Listeners as co-narrators

Spoken fluency revisited

An important priority for the English Profile programme is to incorporate empirical evidence of the spoken language into the Common European Framework (CEFR). At present, the CEFR descriptors relating to the spoken language include references to fluency and its development as the learner moves from one level to another. This article offers a critique of the monologic bias of much of our current approach to spoken fluency. Fluency undoubtedly involves a degree of automaticity and the ability quickly to retrieve ready-made chunks of language. However, fluency also involves the ability to create flow and smoothness across turn-boundaries and can be seen as an interactive phenomenon in discourse. The article offers corpus evidence for the notion of confluence, that is the joint production of flow by more than one speaker, focusing in particular on turn-openings and closings. It considers the implications of an interactive view of fluency for pedagogy, assessment and in the broader social context.

How did you feel when "The Crocodile Hunter" died? Voicing and silencing in conversation influences memory for an autobiographical event

Conversations about the past can involve voicing and silencing; processes of validation and invalidation that shape recall. In this experiment we examined the products and processes of remembering a significant autobiographical event in conversation with others. Following the death of Australian celebrity Steve Irwin, in an adapted version of the collaborative recall paradigm, 69 participants described and rated their memories for hearing of his death. Participants then completed a free recall phase where they either discussed the event in groups of three or wrote about the event on their own. Finally, participants completed the original questionnaire again, both 1 week and 1 month after the free recall phase. Discussion influenced later memories for hearing of Irwin's death, particularly memories for emotion and shock. Qualitative analysis of the free recall phase suggested that during conversation a shared understanding of the event developed, but that emotional reactions to the event were silenced in ways that minimised the event's impact. These findings are discussed in terms of the processes and consequences of sharing public and personal memories in conversation.

Positions in doctors' questions during psychiatric interviews

In this article I apply the concept of positioning to the analysis of 15 initial psychiatric interviews. I argue that through their questions the psychiatrists-in-training impose positions requiring the patients to gaze at themselves and their actual problems from particular perspectives. I point to three such positions: (a) the position of the observing assessor, from which it is expected that the patients will make a detached assessment of themselves or their problems, (b) the position of the informing witness, which requires the patients only to verify the information about themselves, and (c) the marginal one, the position of the experiencing narrator, from which talk about experiences and problems is expected. I explore the roots and consequences of the positions, with particular attention toward objectivization of the patients' experiences in the dominant witness and assessor positions. I conclude with a discussion about the medical model in psychiatry.

Storying childhood sexual abuse

A theoretical framework that explains how survivors of childhood sexual abuse tell others about their abuse experiences is presented. Data are drawn from open-ended interviews conducted with 74 individuals who experienced ongoing childhood sexual abuse by a family member or close acquaintance. Grounded theory methods were used to develop the framework. The psychosocial problem shared by the participants is that childhood sexual abuse both demands and defies explanation. The core psychosocial process used in response to this problem is storying childhood sexual abuse. The framework includes five processes, and the stories associated with each process vary in their nature and function. The processes and associated stories are (a) starting the story: the story-not-yet-told, (b) coming out with the story: the story-first-told, (c) shielding the story: the story-as-secret, (d) revising the story: the story-as-account, and (e) sharing the story: the story-as-message. Clinical applications of the framework are discussed.

The role of mindfulness in romantic relationship satisfaction and responses to relationship stress

Two studies examined the role of mindfulness in romantic relationship satisfaction and in responses to relationship stress. Using a longitudinal design, Study 1 found that higher trait mindfulness predicted higher relationship satisfaction and greater capacities to respond constructively to relationship stress. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings. Mindfulness was again shown to relate to relationship satisfaction; then, using a conflict discussion paradigm, trait mindfulness was found to predict lower emotional stress responses and positive pre- and postconflict change in perception of the relationship. State mindfulness was related to better communication quality during the discussion. Both studies indicated that mindfulness may play an influential role in romantic relationship well-being. Discussion highlights future research directions for this new area of inquiry.

Telling and the remembered self: Linguistic differences in memories for previously disclosed and previously undisclosed events

Prior work suggests that disclosing experiences may provide people with more distance, more positive emotion, greater cognitive elaboration, and greater certainty regarding those experiences. Two studies (n=58 undergraduates and n=123 community-living adults) examined linguistic indicators of such differences between previously disclosed and previously undisclosed memories elicited on subsequent, solitary occasions using the LIWC text analysis program (Pennebaker & Francis, 1999). Disclosure was associated with differences in the linguistic features of subsequent memories. Potential mechanisms and implications of those differences are discussed.

Reflections on reflecting as a dialogic accomplishment in counseling

In this exploratory study, the author examines reflection as a dialogic phenomenon constructed in the back-and-forth of counseling dialogue. He videotaped and microanalyzed 11 one-hour lifestyle consultations for the conversational practices used by counselors and clients in collaboratively reflecting on developments in their dialogues. He then invited counselors and clients back to comment on their participation in videotaped passages of their dialogue selected for microanalysis, thus permitting a juxtaposition of their retrospective comments with the analysis. The author considers the results from this study with respect to training counselors and for pointing new ways to widen the evidence base with respect to interventions in counseling, particularly social constructionist approaches.

Syntactic alignment and participant role in dialogue

We report three experiments that investigated whether the linguistic behavior of participants in a dialogue is affected by their role within that interaction. All experiments were concerned with the way in which speakers choose between syntactic forms with very similar meanings. Theories of dialogue assume that speakers address their contributions directly to their addressees, but also indirectly to side participants. In Experiments 1 and 2, speakers produced picture descriptions that had the same syntactic structure as a previous speaker's descriptions which had been addressed to a third person. This indicated that syntactic alignment is not limited to speaker-addressee dyads. However, the prior participant role of the current speaker affected alignment: prior addressees aligned more than prior side-participants. In contrast, Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that alignment was unaffected by the prior participant role of the current addressee. We interpret these findings in terms of depth of processing during encoding.

