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Sexual consent is advocated around the world to reduce sexual assault. The widespread affirmative consent model emphasizes a need for unambiguous consent. In this paper, we contribute to a deeper understanding of how ambiguities in the initiations of sexual activities are routinely solved to achieve consent. Drawing on conversation analytic research on joint decision-making, and a dataset of 80 cases of sexual initiation in contemporary TV-series and movies, we investigate the interactional practices by which sexual activities are presented as consensual and how consent is achieved across sequences of interaction. We found there to be social advantages of synchronous initiation, compared to sequential verbal initiations, which were associated with various social vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities could however be circumvented by two practices, each of which made use of a distinct combination of verbal and embodied resources. While ambiguities exist, our results oppose the idea of sexual consent as a practically hopeless and awkward endeavor. Instead, consent consists of joint action that is achieved through recognizable and systematic ways. publishedVersion

In this study, we examine how support workers produce requests for concrete actions and, in this way, manage client participation in mental health rehabilitation. Drawing on Finnish rehabilitation group meetings as data and on conversation analysis, we examine how support workers design their requests for concrete action from clients, how clients respond, and how support workers deal with clients’ responses. The results reveal that support workers tend to use verbs indicating willingness when implementing their requests, whereas clients resort to the modality of possibility. By orienting to willingness, the support workers invoke clients’ sense of responsibility to contribute to group activities and simultaneously avoid questioning their capabilities. On the other hand, clients orient toward the underlying assumptions of social responsibility rather than to their own personal preferences. To conclude, our study demonstrates how support workers address the dilemma of increasing client participation and showing respect for client self-determination.

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Sometimes a division has been made between expressions of knowledge and expressions of emotion, but in the actual instances of interaction, they are deeply intertwined. In this paper we investigate the relationship between these expressions through the notions of affiliation and epistemics. More specifically, we analyze the phenomenon of ‘epistemic calibration’ in response to tellings of personal experience, where recipients fine-tune the strength of their access claims and the degree of their generalizations to be in line with their epistemic statuses in relation to those of the tellers. Drawing on a dataset of Finnish quasi-natural conversations with neurotypical participants and participants diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, we explore how such calibration is done in practice. Our analysis points to different challenges in epistemic calibration, which, we argue, play an important role in influencing the hearing of these responses as less than fully affiliative. Sometimes a division has been made between expressions of knowledge and expressions of emotion, but in the actual instances of interaction, they are deeply intertwined. In this paper we investigate the relationship between these expressions through the notions of affiliation and epistemics. More specifically, we analyze the phenomenon of ‘epistemic calibration’ in response to tellings of personal experience, where recipients fine-tune the strength of their access claims and the degree of their generalizations to be in line with their epistemic statuses in relation to those of the tellers. Drawing on a dataset of Finnish quasi-natural conversations with neurotypical participants and participants diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, we explore how such calibration is done in practice. Our analysis points to different challenges in epistemic calibration, which, we argue, play an important role in influencing the hearing of these responses as less than fully affiliative.

This paper focuses on the stancetaking formats used to express personal thoughts, namely Finnish mä aattelen/aattelin ‘I think/thought’, mä mietin ‘I think/wonder’, and mun mielestä/musta ‘I think/in my opinion’. We study how these first-person formats are used in mental health rehabilitation group meetings, which aim to promote joint decision-making. In particular, we analyze whether the institutional asymmetry between support workers and clients is reflected in the use of these thought expressions. Our data comprise 23 video-recorded rehabilitation meetings, and the adopted methods are conversation analysis and interactional linguistics. Most of the stancetaking formats in our data are produced by support workers (106/129). The results of a sequential analysis conducted in this study demonstrate that support workers' thought expressions are embedded in their institutional actions, which are beyond the clients' authority. Moreover, our data suggest that support workers' and rehabilitants' thought expressions generate different participation dynamics. Although previous research has considered I think-formats typically as calls for other views, in institutional settings such as ours, these formats can also be interpreted as highlighting an institutional agent's controlling position. Acknowledging the existence of such differences in stancetaking practices can advance the design of new protocols to facilitate client participation. publishedVersion

