Language and Social Interaction

Meetings: A cultural perspective

by David Boromisza-Habashi

Co-authored with Leah Sprain. Published in the Journal of Multicultural Discourses (2012).

We draw on Helen Schwartzman’s seminal work on meetings to make the case for studying meetings and studying them from... more We draw on Helen Schwartzman’s seminal work on meetings to make the case for studying meetings and studying them from a cultural perspective. In a global context marked by the increasing interdependence of social groups of all sizes, scholars need ways to study and interpret local phenomena; a cultural approach to meetings provides a means for discovering local practices and theories of communication, and for enabling cross-cultural comparison to generate empirically grounded multi-cultural perspectives. After reviewing how scholars have used Schwartzman’s work, we revisit her scheme for studying meetings and demonstrate how it orients researchers to local cultural practices and processes. To illustrate the kind of theoretical innovation that can follow from the application of her scheme, we reformulate her work on the relationship between meetings and social order to argue that egalitarianism and hierarchy should be theorized as strategic communicative accomplishments that serve the locally relevant social ends of some or all meeting participants.

Cognitive distribution and human communication

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as:
Cowley, S.J. (2012) Cognitive distribution and human communication / Актуальные проблемы лингвистики и межкультурной коммуникации: Мат-лы Всеросс. науч.-практ. конф-ции c междунар. участием, посвящ. 65-летию ф-та лингвистики и перевода / под ред.С.А. Песиной, И.Р. Пулехи, Ю.Л. Вторушиной, Л.В. Павловой. – Магнитогорск: МаГУ, 2012. – Вып. V. – с. 6-16.

The paper uses examples described elsewhere (Steffensen & Cowley, 2101; Cowley, 2010; 2012) to highlight the... more The paper uses examples described elsewhere (Steffensen & Cowley, 2101; Cowley, 2010; 2012) to highlight the pico-scale of human gestural and vocal communication. This shows how coaction lends unparalleled subtlety to human life as, together, we generate thoughts and actions that are inseparable from bodily coordination. This exemplifies how cognition is distributed as people draw on the (virtual) products of past behaviour to shape future prospects as, unwittingly, they change the circumstances in which they act. Cognitive distribution arises as people use the non-local constraints that dominate folk views of human communication. Given the verbal aspect of language, as Bakhtin saw, speaking (and writing) can renew the voices of others. The thoughts that result, however, are inseparable from interactivity or how bodies perceive, appraise, and re-evoke modes of action that sustain our human forms of life. Finally, having sketched a distributed view of how we communicate in familiar settings, I offer remarks on how scrutiny of human languaging can be pursued in the study of intercultural encounters.

Reference recalibration repairs: Adjusting precision for the task at hand

by Galina Bolden

Lerner, G., Bolden, G., Hepburn, A., and Mandelbaum, J. (2012). Reference recalibration repairs: Adjusting precision for the task at hand. Special issue of Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(2) (Eds. Celia Kitzinger & Gene Lerner), 191-212.

Pursuing a response by repairing an indexical reference

by Galina Bolden

Bolden, G., Mandelbaum J., and Wilkinson, S. (2012). Pursuing a response by repairing an indexical reference. Special issue of Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(2) (Eds. Celia Kitzinger & Gene Lerner), 137-155.

Grammatical flexibility as a resource in explicating referents

by Galina Bolden

Bolden, G. and Guimaraes, E. (2012). Grammatical flexibility as a resource in explicating referents. Special issue of Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(2) (Eds. Celia Kitzinger & Gene Lerner), 156-174.

"You Must Go Trek There": The Persuasive Genre of Narration Among Israeli Backpackers

by Chaim Noy

Narrative Inquiry, 12(2): 261-290. (2002).

