The analysis chapters illustrated that meeting interaction is more than transmitting
information. It is much more about the local construction of relevance. In addition, what is meant by certain utterances sometimes becomes clear when a speaker sees and hears what follows. This section will address each analysis chapter in turn by first providing a summary of the analytical observations and then proceeding with a brief discussion of the existing literature, which will be further discussed and linked to the relevant literature topic management in Section 7.3.
7.2.1 Forms of Talk in Opening Phase
The analytical observations in Chapter 4 presented the overall structural organisation of how the five student group meetings are structured in terms of their topical organisation. It showed how the students organised their interaction according to the three phases of their meetings, namely: opening phase, discussion phase, closing phase. In addition, it demonstrated the different forms of talk in each phase, namely: social talk, meeting preparatory talk, meeting talk, roundtable update, wrap-up talk and post meeting talk.
The analysis in section 4.3 illustrated how the topics as well as the interaction in social talk are managed differently from the other forms of talk in the five meetings. This section
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examined the turn-by-turn generation of topic and the resulting organisation of topic across multi-turn segments of talk. It presented a case of self-directed talk (Kohler and Thorne, 2011; Schegloff, 1988a ‘out aloud mutterings’; Goffman, 1964 ‘self-talk’; Flavell, 1966 ‘private speech’) that was not designed to establish a topic. However, it was oriented to as topic initiation by another student who developed it further by relying upon mutually assumed knowledge and prior history of shared experience (Maynard and Zimmerman, 1984).
Interestingly, this self-directed talk was a form of an assessment, and according to Pomerantz (1984; Howe, 1991), assessment is commonly used to conclude a topic but in this data it is oriented to as topic initiation. The topic was further developed through the employment of a topicaliser (Button and Casey, 1985), designing a turn with a topical question that is publicly available to the other students to participate in the topic, repetition of prior turn to show willingness to develop the topic (Radford and Tarplee, 2000), the use of sequential conjunction (Mazeland and Huiskes, 2001), and resumption of earlier talk (cf. Jefferson, 1972). It demonstrated how a speaker pursues a topic through the strategy of ‘thinking out loud,’ which is humorously designed to invite other participants to participate in topic
development, and reintroduce the topical question (Radford and Tarplee, 2000). In addition, it showed how participants deal with problematic overlaps since the turn-taking system is locally managed by the participants.
This section then moved on to examine how the same topic was further developed with a non- minimal post-sequence expansion (Schegloff, 1990) in a form of a stepwise topic transition (Atkinson and Heritage, 1984; Sacks, 1992b; Jefferson, 1984). It showed how the primary speaker could bring a participant back to the topical talk through turn design, insert expansion in a form of joke preface (Stubbs, 1983) and post-expansion (Schegloff, 1990). This section presented the four closing sequences in social talk and the interactional resources that mark social talk as a distinctive characteristic in the five meetings, i.e., turn taking and lexical choice.
Additionally, the section demonstrated that the participants do not always initiate social topics at the start of their meetings; they also initiate semi-institutional topics (Ilie, 2001). It
involved topics that are related to the structure of the meetings but they also share some of the characteristics of social talk. For example, shared humour interaction is not controlled by the chairperson and topic in this talk is not predefined by an agenda. In addition, this form of talk is positioned in a sequential place where students typically participate in non-work related topics, which give more affordance to being humorous. The topic in this case was initiated by
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an opinion preface (Stubbs, 1983) and it was developed through the recipients’ co-implication in order to produce a joint decision or agreement (Gill and Maynard, 1995). To this point, the interaction has the characteristics of the discussion phase, i.e. institutional talk19. However, an interactional twist occured when the students changed the interaction to social talk through a positive face strategy (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Benwell and Stokoe, 2002) by designing a humorous turn to express the speaker’s unwillingness to take a certain role. The topic was further developed with social humour among the students, involving shared laughter. Then the topic was terminated through shared laughter and a gap. This way of terminating a topic was only found in social talk. This case was found interesting as it examined how the participants manage a topic that drew on both social talk and institutional talk during a single sequence of interaction with no topic transition.
