16º InPLA - Intercâmbio de Pesquisas em Lingüística Aplicada

1. The relation between conversation and practical activity in educational and work settingsAnnalisa SanninoUniversity of Salerno, Italy 16º InPLA - Intercâmbio de Pesquisas em Lingüística Aplicada Minicourse 2nd-5th of May 2007, São Paulo

2. Research aim Facilitating and empowering efforts in individuals and collectives through an in-dept understanding of the relation between conversation and activity

3. Hypotheses Conversations leading to material and durable changes in activities Potential uses of discourse as an emancipatory resource

4. Empirical studies Two traditional discursive analytical studies One analysis of conversations in DWR interventions Two methodological inquiries on autobiographical ethnography of conversations

5. Study 1 Conversations and processes of learning a trade within alternance vocational training

6. Objective To introduce a methodology in order to identify knowledge and processes of learning a trade that emerge from on-the-job conversations between master craftsmen and apprentices

7. The context Two years training period Apprentices acquire knowledge and know-how relevant to the chosen profession and develop social skills to face concrete work situations The professional training domain examined here: insulation of the outer walls of a structure

8. Data collection Unsolicited conversations for avoiding distortion of the naturally occurring interactions Selected pairs that had recently begun working together and couldn’t interact yet according to an implicit mutual knowledge Participants wore tape-recorders during two days of work Reconstructions of the dialogues by combining the recordings of the master craftsman and the apprentice

9. The analytical approach Interlocutionary logic (IL) concept of speech act

10. Characteristics of the speech acts Illocutionary force (F): the pragmatic function of an utterance (representative, directive, commissive, expressive, and declarative) Propositional content (p): the representation on which a given force is applied

11. Among the properties of the speech acts: Preparatory conditions: what is presupposed or assumed to be true by the speaker who performs the act

12. Satisfaction and success of speech acts A speech act is … …satisfied if its p is true in the context of the utterance, and because of this utterance …successful if the speaker manages to get the listener to understand which act s/he is performing

13. Four organization levels of the interlocutions Interventions: complex speech acts Exchange: two or more interventions Structure: interventions and exchanges Transactions: interventions and structures

14. Characteristics of the exchange: Linear and hierarchical linking between interventions Linear linking: components are sequential and belong to the same speech level Hierarchical linking: components are bound by interdependent relations

15. Table of Interlocutionary Analysis - Excerpt 1

16. Table of Interlocutionary Analysis - Excerpt 2

17. Excerpt 3

18. Conclusive remark Issue of lack of discursive evidence and discontinuities in conversations

19. Study 2 Analyzing an extreme example of discontinuous speech in EU conversations

20. Objectives Demonstrate that discontinuities, more than general impressions, are analyzable and foundational features of conversation Gaining insights into an empirical procedure that allows further analyses of this kind of conversational discontinuities.

21. "People talking together, ‘conversation’, is one of the most mundane of all topics. It has been available for ages, but only (…) in the early 1960s, has it gained the serious and sustained attention of scientific investigation. (…) The general impression was that ordinary conversation is chaotic and disorderly. It was only with the advent of recording devices, and the willingness and ability to study such a mundane phenomenon in depth, that ‘the order of conversation’ (…) was discovered" (Ten Have, 1999: 4).

22. Sequential organization … …based on continuity as a fundamental assumption for analyses of conversations, and largely used in CA and other approaches

23. The context A consultative institution of the European Union, the Social and Economical Committee (CES), responsible for the development of a common opinion. A collective entity which evolved step-by-step in four meetings of twelve, ten, 65, and 212 participants respectively. Participants had different competencies and statuses, spoke different languages and interacted through interpreters. The opinion materialized progressively as a text written and modified by a reporter.

24. The opinion discussed in the meetings The CES had to reach a conclusion about a report drawn up by European Commission concerning the decisions adopted within the framework of the Cohesion Funds The 'Funds' was an instrument aimed at reinforcing economic and social cohesion between the EU Member States.