This research explores narratives of personal experience narrated by young Israeli travelers upon returning to their... more This research explores narratives of personal experience narrated by young Israeli travelers upon returning to their homeland from an extended backpacking journey.
By reflecting on the interaction that took place during the interview conversations between the backpackers and the researcher, the means by which the stories come to implicate and act upon their audience/listener are examined. The stories, describing experiences and adventures, are conceptualized as ‘persuasive’ stories, and are created and reiterated within an interpersonal and dialogical social space. They are genred as descriptions and prescriptions at the same time – they invite and impel their audience to join the journey, and they constitute and structure the experience shared by the narrative community of Israeli backpackers. While overtly the stories are descriptive, the value the tellers ascribe to the events charges the stories with prescriptive quality. Thus, this research sheds additional light on the view of narratives as an inherent dialogical and interactive form of human communication. Additionally, the article examines the ways in which a specific cultural context plays a role in the persuasive capacity of Israeli backpackers’ narratives.

Prejudice in verbal interaction

by Susan Condor

Existing social psychological perspectives tend to overlook the fact that public expressions of racial, ethnic or... more Existing social psychological perspectives tend to overlook the fact that public expressions of racial, ethnic or national prejudice normally constitute collaborative accomplishments, the product of joint action between a number of individuals. Awareness of the inherently dialogical character of prejudiced talk affords appreciation of the ways in which expressions of ethnic or racial antipathy need not simply be used to display a speaker’s private attitudes or to defend a group position, but may also be oriented to the local context of talk in action. Recognizably prejudiced talk may be used to claim the floor, to bully, to amuse, to shock, to display intimacy and solidarity, to mark a variety of personal and social identities or to key the informal, backstage, character of a social encounter. The fact that prejudiced talk can be intricately woven through the delicate choreography of everyday sociability may greatly complicate any attempts to challenge it.

Distributed Language: cognition beyond the brain

by Stephen J. Cowley

This short paper was a presentation at the Annual International Forum in the Humanities Conference on Interdisciplinarity in Cognitive Science Research, State University for the Humanities, Moscow (March 2012).

As Cognitive Science develops a view of agency, we are learning much about human cognition. First, as living things,... more As Cognitive Science develops a view of agency, we are learning much about human cognition. First, as living things, we depend on active embodiment. Since, this is incompatible with reduction to information processing, we are bound to ask what cognition is –and what it is to be a person. On a ‘4E’ view, agency is embodied, embedded, enacted and extended. This applies, moreover, to living beings as diverse as earthworms, beavers, wolves and humans. To understand human agency, I therefore argue for a more radical view. Pursuing this, it is stressed that, while situated, language is also non-local: our voices always echo those of others. While grounded in first-order activity, language also enacts second-order practices. It is its symbiotic nature that makes homo sapiens ecologically special. Once acknowledged, this opens up a distributed perspective on language and cognition. By means of clarification, I offer thick description of a interactional moment where language links the brain with the world beyond the body. At this instant, the words actually spoken are background: the verbal aspect of speech acts as a Zeitgeber for bodily coupling that directly realizes human values. Finally, I place the distributed view of linguistic cognition against themes in Russian psycholinguistic tradition.

Cognitive dynamics: language as values realizing activity

by Stephen J. Cowley

These are proofs that appeared as:
Cowley, S.J. (2012). Cognitive dynamics: language as values realizing activity. In A. Kravchenko (ed). Cognitive Dynamics and Linguistic Interactions, pp. 15-46. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press.

To challenge cognitivism it is important emphasise how human bodies function. Like other organisms, we evolved to act... more To challenge cognitivism it is important emphasise how human bodies function. Like other organisms, we evolved to act and perceive in changing environments. In spite of the fact that this can be described as representing aspects of the world, there is no reason to think that people use what are representations for the brain (Steiner 2010). The central nervous system deals in the body-world relations that sustain flexible, adaptive behaviour. Bodies use measurable physical events or cognitive dynamics to control how they coordinate with the world. Humans extend this general capacity by cooperating in cultural settings.