Finally, the section demonstrated an unsuccessful attempt to make a disjunctive topic transition to meeting preparatory talk. This attempt was made by a non-chairperson through one feature of recipient design (Sacks, 1992) - perspective display series (Maynard, 1989) - as a self-presentational technique to establish interactional alignments. This allowed the speaker to assess the recipients’ opinion before a disjunctive topic transition could be made. One of the reasons for this unsuccessful attempt was because the disjunctive topic transition from one form of talk to another is usually made by the chairperson, who is the incipient speaker of the transition.
Section 4.4 revealed how the chairperson made the disjunctive topic transition to meeting preparatory talk and how the participants oriented to it. The co-participants showed readiness through embodied actions and passing their turns to make the disjunctive topic transition. It also showed how the phenomena of footing is a vital technique to mark the interactional role through language, gaze, gesture and posture (Levinson, 1988). In addition, the transition from the social talk to meeting preparatory talk is seen as an interactional achievement that requires interactional work from the both speaker and hearers. The topic transition was made by the chairperson through a pre-closing statement/formulation (Barnes, 2007) which drew the end of the social talk. The sequential place of this pre-closing is crucial as it was placed after the previous topic is terminated with shared laughter and a gap (Holt, 2010; Howe, 1991). In addition, it illustrated how the transition was made by the chairperson through the utilisation
19 In this data, topics in institutional talk are predefined by the meeting agenda. They involve the discussion
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of topic transition markers, assessment of attendance, and embodied actions by the
chairperson and co-participants (e.g. gaze, gesture) to show readiness to start the meeting. This is related to research by Nielsen (2013) and Boden (1994: 96-97) on meeting openings. They argued that meeting openings are typically prefaced by a standard topic transition marker such as ‘so’, ‘okay’, ‘uh’ or ‘ehm’.
This section demonstrated how the participants engage in different topics to fill in the time while signing the documents of their previous meeting. The type of topics that the participants initiate in this part of the meeting is not like the ones seen in social talk (non-work related) as they still orient to the chairperson’s termination of social talk. The analysis showed how the topic was initiated by the chairperson through the utilisation of the transition marker ‘well’ in turn initial. This transition marker in this sequential environment marks the introduction of a topic that is not linked sequentially to the previous utterance. The co-participants accepted and oriented to the topic by showing interest through embodied actions (e.g., head lifted up to gaze at the primary speaker, nodding, and mutual gaze). This is in line with Goffman’s (1981) interactional ‘move,’ which is a unit of interaction that includes turns at talk, not limited to talk, in filling slots of sequentially organised interaction. The topic was developed through the utilisation of a first pair part that requires a second pair part. Finally, this section presented a case of mistiming of a turn, made by the chairperson, to make the disjunctive topic transition to meeting talk as part of the discussion phase.
Overall, the section demonstrated how the interaction in social talk is different from meeting preparatory talk through the participants’ interactional adjustment. This is evident in the decrease of the overlaps to take turns even though the turn-taking system is still not fully controlled by the chairperson. In addition, lexical choice in meeting preparatory talk is different from social talk (e.g., there are no negative assessments from a ‘joke preface’ perspective or swear words) and participants showed alignment and agreement with shared laughter and smiles.
These findings of the utilisation of different linguistic, embodied and interactional resources to manage topics will be further discussed and linked to the relevant literature in Section 7.3. The next section presents a brief discussion and summary of the analytical observations in the discussion and the closing phases of the five meetings.
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7.2.2 Forms of Talk in Discussion and Closing Phases
The analytical observations in Chapter 5 illustrated how the participants manage topics in the discussion and closing phases of the meetings by including the multimodal aspect and
manipulation of objects into the analysis. Particular attention was paid to gaze and object manipulation as the key aspects of multimodal resources which augment our understanding of topic management. This is in line with Goodwin’s (2000, 2003) call for analysis of interaction to take into account the physical surroundings, activities, participation frameworks and
sequential actions in which they are embedded. It demonstrated that the overall organisation of the meeting and the topical organisation are closely interlinked. In addition, the analytical observations are found to be interesting as some of these observations are different from what have been found in the previous research on topic management (e.g., Richards, 2006; Lee and Hellermann, 2013; see Section 7.3.1).