Expertise is commonly viewed as a professionalized competence in a specific field. Expert professional identities are produced and reproduced through professional training and other socialization mechanisms, which work to generate for a specific group of individuals a specific set of expert skills and knowledge. In this paper, I examine participants’ orientations to their distinct expert professional identities from the perspective of deontic authority. Drawing on 15 video-recorded church workplace meetings between pastors and cantors as data, and conversation analysis as a theoretical and methodological framework, I analyze situations where a non-expert participant makes a proposal that the expert participant orients to as reasonable to comply with. Specifically, I demonstrate how the expert participants respond to these proposals with displays of deontic authority, arguably in an attempt to maintain their expert identities in the face of their de facto compliance with the proposals. In these situations, the expert participants are shown to invoke (1) a past decision of their own, (2) a future decision of their own, or (3) a pattern that is beyond both participants’ control. Each of these practices involves the expert participant balancing resistance and compliance by minimally acknowledging the content of the non-expert participant’s proposal, while excluding the non-expert from those who have deontic authority in the matter. In so doing, the expert speaker implies that the non-expert proposal speaker lacks (1) procedural knowledge about the specific matters about which it is relevant to make proposals to experts and (2) access to the distinct experiential perspective that characterizes expert perception of things. It is thus argued that, in this context, the mere claims of deontic authority, produced without any substantial displays of expert knowledge, can serve the maintenance of expert professional identities. acceptedVersion

Objective: In storytelling environments, recipients' questions have mainly been described as non-affiliative. This article examines how the topicality of story-responsive questions relates to the recipients' displays of affiliation. Furthermore, we investigate whether there are differences between the practices of neurotypical participants (NT) and participants diagnosed with Asperger syndrome (AS) in this regard. While aiming to uncover the practices of story-responsive questions in general, we also seek to shed light on the specific interactional features associated with AS. Method: Our method is qualitative conversation analysis. Drawing on a dataset of Finnish quasi-natural conversations, we compare the interactional consequences of story-responsive questions asked by NT-and AS-participants. Results: We show how the NT-participants in our data use a specific set of practices to manage the topical relevance of their questions, while the AS-participants' production of otherwise very similar questions differs precisely with reference to these practices. Discussion: We argue that the different ways in which the NT-and AS-participants treat the topicality of their questions influence the relative affiliative import of the questions in subtle, but yet significant ways. Conclusions: The affiliative import of story-responsive questions can only really be seen in retrospect, since, in their subsequent turns, the questioner can cast their action as having prepared the ground for affiliation. Objective: In storytelling environments, recipients' questions have mainly been described as non-affiliative. This article examines how the topicality of story-responsive questions relates to the recipients' displays of affiliation. Furthermore, we investigate whether there are differences between the practices of neurotypical participants (NT) and participants diagnosed with Asperger syndrome (AS) in this regard. While aiming to uncover the practices of story-responsive questions in general, we also seek to shed light on the specific interactional features associated with AS. Method: Our method is qualitative conversation analysis. Drawing on a dataset of Finnish quasi-natural conversations, we compare the interactional consequences of story-responsive questions asked by NT- and AS-participants. Results: We show how the NT-participants in our data use a specific set of practices to manage the topical relevance of their questions, while the AS-participants' production of otherwise very similar questions differs precisely with reference to these practices. Discussion: We argue that the different ways in which the NT- and AS-participants treat the topicality of their questions influence the relative affiliative import of the questions in subtle, but yet significant ways. Conclusions: The affiliative import of story-responsive questions can only really be seen in retrospect, since, in their subsequent turns, the questioner can cast their action as having prepared the ground for affiliation.

Complimenting is a valuable skill in mental health care. Today, several clinical models view positive reinforcement as beneficial for the client's process of change; however, they ignore the ambiguous nature of complimenting in social interaction. Drawing on a data set of 29 video-recorded mental health rehabilitation group meetings, and using conversation analysis as the method, we qualitatively analyzed the range of purposes served by positive assessments doing complimenting. Our results showed that compliments were used for 1) encouraging members to participate in the community, 2) increasing the pressure on members to respond, 3) closing down topics that were not relevant for discussion at that moment, and 4) generating exclusion and preparing a member for a negative decision. Our findings demonstrate that not all compliments serve straightforwardly positive interactional goals, as they are used for advancing mental-health professionals' own agendas. Moreover, due to the positive nature of the compliments per se, it is difficult for compliment recipients to resist the functions that compliments are designed to serve. The study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of what might constitute genuinely positive reinforcement in the continually changing context of moment-by-moment social interaction. Complimenting is a valuable skill in mental health care. Today, several clinical models view positive reinforcement as beneficial for the client's process of change; however, they ignore the ambiguous nature of complimenting in social interaction. Drawing on a data set of 29 video-recorded mental health rehabilitation group meetings, and using conversation analysis as the method, we qualitatively analyzed the range of purposes served by positive assessments doing complimenting. Our results showed that compliments were used for 1) encouraging members to participate in the community, 2) increasing the pressure on members to respond, 3) closing down topics that were not relevant for discussion at that moment, and 4) generating exclusion and preparing a member for a negative decision. Our findings demonstrate that not all compliments serve straightforwardly positive interactional goals, as they are used for advancing mental-health professionals' own agendas. Moreover, due to the positive nature of the compliments per se, it is difficult for compliment recipients to resist the functions that compliments are designed to serve. The study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of what might constitute genuinely positive reinforcement in the continually changing context of moment-by-moment social interaction.