Biology thus becomes enmeshed with history and, in looking at language too, this must be traced to minded behaviour. It follows that language -and teaching languages -must be explicated with respect to how encounters with the world are experienced as meaningful (Gibson 1979). Far from being subjective or abstract, cognitive dynamics function as public opportunities and threats. Social activity realizes values that motivate inhibition, thinking and communication (Gibson 1950; Hodges & Geyer 2006; Hodges 2007). In language, successes and failures arise as we mesh wordings with experience of items that serve in a (partly) shared social world. Using this perspective, I turn to pedagogical design and signs of writing to consider how applied linguistics can be enriched by viewing language as values realizing activity. The main concern of applied linguists becomes, not learning, but SLA or 'skilled linguistic action'.

The cradle of language: making sense of bodily connexions

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as:
Cowley, S. J. (2007). The Cradle of Language: making sense of bodily connections. In D. Moyal-Sharrock (ed.) Perspicuous Presentations: Essays on Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology, Palgrave MacMillan, Hondmills, pp. 278-298.

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Much is rotten in the ‘sciences’ of language and cognition. To those familiar with Wittgenstein’s work this is... more Much is rotten in the ‘sciences’ of language and cognition. To those familiar with Wittgenstein’s work this is apparent in, for example, the gulf that separates investigations of mind from those of language. Equally, it appears in how empirical work tends to skate over conceptual issues while theories of discourse proceed with disregard for causal processes. Taking another direction, I invoke ‘natural history’ in posing new questions about the origins of minded and discursive behaviour. In this context, I use ‘micro-investigations’ to demonstrate how a single moment of interaction can be used to throw new light on the processes of human development. Rather than argue for my proposed ascriptions, my aim is to show the power of the method by close examination of a moment when, in Wittgenstein’s phrase, “understanding dawns”.

Conversation, coordination, and vertebrate communication

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as:
Cowley, S.J. (1997). Conversation, co-ordination and vertebrate communication. Semiotica, 115 1/, 27-52.

Conversation, coordination and vertebrate communication sets out a framework making it possible to compare how... more Conversation, coordination and vertebrate communication sets out a framework making it possible to compare how communicative activity is organized in arrange of species. While recognizing that humans explain language-systems, emphasis falls on biologically simpler patterns and, above all, interindividual coordination. To capture cross-species parallels, it begins by with differences between ‘using’ a language-system and taking part in the dialogical events of a conversation. Once this is clear, phonetic observations backed up with a acoustic measurements suffice to show close resemblance between how activity is managed and assessed in humans and other species. Human talk uses similar principles of organization to not only, say, the duetting of buff-breated wrens but also how many species of vertebrate coordinate around real-time activity.

Mäkitalo, Å. (forthcoming 2012). Learning to make a case in law school: Categorizing events and actions in legal discourse.

by Åsa Mäkitalo

To be published in Psicologia Culturale in a special issue on Context, culture and the law, edited by A Smorti, F. di Donato, J Bruner. 

Prosody and pedagogy in a democratic South Africa

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as:
Cowley, S.J. (2001). Prosody and pedagogy in a democratic South Africa. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2001 19: 179–196.

This article explores how prosodic patterning influences relationships. Written from an integrational point of view,... more This article explores how prosodic patterning influences relationships. Written from an integrational point of view, it highlights the local importance of the issue by examining talk that resounds with a post-apartheid ‘ugly tone’. Two central claims are made. Firstly, much understanding is the intertwining of vocalisations. Secondly, we are skilled in interpreting how this joint activity is integrated with word-based patterning. Since we take part in dialogue, we have capacities for responding in real time and, crucially, for making judgements about the unfolding sense of events. Especially where such ways of acting are intrinsic to identity, we need to develop dialogical capacities beyond the ‘in-group’. In the terms of the article, learners can be helped with first-order contextualizing and interactional ascription. By adopting these goals, local ways of speaking and listening become paramount. This leads to a new choice of oral/aural materials and a focus on tasks where learners explain judgements about talk within and across social groups. Emphasis thus goes on enhancing capacities for listening to, interpreting, and rectifying real-time dialogical events. Close examination of local speaking and listening, it is argued, will lead to development of contextually sensitive educational practices.

