Stepwise advice negotiation in writing center peer tutoring

Abstract

While the delivery and reception of advice is a practice integral to a wide range of settings, little attention has been given to the detailed practices of advice resistance and how it leads to advice negotiation. Based on 7 hours of videotaped tutoring interactions among 6 tutors and 11 tutees, this conversation analytic study examines the interactional practices of advice negotiation in peer tutoring at an undergraduate writing center. In particular, the study focuses on advice negotiation sequences in which students initially resist tutors' advice. The findings are in line with the current knowledge that advice resistance is presented and treated as interactionally dispreferred. In addition, the analyses contribute to further specifying the stepwise interactional practices through which advice resistance is produced and managed in a way that it results in successful advice negotiation with the more tailored advice forwarded by the tutor. The study shows how the context of tutoring is a site not only for knowledge development but also for the negotiation of epistemic rights and their interactional management by both participants.

‘Can you talk me through your argument’? Features of dialogic interaction in academic writing tutorials

“…The peer tutors' turn lengths were M A N U S C R I P T A C C E P T E D ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT significantly longer than those of the tutees, and, despite the 'nondirective philosophy of the center' (p. 51), the tutors gave plenty of direct advice. Park's (2014) research into tutees' resistance to advice and the consequent negotiation with their peer tutors provides an example of a more egalitarian and dialogic climate. The tutors dealt with the resistance skilfully and used it 'as an opportunity to reformulate the initial advice in a way that incorporates the student's specific concerns and ideas ' (p. 376).…”

Or -prefaced third turn self-repairs in student questions

“…That is, each utterance is produced and understood by reference to the sequence in progress and is accountable for "why that now" (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973, p. 299). In recent years, a growing number of empirical studies have successfully applied CA techniques to educational discourse (He, 1994;Park, 2014;Seedhouse, 2004;Vehviläinen, 2012;Waring & Hruska, 2012, among others). The focus of investigation constitutes the ways in which participants deploy specific practices driven by the concerns and goal orientations of institutional identities and tasks (Heritage & Clayman, 2010, pp.…”

Advice-Giving Roles and Strategies in Selected Faculty Member-Graduate Student Advising

“…For instance, the roles in which these advisors signify as implied, including being a preparer, reviser and reviewer for journal article draft, reinforcer of advice, and referrer of graduate publishing work, are all shared among participants of this interaction. Therefore, even when this discussion starts at local, familiar interaction, it has brought readers to the consideration of broader roles of advisors (DeFina & Georgakopolou, 2012;Park, 2014).…”