The article examines how the aspects of the social world are enacted in a theater play. The data come from a videotaped performance of a professional theater, portraying a story about a workplace organization going through a personnel training program. The aim of the study is to show how the core theme of the play – the teaming up of the personnel – is constructed in the live performance through a range of interactional means. By focusing on four core episodes of the play, the study on the one hand points out to the multiple changes taking place both within and between the different episodes of the play. On the other hand, the episodes of collective action involving the semiotic resources of singing and dancing are shown to represent the ideals of teamwork in distinct ways. The study contributes to the understanding of socially and politically oriented theater as a distinct, pre-rehearsed social setting and the means and practices that it deploys when enacting the aspects of the contemporary societal issues.

All effective communication is based on the participants trusting that they share their basic orientations to the world – that is, they have a common ground. In this paper, however, we examine situations in which such trust is lacking. Drawing on conversation–analytic methodology and on 30 hours of video data featuring persons with dementia and their caregivers in a Swedish-language daycare center in Finland, we consider some of the social consequences resulting from a lack of trust. Our analysis focused on three different interactional contexts, highlighting the relevance of different facets of the participants’ common ground. These facets are anchored in the deontic, epistemic, and emotional orders, respectively. We show that, with regard to each order, a lack of trust in the existence of common ground has drastic consequences, leading to (1) problems related to getting one’s will acknowledged, (2) a scarcity of conversational partners, and (3) a lack of resources to maintain affection.

Osallistumiseen kasvattaminen on keskeinen, läpi elämän jatkuva sosialisaation haaste. Konkreettinen osallistumiseen kasvattamisen keino on tekstin yhteinen tuottaminen kasvokkaisessa vuorovaikutuksessa, mitä tässä tapaustutkimuksessa tarkastelemme kahdessa ryhmässä: 1) uusiin työkäytänteisiin keskittyvässä henkilöstökoulutuksessa ja 2) työelämään valmentavassa mielenterveyskuntoutuksessa. Tutkimusmenetelmänä on keskustelunanalyysi, jonka avulla yhtäältä selvitämme, miten osallistumista pyritään edistämään tekstin yhteisen tuottamisen avulla. Toisaalta tarkastelemme tämän tavoitteen toteutumista käytännössä kysyen, millaisia osallistumisen mahdollisuuksia ja rajoitteita tekstin avulla osallistaminen faktuaalisesti tuo vuorovaikutukseen. Analyysimme viittaa osallistamispyrkimysten ja todellisen osallistumisen väliseen jännitteeseen. Henkilöstökoulutuksessa tekstin yhteinen tuottaminen näyttää edistävän osallistumista, mikä ilmenee osallistujien tavassa jatkaa toistensa aloittamia lauseita sisällöllisesti ja syntaktisesti sekä pyrkiä yhteistoiminnassa saattamaan ajatukset dokumentointikelpoiseen muotoon. Kirjoittamistoiminnan kannalta tuotettavan tekstin yhteisen omistajuuden säilyttäminen on silti haasteellista, mikä asettaa osallistumiselle myös rajoitteita. Mielenterveyskuntoutuksessa tavoitteiden ja käytännön välinen jännite on erityisen selkeä, mikä haastaakin kehittämään tässä kontekstissa paremmin toimivia yhteiskirjoittamisen käytäntöjä. Yhteisöllisten tekstikäytänteiden hallinta ei synny vain kirjoitusmahdollisuuden tarjoamisesta, vaan sitä on tuettava pedagogisin ratkaisuin.

