual Conference
16th - 18th July 2008
Members (and affiliates) of the Feminist CA Unit presented a symposium on Feminist Conversation Analysis at the British Psychological Society Psychology of Women Section Annual Conference in Windsor (17th July).
Celia Kitzinger
On gender and interruption: A conversation analysis approach
Clare Jackson
The gendered ‘I’: Gendered self-reference in talk-in-interaction
Susan Speer
On passing as a ‘real woman’
Sue Wilkinson
“The first thing you do is take your bra off”: Gender, routinization and recipient design
May 08
Birth Crisis Workshop
Celia Kitzinger teaching a Birth Crisis Workshop - showing midwives, doulas and antenatal teachers the value of conversation analysis for their work.
Professor Deborah Cameron
Professor Cameron gave a lively seminar at the University of York on 6th May 2008.
Title: Language, gender and the new biologism
Abstract:
This talk considers the recent resurgence of biologism in both academic and popular discussions of male and female behaviour--that is, the view that men's and women's ways of acting can best be explained in biological rather than sociocultural terms. I will concentrate on the way this 'new biologism' has been applied to the specific subject of male and female linguistic behaviour, using this example to prompt discussion of some more general questions which are of interest to social scientists and feminists. Is the new biologism a serious challenge to social constructionist assumptions about gender? Is it a serious political threat? What explains its current influence and appeal? And how should feminists respond? The talk will be of particular relevance to specialists in language/linguistics, but it will not assume any advanced technical knowledge, and it should also be of interest to sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers and anyone else concerned with issues of sex/gender.
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March 2008
Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson (Loughborough University) shown here teaching the second of their two short courses on conversation analysis at Victoria University at Wellington. The courses were attended by around 20 staff from across a range of disciplines including sociology, medicine, psychology, women's studies, linguistics and midwivery. Celia Kitzinger also gave a talk in the VUW Psychology Department seminar series based on her joint work with Jenny Mandelbaum (Rutgers University) on word selection and identity.
February 2008
Introduction to Sequence Organisation
Celia Kitzinger taught a four-day course on sequence organisation from 12th-15th February 2008. Participants were from a range of backgrounds, including linguistics, psychology and sociology.
Participants stand in front of a video of Professor Emanuel Schegloff teaching his sequence organisation course at UCLA.
From Left to right:-
Back row; Sarah Seymour-Smith, Dawn Matthews, Danielle Jones, Grace Burke, Patricia Cahill.
Front row; Sachiko Kondo, Adele Beck, Clare Stockill.
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January 2008
Turn-Taking Course
Celia taught a four day course on introduction to turn-taking. Seven students attended and were from a range of backgrounds, including sociology, linguistics, medicine and psychology.
Turn-Taking Group at dinner. From Left to right; Joerg Zinken, Danielle Jones, Celia Kitzinger, Clare Stockill, Adele Beck, Sarah Seymour-Smith, and Patricia Cahill.
December 2007
Launch of Feminist Conversation Analysis Unit
The official launch of the Feminist Conversation Analysis Unit took place on the 14th December 2007 from 10.00 to 18.00 in the Department of Sociology, University of York. There were a range of talks and data sessions from feminist analysts including Alexa Hepburn, Celia Kitzinger, and Merran Toerien.
The celebrations got off to a good start with strawberries (above) and Champagne.
Above and left; The Unit Director, Professor Celia Kitzinger celebrates the launch with Champagne.
Above and right; Celebrating the launch were (from left to right); Danilelle Jones, Clare Stockill, Alexa Hepburn, Lynn Kilgallon, Celia Kitzinger, Estefania Guimaraes, Alison Taylor, Marijana Cerovic, Danijela Trenkic, Merran Toerien, and Rowena Viney
On 5th December, Clare Stockill presented a research seminar to the Psychology Department at the University of Wolverhampton. Clare provided an overview of her observations about alternative-less-than recognitional person reference to a group of 12 staff and graduate students. It proved to be a challenging experience, and one that provoked lively discussion!