Section 5.2 examined how the chairperson made the disjunctive topic transition to meeting talk through the utilisation of five sequentially organised moves that changed the interactional footing and secured a particular outcome, namely: 1) the timing of the chairperson’s turn with a transition marker; 2) gazing at the transition-relevant object during the production of the transition marker; 3) placement of the transition marker in the anchor position (Schegloff, 1986) (the sequential environment of the transition marker served the dual purpose of attending to prior talk by closing it off and paving the way to next-positioned matters, see Nielsen, 2013); 4) placement of a statement to ‘get started’ (Boden, 1994), and; 5)
formulation of a three-part sequence to set the meeting agenda.
This section also demonstrated the individual verbal and non-verbal responses (e.g., gaze direction, body posture) of the co-participants towards the topic transition. These responses showed withdrawal from the topic and the reach for topic closure. These five sequential moves secured mutual orientation through the establishment of a common focus of attention and created what Mondada (2009) termed ‘interactional space.’ They also enhanced the co- participants’ possibility to identify the incipient courses of action and to navigate through them (Pekarek Doehler and Pochon-Berger, 2015: 248).
The individual embodied actions towards this transition (e.g., moving body forward, gazing at the chairperson, placing the phone away and gazing at the chairperson) indicated the
participants’ individual orientation to the disjunctive topic transition and to what Zimmerman (1998) referred to as ‘situated identity’, i.e., the role of the chairperson for this meeting. In
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addition, it demonstrated how the chairperson made a stepwise topic transition to the
roundtable update by selecting a primary speaker and thereby selecting a topic. This was done through the utilisation of the embodied actions of gazing at the primary speaker, pointing at him and verbally by indicating his name.
Section 5.3 presented the fourth form of talk in the meeting, i.e. roundtable update. It illustrated how the participants who developed the topic align and orient to the situated and discourse identities during the meeting (Zimmerman, 1998). It showed that the change of discourse identities was employed as an interactional tool to manage the topic and move the interaction forward. The analysis of this section examined how the primary speaker designed her turn to be closure relevant as a concluding summary or commentary by first producing a pre-closing minimal acknowledgment token and discourse marker, followed by subsequent fuller turn ‘okay in third turn receipt + well + the work of additional turn constructional unit, i.e. commentary/concluding summary. This is related to Beach’s (1993) argument that the sequential placement of ‘okay’ in the third turn receipt could achieve pre-closure or pre- termination of the talk-in progress. Additionally, the utilisation of ‘well’ in this sequential placement is related to Jefferson’s (1981) discussion that one characterisation of ‘well’ is topic attrition that might predict subsequent termination of the topic. The termination of a topic is accomplished through the repetition of some part of a prior turn with more emphasis and is supported by embodied actions. Svennevig (2000: 190) argued that repetitions
underline what was said previously, and thus turn this into a point or a conclusion. They may be a signal that the speaker is not willing or able to expand on current matters. Additionally, using physical movements serves as pre-closing indications and they play an important role in topic management (Linde, 1991: 303).
The topic was developed further by the chairperson with a stepwise topic transition by changing his discourse identity to an ‘information seeker’ or an ‘elicitor’ to elicit more information from the primary speaker. This change of discourse identities is derived from the main purposes of the meeting, all of which related to information gathering, opinions or decisions (Halvorsen and Sarangi, 2014). This topic development was first signalled with an overlapped tongue click with the previous turn and accompanied with embodied actions (e.g., adjusting body posture, gazing at the primary speaker). Then the stepwise topic transition was made with a first pair part. Additionally, it showed how the topic was further developed through the enactment (Sidnell, 2006; Goodwin, 1979; Streeck, 2002) of a certain action to reach mutual understanding. The topic was then terminated through the utilisation of
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discourse makers as a sequence closing thirds (SCTs) with falling intonations supported by embodied actions and physical orientation (e.g., gazing) to the meeting agenda.
This section also demonstrated how a topic was developed by non-chair and non-primary speakers. These speakers have mutually agreed responsibilities for certain parts of the project that are related to the primary speaker’s task. The non-chair and non-primary speakers were included in the development of a topic through the utilisation of embodied actions (e.g., turning around to secure mutual gaze, pointing with a pen) by the primary speaker. It also illustrated how the non-chair puts in more interactional work to take a turn to develop the topic. For example, gazing, raising hand with index finger, latching with the chairperson’s topic transition and self-selecting to delay this transition. The topic was developed by changing the discourse identities to ‘repair initiator’ (other-repair) to repair a prior information or understanding.
