A conversation analytical study of story-openings in advice-giving episodes in doctoral research supervision meetings

Abstract

Interactional functions of story-opening in everyday conversations across different languages have been widely examined in Conversation Analysis (CA). However, there is a paucity in research on story-openings in institutional talk. This paper addresses this research gap by examining how story-opening contributes to advice-giving in doctoral research supervision. It draws on a data corpus of 57 storytelling sequences produced by six supervisors during 25 hours of video-recorded supervision meetings at an Australian university. The analysis shows that story-opening supports the on-going advice-giving activity in two ways. First, it invokes the supervisor’s knowledge and experience, which functions to strengthen the advice under way. Second, it works toward building a joint understanding with the student, thereby serving the supervisor’s pursuit of the student’s acceptance of advice. These findings have significant implications for research on storytelling in institutional interaction, advice and supervision practices.

Responsive advice-giving to troubles in supervision interaction

“…Students’ resistance to advice is a long concerned interactional challenge in supervision interaction. A considerable body of research has explored supervisory practices to mitigate it (Ta, 2021; Vehviläinen, 2009b; West, 2021). This study shows that supervisors carry on a range of work around epistemic (a)symmetry, preliminary to, and during the advice to prevent potential resistance.…”

“…Considering these, sufficient exchange and negotiation of epistemic status and the reaching of epistemic common ground are crucial for the achievement of supervisory advice-giving. Relating to the literature, the study adds to current research on conversational strategies for handling advice resistance (Ta, 2021; Vehviläinen, 2009b; West, 2021). The study also acknowledges the advisory values of preliminary moves in foreshadowing the advice, which resonates with the variety of advice-implicative utterance types (Shaw et al, 2015).…”

“…Another way of securing advice acceptance in supervision interaction is the supervisors’ establishment of expertise or authority. This can be done through story-telling about another student of the supervisor (Ta, 2021; Ta and Filipi, 2020). This can be compared to one of the findings of the present study, where supervisors share their own experiences in response to student turns as advice in its own right, rather than resolving advice resistance.…”