Giving advice on advice-giving: a conversation analysis of Karl Tomm's practice

In this article we challenge a common definition of therapeutic advice as a linear, one-way accomplishment, enacted by therapists toward clients. We also offer a novel conception of advice as a dialogical "performance," to which both therapists and clients contribute. We discuss the results of a conversation analysis of a family therapy session by Karl Tomm, showing sequential practices employed by a family therapist and a family as they jointly work out common ground to set the stage for the therapist's eventual offering of advice. We discuss the results of this study in light of the literature on advice provision in various contexts.

Looking while listening and speaking: eye-to-face gaze in adolescents with and without traumatic brain injury

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to address the lack of quantitative data on eye-to-face gaze (also known as eye contact) in the literature on pragmatic communication. The study focused on adolescents and young adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI), as gaze often is included in social skills intervention in this population.

METHOD

Gaze times were calculated for participants with TBI (n = 16) and their typically developing (TD) peers (n = 16) engaged in 3-min extemporaneous conversations.

RESULTS

The TD group members looked at the face of their conversation partner an average of 62% of the time while listening and 43% of the time while speaking, versus 67% and 51%, respectively, for the TBI group. There were no significant between-groups differences in average gaze times, but the within-group variability was significantly greater in the TBI group.

IMPLICATIONS

As there was no evidence of a uniform trend in gaze times among participants with TBI, general intervention to increase eye contact does not appear warranted. Instead, goals must consider that gaze is a highly complex behavior, not necessarily indicative of attention to one's partner, and that there are potential reasons for gaze aversion in individuals with cognitive limitations.

Coordination in nurses' listening activities and communication about patient-nurse relationships

The purpose of this analysis was to examine whether nurses' listening behavior, especially the coordination of their nonverbal involvement activities with those of their patients, communicates information about patient-nurse relationships. Participants were 126 college women who responded to a 30-item instrument measuring relational information that was communicated to them by nurses' behavior in videotaped segments of interactions between a patient/actress and 12 nurses. Participants' responses to two consecutive interaction segments were selected for this analysis. The research team coded the patient's and nurses' listening activities, and they calculated coordination and activity rates for all interaction segments. Multiple regression analysis revealed that nurses' verbal listening activities, such as reflection, their nonverbal involvement activities, and their simultaneous coordination of nonverbal involvement activities with those of the patient predicted relational information dimensions of trust/receptivity, depth/similarity/affection, composure, and non-formality. Thus, nurses' listening behavior, including coordination, may contribute to communication about patient-nurse relationships.

Emotion regulation during social remembering: differences between emotions elicited during an event and emotions elicited when talking about it

This paper examines emotion regulation as a function of autobiographical remembering in social contexts. Two studies (n = 38 and 123, respectively) are presented that provide evidence that autobiographical remembering in social settings can result in changes in the emotions associated with an experience. However, the results also suggest that whether changes occur depends on features of the recall context, including the gender of participants, and the responses of their listeners. Across both studies, men showed greater emotional benefits from talking about events than women. Moreover, greater listener agreement was associated with greater benefits for emotion. The results are discussed in terms of functions of autobiographical remembering, gender, social support, and emotion regulation.

Why are you telling me that? A conceptual model of the social function of autobiographical memory

In an effort to stimulate and guide empirical work within a functional framework, this paper provides a conceptual model of the social functions of autobiographical memory (AM) across the lifespan. The model delineates the processes and variables involved when AMs are shared to serve social functions. Components of the model include: lifespan contextual influences, the qualitative characteristics of memory (emotionality and level of detail recalled), the speaker's characteristics (age, gender, and personality), the familiarity and similarity of the listener to the speaker, the level of responsiveness during the memory-sharing process, and the nature of the social relationship in which the memory sharing occurs (valence and length of the relationship). These components are shown to influence the type of social function served and/or, the extent to which social functions are served. Directions for future empirical work to substantiate the model and hypotheses derived from the model are provided.

Addressees' needs influence speakers' early syntactic choices

A current debate in psycholinguistics concerns how speakers take addressees' knowledge or needs into account during the packaging of utterances. In retelling stories, speakers are more likely to mention atypical instruments than easily inferrable, typical instruments; in a seminal study, Brown and Dell (1987) suggested that this is not an adjustment to addressees but is simply easiest for speakers. They concluded that manipulating addressees' knowledge did not affect speakers' mention of instruments. However, their addressees were confederates who heard the same stories repeatedly. We had speakers retell stories to naive addressees who either saw or did not see a picture illustrating the main action and instrument. When addressees lacked pictures, speakers were more likely to mention atypical instruments, to mention them early (within the same clause as the action verb), and to mark atypical instruments as indefinite. This suggests that with visual copresence, speakers can take addressees' knowledge into account in early syntactic choices.

‘Hiding on a Glass Roof’, or a Commentator’s Exercise on ‘Rewriting Memories’

Tschuggnall and Welzer’s (2002) paper provides examples of narratives collected in interviews about the Third Reich period in Germany. They discuss the transformations observed in recounted episodes as they are passed from one generation to the other in the theoretical framework of collective and constructive memory. While agreeing with the paper’s main tenets, the commentary offers further readings of the stories presented as evidence, suggesting also a deeper analytic treatment of the conversational unfolding of the sequences. Recurring themes in the stories recalled by witnesses and their relatives are read as reflexively indexing the interview setting and, more widely, as negotiation over the past across generations with different cultural backgrounds and moral orientations.