Section 5.4 illustrated how the participants achieved the closure of the meeting and thereby the status of any further talk. This section presented the five sequentially organised moves that brought the meeting to a close through archetype closing that organised the termination of conversation over a section of talk. This type of closing displayed an orientation to
legitimising the conversation’s termination (Button, 1987: 102). The chairperson moved the interaction to the closing phase by designing his turn as a possible pre-closing and
formulating a topic bounding (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973; Button and Casey, 1984). The transition to the wrap-up talk was accomplished through the utilisation of 1) a sequence closing device that served to perform a possible pre-closing when placed after a point, which the co-participants could interpret at the end of a topic (Button, 1987; Schegloff and Sacks, 1973; Nielsen, 2013); 2) the formulation of a turn as a ‘last call for new mentionables’ (Nielsen, 2013); 3) the utilisation of a set of embodied actions (i.e. gazing at the co-
participants) to invite them to bring in new mentionables, and marking this invitation as a last chance to do so (Nielsen, 2013); 4) producing arrangements to confirm details for the next meeting (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973; Button, 1987; Liddicoat, 2007), and; 5) a confirmation check that the meeting is done and an explicit ‘end’ statement or an announcement of closure (Button, 1991b; Schegloff and Sacks, 1973).
Additionally, this section examined the interactional movement to post-meeting talk, which can either be institutional by referring to a previous topic on the agenda or social topic such as going out for dinner. The institutional topic in the post-meeting talk was initiated through
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back referencing and in-conversation objects to a previous topic (Button, 1987). The in- conversation objects were utilised to mark the receipt of prior talk and to provide for the speaker to continue (Liddicoat, 2007: 272; Button, 1987). The topic was developed through the utilisation of FPP, SPP and commentary statements that serve to exchange information, and it was terminated with a gap and a summary assessment (Pomerantz 1984; Howe, 1991).
Finally, topics in social talk as part of post-meeting talk were managed in the same way as the opening phase. The topic was quickly developed and the interaction moved rapidly forward with hardly any gaps or pauses, and was replete with humour and jokes. It was initiated with an itemised news enquiry (Button and Casey, 1984, 1985) as FPP and it quickly picked up and developed with a commentary statement, an itemised news inquiry (Button and Casey, 1985), news item (Button and Casey, 1985) and stepwise topic transition. It illustrated how the interaction in the post-meeting talk mirrored the opening phase and how the students did not orient to the situated identity of the meeting once it was brought to an end. Overall, the utilisation of the sequential organised moves, the co-participants’ responses, monitoring the ongoing sequence of interaction, the utilisation of verbal and non-verbal resources, the timing and placement of an action, and the design of a turn to secure a certain outcome were
employed y the co-participants to manage the various topics of their meetings.
7.2.3 Multimodal Resources in Different Forms of Topic Resistance
The third analysis chapter examined instances of multi-dimensional embodiment in different forms of topic resistance. Particular attention was paid to how gazing is one of the
foundational forms of resistance along with multi-semiotic resources that the participants employ to show unwillingness to participate in the topic. Additionally, it demonstrated the use and interplay of bodily resources, which are crucial in analysing topic managment. In the current study, resistance is defined as the unwillingness to participate in the interaction, not orienting/responding to a particular action or not accepting it (an action can be oriented to but not necessarily accepted).
Section 6.2 illustrated how the participants resist developing a sensitive topic. It revealed how they displayed unwillingness, both verbally and non-verbally, to join the topic. They enacted ‘being busy,’ thereby displaying an unwillingness to participate in the topic and oriented instead to topic termination (Lauzon and Berger, 2015; Koole, 2007). This is what Mortensen (2008) described as the absence of a visible or audible ‘willing next speaker’ in his study on selecting the next speaker in the second language classroom. This section illustrated the
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interactional work that had been done by one of the participants to pursue the topic. The topic was initiated by a topic-initial elicitor (Button and Casey, 1984, 1985). Then it was developed through an itemised news inquiry (Button and Casey, 1984, 1985) as topic pursuit, news generational device (Button and Casey, 1985), and the construction of the TCU, which opens