November 2007
Congratulations to Dr Estefania Guimaraes on gaining her PhD
Congratulations to Dr Estefania Guimaraes who submitted her PhD a couple of months ago and passed her viva (with Paul Drew and Rebecca Clift as examiners) on Friday 23 November. Well done Estefania!
Summary of Estefania's thesis (pdf)
On Wednesday 21 November, Celia Kitzinger gave a talk called "Helping Women to Help Women in Trauma after Childbirth" about her training and educational work with the Birth Crisis Helpline. She showed how she uses recorded interactions, and conversation analyses of them, to help midwives, antenatal teachers, breastfeeding counselors, doulas and others to listen effectively to women's accounts of their births. The talk was given as one of Women and Gender Studies Seminar series at York and was attended by women's studies staff and students and by staff from the Mother and Infant Research Unit. You can request a pdf of the published version of the talk here.
On 1st November Dawn Matthews (University of Huddersfield) and Clare Stockill presented data in two very different but equally enjoyable data sessions. Dawn is researching laughter in calls to a utilities centre, and we worked on a single call from her corpus. Dawn was hoping that we would get to line 76, but the data was so stimulating that we barely made it past line 16. Clare presented data she is using for her chapter in the forthcoming Stokoe and Speer edited collection Gender and Conversation (Cambridge University Press). Clare presented a small collection of situated usages of the self-reference 'I', where this usually neutral term is nuanced with categorical information about the speaker.
Dawn Matthews - University of Huddersfield
October 2007
On 9th October, Merran Toerien and Celia Kitzinger put on the first course providing an Introduction to Feminist Conversation Analysis. The course was attended by advanced as well as beginning researchers, all of whom wished to explore the methodological and political possibilities offered by a feminist CA approach.
July 2007
At the International Pragmatics Association conference, Gothenburg, Sweden, 9th-13th July, Celia Kitzinger presented a paper on "The Strategic Deployment of Gender in Action" as part of the Festschrift to honor Professor Emanuel Schegloff on the occasion of his 70th birthday (with Sue Wilkinson, Loughborough University). She also presented a paper on "Specialist terms and preference organization in word selection in talk-in-interaction" (with Jenny Mandelbaum, Rutgers University). Clare Stockill presented a paper on "Alternative Less-Than-Recognitional Person Reference" (with Celia Kitzinger).
On 4th July the Feminist CA Unit hosted a Master Class in Video Analysis led by the internationally renown conversation analyst Professor Gene Lerner from the University of California at Santa Barbara (visiting the Department to pursue collaborative research projects with Celia Kitzinger). Gene spent the day with us showing a series of fascinating videoclips and leading a discussion of his work (with Geoff Raymond) of body behavioral resources for action. Through empirical analysis of the cases he presented we began to see how embodied action can parallel the organization of talk. He showed how we can begin to grasp the formal structures of human interaction at a level of generality that subsumes both language use and body behavioural resources - while still having the prescriptive precision needed for single case analyses. After the all-day class, a group of us went out for a very enjoyable dinner and continued discussion.
Gene Lerner's master-class for the Feminist CA Unit (plus friends and affiliates) in progress. Gene Lerner (back to camera) - then (left to right), Celia Kitzinger, Clare Stockill (face obscured), Victoria Land, Rose Rickford, Marianna Kaimaki, Danielle Jones, Estefania Guimaraes. Others presented included Sarah Collins, Jenny Mandelbaum, Galena Bolden and Sue Wilkinson (who took the photo).
Members of the Feminist CA Unit (and our friends and affiliates) having dinner with Gene Lerner. Gene is in conversation with Rose Rickford (on his left). Continuing around the table: Celia Kitzinger, Jenny Mandelbaum talking to Alexa Hepburn (back to camera), and Clare Stockill (also with her back to the camera) in conversation with Galena Bolden.