Signifying Bodies: Biosemiosis, Interaction and Health

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as:
Steffensen, S. & Cowley, S.J. (2010). Signifying bodies and health: the aftermath. In Cowley, S.J., Steffensen, S. & J.C. Major, Signifying Bodies: Biosemiosis, Interaction and Health, pp. 331-355. Braga: Portuguese Catholic University Press.

While health and suffering are intrinsic to living bodies, the relevant causes are not always based on the function... more While health and suffering are intrinsic to living bodies, the relevant causes are not always based on the function and dysfunction of living tissue. In human beings, tissue connects microbiology to organs, the skin, the “Self” and a world in which, together, we are moved to sense-making. Remarkably, when the authors of the volume proposed collaboration, this theme had not yet emerged. We had little sense of what would arise from using a biosemiotic lens to view health and health care as relational phenomena. The outcome, Signifying Bodies, is the result of coaction. Together, we have used the writing and thinking of others to restructure our thoughts around a striking idea: health is a non-local phenomenon.

Living in the social meshwork: the case of health interaction

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as:
Steffensen, S., Cowley, S.J. and Thibault, P.J. (2010). Living in the social meshwork: the case of health interaction. In Cowley, S.J., Steffensen, S. & J.C. Major, Signifying Bodies: Biosemiosis, Interaction and Health, pp. 201-237. Braga: Portuguese Catholic University Press.

The paper presents a new way of investigating real-time decisions in health interaction. Using a simulation... more
The paper presents a new way of investigating real-time decisions in health interaction. Using a simulation setting, it brings home how much depends on team-work that arises as people concert their movements with speech. In a world of norms, coaction both brings off desired results and, drives problem finding. Using close analysis of a single case, we also identify strengths and weaknesses of using  a simulation setting for training purposes. Its advantage, naturally enough, is that it offers an opportunity to practice situated interpretation drawing on scenarios that, in the real-world, may be challenging. This is surprisingly dependent on external resources, closely timed movements and the sharing and prompting of perspectives. At the same time, close investigation at shows that parties play their roles without losing awareness of their ‘real’ relationships. While of no relevance to the health care investigated, their performance in an emergency simulation is inseparable from enacting a social situation.

Comparing Language and Social Interaction

by David Boromisza-Habashi

2012. Co-authored with Susana Martínez-Guillem, published in The Handbook of Comparative Communication Research (ICA Handbook Series, Routledge)

Ho, E. Y., Koenig, C. J., Wingard, L. & Bansavich, J. (2009). Learning LSI means doing LSI: Reflections on technology use in two Language and Social Interaction courses. Electronic Journal of Communication, 19(1-2).

by Evelyn Y. Ho

Towards a cognitive pragmatics of collective remembering

by Lucas Bietti

to be published in Pragmatics & Cognition 20 (1)

This article aims to provide a cognitive and discourse based theory to collective memory research. Despite the fact... more This article aims to provide a cognitive and discourse based theory to collective memory research. Despite the fact that a large proportion of studies in collective memory research in social, cognitive, and discourse psychology are based on investigations of (interactional) cognitive and discourse processes, neither linguistics nor cognitive and social psychologists have proposed an integrative, interdisciplinary and discursive-based theory to memory research. I argue that processes of remembering are always embodied and action oriented reconstructions of the past, which are highly dynamic and malleable by means of communication and context. This new approach aims to provide the grounds for a new ecologically valid theory on memory studies which accounts for the mutual interdependencies between communication, cognition, meaning, and interaction, as guiding collective remembering processes in the real-world activities.

Language and Superdiversity (Blommaert & Rampton 2012)

by Jan Blommaert

The two-way language bridge: Co-constructing bilingual language learning opportunities.

by Melinda Martin-Beltran

The Modern Language Journal. 94(2), 254-277, 2010