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The shifting role of a document in managing conflict and shaping the outcome of a small group meeting

  • Joan Kelly Hall

    Joan Kelly Hall is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Center for Research on English Language Learning and Teaching at Penn State University. Her work appears in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Journal of Pragmatics, Linguistics & Education, Modern Language Journal and Research on Language and Social Interaction. She is author of Teaching and Researching Language and Culture, 2nd ed. (2011) and co-editor of L2 Interactional Competence and Development (2011).

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    and Emily Rine Butler

    Emily Rine Butler is Senior Lecturer in the Dial Center for Written & Oral Communication at the University of Florida. Her research interests include conversation analysis, language socialization, the development of interactional competence, and intercultural pragmatics. Her work has appeared in the ORTESOL Journal, The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, and in the edited volume L2 Interactional Competence and Development.

From the journal Text & Talk

Abstract

Small group project work often requires students to meet outside of class. It is important that these meetings be efficacious, as the resulting projects typically figure into students’ grades. The challenge is that, unlike in more formal meetings, there is typically no designated institutional authority to manage their work together. In peer meetings students have equal participatory rights; thus, formulating understandings and managing conflict can be especially delicate matters to accomplish. In this single case analysis of a small group project meeting, we examine the shifting role of a document in resolving conflict that threatens the group’s work. The analysis shows how, over the course of the meeting, a personal document created during the meeting subsequently becomes oriented to by the participants as an official formulation of their decisions and an authoritative directive to complete their tasks. This shift in orientation to the document allows a way out of the conflict and the meeting to come to a successful conclusion. In addition to providing data on conflict resolution in meetings without an official leader, the finding on the changing role of a document adds to understandings of how actions are accomplished through the construction and manipulation of objects.

About the authors

Joan Kelly Hall

Joan Kelly Hall is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Center for Research on English Language Learning and Teaching at Penn State University. Her work appears in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Journal of Pragmatics, Linguistics & Education, Modern Language Journal and Research on Language and Social Interaction. She is author of Teaching and Researching Language and Culture, 2nd ed. (2011) and co-editor of L2 Interactional Competence and Development (2011).

Emily Rine Butler

Emily Rine Butler is Senior Lecturer in the Dial Center for Written & Oral Communication at the University of Florida. Her research interests include conversation analysis, language socialization, the development of interactional competence, and intercultural pragmatics. Her work has appeared in the ORTESOL Journal, The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, and in the edited volume L2 Interactional Competence and Development.

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this study was presented at the conference “Revisiting Participation: Language and Bodies in Interaction,” Basel, Switzerland, July 2015. Special thanks to Fee Steinbach-Kohler for her help in the first round of data analysis. We also thank Robert Sanders, Stephen Looney and Michael Amory for their feedback on earlier drafts. Finally, we thank the journal’s anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Appendix: transcription conventions

[

overlapping utterances

{

co-occurring verbal and nonverbal behaviors

((NV))

nonverbal behavior

=

contiguous utterances (latching)

(.)

micro-pause

(1)

number represents length of pause in tenths of a second

wo:

lengthening of preceding sound

wor-

abrupt stop in articulation

word.

fall in pitch at the end of turn

word?

rise in pitch at the end of a turn

word,

slight rise in pitch at the end of turn

marked upstep in intonation; high pitch

word

stress

CAPS

loud voice relative to the surrounding speech

° words °

surround softer voice relative to the surrounding speech

>words<

surround faster speech relative to the surrounding speech

<words>

surround slower speech relative to the surrounding speech

# words #

surround speech spoken with creaky voice

(words)

dubious hearing by transcriber

LH

left hand

RH

right hand

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Published Online: 2017-8-2
Published in Print: 2017-8-28

© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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