25. Data collection • Video-recordings and transcriptions of each meeting and audio-recordings of the simultaneous French interpretations.

26. The analytical approach Interlocutionary logic (IL)

27. Advantages of using IL for analyzing the CES data over the other theories and methodologies available it conceptualizes also discontinuities (Trognon, 1992), it allows analyses of multi-speaker discourse (Trognon and Kostulski, 1996), it can be applied also to long conversations and extensive corpora (in Batt et al., 2004)

28. IL and speech act theory Basic elements of IL are not individual speech acts, but rather logical relations they maintain in the interlocution

29. "in conversation the function of the illocutionary act accomplished first is unspecified. This function can be determined only later, looking at what goes on in the interaction. (…) That’s why the conversation is less the prototypical space of the use of linguistic expressions. Admittedly it is that. But it is especially the prototypical space of the communicability of this use" (Trognon and Brassac, 1992: 85-86).

30. Constitutional discontinuities of CES conversations • When participants can intervene, they tend to 'pack in' into the same speaking turn all that they have to say concerning the text and/or the interventions carried out before by the others

31. Types of discontinuities • intra-intervention: detected in synchronic observations related to each speaking turn • inter-intervention: detected in diachronic observations related to the whole transcript and potentially reciprocal behaviors evolving over time

32. Intra-intervention discontinuities • (topical and actional diversity of speaking turns) B17 : I would like to re-examine some remarks and some questions which were formulated. First of all, the report {...}. Here we are with regard to the delay. Then, the implementation {...}. Now, let us procede to the selection of projects {... }. G13 : ... it's an indirect question through you, Chairman, to the Commission, when they mention the potential new states, using Cohesion Fund principles, there is no mention of Cyprus ....

33. Inter-intervention discontinuities • (when reactive interventions are linked with distal interventions) H153: ...Well, in a telegraphic way, I will make some suggestions, which could be taken into account in this document. First, take the synergies established between the cohesion funds and the other structural funds. ....Another thing: item 3.3 of this document is about the reduction of the investment in natural protection and the improvement of the urban environment. I do not agree ... I do not know, for example for Portugal which has a rather important wooded zone and which is not reforested simply because the questions of financing. ... ... B17: ... Now as to synergy, we have many cases. ... we will try to do our better by integrating more the action planning ... ... E204: ... I would wish to intervene briefly, starting from a remark made by the expert of group 3, a person I respect for his good knowledge of the relevant mechanisms. When he speaks about synergy with other funds, he referred to the wooded areas and I will say that, I will tell the reporter not to make it appear in 3.3 because synergies already exist. ... The Commission said, these synergies are being considered, this is part of the work of the Commission to analyze these synergies. ...

34. Conversations or puzzles? Conversations as starting configuration of a puzzle, a pool of units arranged in a different way than that of a classic sequential organization usually ascribed to conversations.

35. Pieces of the puzzle or 'intervention sections’ (units bounded on the basis of their topics) Because the intervention sections fulfilled their function only in assembling, it is necessary to put them together, to rebuild the puzzle, in order to find the sequences beneath the entire corpus

36. Two readings of the transcript • horizontal, by traversing the transcriptions to circumscribe the various intervention sections, • vertical, by cycles, to follow interactional developments on each section

37. Dissection of the transcript according to topics What is being talked about? What does the speaker do or put forward in his or her talk? Categorization and representation of the discursive flow Interventions aimed at developing the form and content of the opinion (T), and interventions dealing with meeting management and task achievement (T’)

38. Flow of the topics directly (T) and indirectly (T') concerned with the collective task during the first meeting

39. Conclusive remarks First step for identifying and representing conversational discontinuities Challenge: understanding what are the resources the participants employ and mobilize to deal with discontinuous conversations, and what are the consequences of these discontinuities for the subject.

40. For contacts: Annalisa Sannino University of Salerno Department of Education Via Ponte Don Melillo 84084 Fisciano (SA) Italy E-mail: ansannin@unisa.it