Introduction: Epistemics and deontics in conversational directives

Stevanovic, Melisa; Svennevig, Jan

doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2015.01.008

Cited by 79 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…1 Using a conversation analytic approach, we have identified sequences where tasks are assigned to employees, and focussed on the ones where requests are backed by accounts. The analysis is based on the theoretical framework of social epistemics and deontics, as described in the introduction to the special issue (Stevanovic and Svennevig, 2015).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As described in the introduction to the special issue (Stevanovic and Svennevig, 2015), deontic stance refers to interactional displays of authority in certain domains of action relative to a co-participant. Deontic status, by contrast, refers to the relative position of authority that a participant has vis-à-vis others by reference to external features, such as personal history or position in societal and institutional structures.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Accounting for the right to assign a task in meeting interaction

Svennevig

Djordjilovic

2015

Journal of Pragmatics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article analyzes how meeting participants account for their right to assign a work-related task to a colleague in meeting interaction. It focuses on accounts which appeal to benefactive effect, that is, the benefits of the proposed action to the operation of the organization. Such accounts are often formulated as general strategies or policies for action. They are shown to be related to the deontic rights of the participants in that subordinates engage in more extensive accounting practices than do managers. Accounts that evoke other interests than benefits to the organization are shown to be vulnerable to being questioned or rejected. The study thus contributes to understanding how benefactive stance is used for legitimizing requests for institutionally relevant actions.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounting for the right to assign a task in meeting interaction

Svennevig

Djordjilovic

2015

Journal of Pragmatics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We focus on the interactional ways participants indicate compliance or reticence, communicate lack of affiliation, and so on. We also draw from prior CA research on conversational directives and deontics ( Couper-Kuhlen, 2014 ; Stevanovic and Peräkylä, 2014 ; Stevanovic and Svennevig, 2015 ), to better understand how increasing degrees of difficulties to task consensus are realized in therapy dialog and how the kinds of sequences that result in more or less successful resolution unfold.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting to “Yes”: Overcoming Client Reluctance to Engage in Chair Work

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Goals Securing clients’ active and enthusiastic collaboration to participate in activities therapists would like to implement in therapy (e.g., free association, in vivo exposure, or the engagement in chair work) is a core mission in therapy. However, from the clients’ perspective, these tasks frequently represent novel challenges that can trigger anxiety and reluctance. Thus, a key element in therapy is the negotiation between therapist and client to move beyond such reluctance to potentially effective therapy activities and, at the same time, maintain positive relational affiliation between therapist and client. In this research we examined (1) a collection of therapist proposal/client response sequences that were geared toward recruiting participation in chair work and (2) sequences containing hesitation or instances where decisions to engage in chair work were deferred and related relational disaffiliation. Our goal was to identify the conversational resources (both verbal and non-verbal) that worked to reject a proposed activity (or convey impending rejection) and examine the interactional practices directed at resolving client reluctance. Method We used the conceptual and methodological resources of Conversation Analysis to examine a corpus of proposal/response sequences that targeted chair work entry in Emotion-focused Therapy. Results The resulting data set included some smooth and successful engagements and others more challenging, involving clients delaying or resisting engagement with chair work. Clients were found to defer or refuse engagement through a range of resources such as withholding a response (silence), questioning the authenticity of the task, or directly refusing. We identified specific therapist practices that facilitated engagement in “refusal-implicative” contexts such as proffering “or” alternatives, offering extended rationales for the activity (accounting), and elaborating on the proposals. We observed that the therapists’ deontic stance (mitigated and reduced claims to authority) and moderated epistemic positioning (deference to the client’s primacy of knowledge and information) played an important role in facilitating engagement. Conclusion Our research highlights the kinds of interactional sequences in which clients and therapists are able to achieve alignment in mutually working toward chair work entry. Based on these observations, we offer some practical advice to therapists in formulating proposals to engage clients during in-therapy work.

show abstract

“…Notably, however, there is a bidirectional linkage between imperative and hortative utterances and the bases for expecting compliance in terms of deontics (Stevanovic 2013b;Peräkylä 2012, 2014;Stevanovic and Svennevig 2015). In the data of this study, as well as in multiple other data sets by other researchers investigating similar phenomena, speakers were careful to adjust their utterances so as to comply with the prevailing circumstances; they selected just those linguistic formats that would best fit these circumstances.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Imperative Turns at Talk

2017

Studies in Language and Social Interaction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The chapter considers the verbal design of Finnish second-person singular imperative and first-person plural hortative turns, asking whether and how those turns where there is a clitic particle-pA or-pAs attached to the finite verb differ from the non-cliticized turns, and whether-pA and-pAs are used in similar or dissimilar ways. The imperative and hortative turns used in the analysis are drawn from a data set of four violin lessons with a 5-year-old child and her teacher as the participants. All the imperative and hortative turns analyzed were spoken by the teacher to the child. The analysis shows that the non-cliticized imperative or hortative turns and the ones with-pA or-pAs are used differently. The non-cliticized turns are common in contexts where the speaker and the recipient are actively engaged in an ongoing collaboration. The imperative and hortative turns with-pA occur characteristically after the recipient's immediately preceding failures, which need to be remedied for the participants to be able to continue what they are up to. The imperatives and hortatives with-pAs are frequently used at activity transitions, where the speaker demonstrates her right to determine the broader agenda of the participants' joint activity. The chapter suggests that the linguistic design of Finnish secondperson singular imperative and first-person plural hortative turns is informed by the speaker's understanding of the extent to which, and the particular sense in which, the participants' current actions are to be seen as joint ones. While the selection between imperatives and hortatives is warranted by the identity of the agent(s) of the nominated action (whether it is the recipient alone, or both the speaker and the recipient together), it is in and through the choices between the cliticized and non-cliticized formats that speakers invoke and manage the more specific basis upon which the recipient's compliance can be expected.

show abstract

Introduction: Epistemics and deontics in conversational directives

Cited by 79 publications

References 37 publications

Accounting for the right to assign a task in meeting interaction

Accounting for the right to assign a task in meeting interaction

Getting to “Yes”: Overcoming Client Reluctance to Engage in Chair Work

Imperative Turns at Talk

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About