We examine how other-repetitions in Finnish are used for repairing interactional problems in hearing and understanding and for registering what another has just said, describing how prosody and grammar interact in accomplishing these goals. In the repair-initiating repetitions, the pitch contours build a continuum of different degrees of falling pitch from moderate to steep, the latter being associated with some type of an affective stance. In the registering repetitions, the pitch fall is generally narrower than in the repair-initiations, the pitch span of the repetition turn typically matching that of the original turn. A notable feature of other-repetitions in Finnish is the use of particles (mostlyaiandvai), which deal specifically with the informational aspects of other-repetitions, thus contributing to the design of both repair-initiating and registering repetitions. The article illustrates the complex layering of actions that Finnish as a ‘particle language’ affords. (Conversation analysis, other-repetition, prosody, grammar, Finnish, repair, registering, affectivity, response particle)

We analyze apologizing as part of the institutional agenda of school mediation in Finland. When primary school teachers intervene to mediate a dispute, the children orient to apologizing as a ritualized, expected, and recognizable action that resolves the matter. Teachers build, step by step, a sequence that, when preconditions are met, results in the parties involved in the dispute producing the uniquely explicit apology exchange “I apologize”—“apology accepted.” We discuss the action of apologizing as involving an interdependence and tension between sincerity and rituality. Data are in Finnish with English translation. publishedVersion

Using both statistical methods and conversation analysis, we examined how support workers in a mental health rehabilitation community encourage clients to participate in joint decision-making processes. Drawing on video-recordings of 29 community meetings as data, we considered support workers’ proposals (N = 449) and clients’ responsiveness to them. Support workers’ proposals were coded for their linguistic and other features and clients’ responsiveness was assessed by three independent raters. Multiple linear regression (MLR) analysis was carried out. A significant regression equation with seven predictor variables accounted for 24% of the variance in the data. Four variables predicted a higher level of client responsiveness: the use of explicit recipient address term, “quasi open” proposal form, support worker’s long work experience, and the average level of client participation during a session. Three variables predicted a lower level of client responsiveness: grammatical complexity of proposal form, modal declarative proposal form, and the presence of only one support worker in a session. The qualitative conversation-analytic investigation highlighted the advantages of the careful fine-tuning of openness vs. closedness of proposal form, the reflexive awareness of which, we argue, may help mental health professionals to encourage clients’ responsiveness in joint decision-making processes and thereby their participation in communal life. Using both statistical methods and conversation analysis, we examined how support workers in a mental health rehabilitation community encourage clients to participate in joint decision-making processes. Drawing on video-recordings of 29 community meetings as data, we considered support workers’ proposals (N = 449) and clients’ responsiveness to them. Support workers’ proposals were coded for their linguistic and other features and clients’ responsiveness was assessed by three independent raters. Multiple linear regression (MLR) analysis was carried out. A significant regression equation with seven predictor variables accounted for 24% of the variance in the data. Four variables predicted a higher level of client responsiveness: the use of explicit recipient address term, “quasi-open” proposal form, support worker’s long work experience, and the average level of client participation during a session. Three variables predicted a lower level of client responsiveness: grammatical complexity of proposal form, modal declarative proposal form, and the presence of only one support worker in a session. The qualitative conversation-analytic investigation highlighted the advantages of the careful fine-tuning of openness vs. closedness of proposal form, the reflexive awareness of which, we argue, may help mental health professionals to encourage clients’ responsiveness in joint decision-making processes and thereby their participation in communal life.

Goal setting is at the heart of mental health rehabilitation, but its joint negotiation by clinicians and clients has proven to be a challenging endeavor. This paper investigates goal setting decision-making in the context of Clubhouse Communities: non-profit organizations designed to pave the way for the recovery of individuals diagnosed with mental illnesses. Using the method of conversation analysis, we demonstrate how clinicians make and account for proposals to involve clients in the discussion as more equal partners. In these accounts, clinicians highlight the client’s potential in terms of either competence or interest. Clients, in turn, resist clinicians’ proposals by invoking the opposing factor: when clinicians highlight clients’ competence, clients appeal to their lack of interest and vice versa. In this way, clients are able to reject clinicians’ goal-proposals without disagreeing with the rationalizations of their competence or interest. By contrast, jointly formulated decisions are best reached when clinicians focus the talk on the characteristics of the desired activity rather than on the characteristics of the client. In so doing, clients are able to claim personal ownership of the goal.

Peer-based interventions are increasingly used for delivering mental health services to help people with an illness re-examine their situation and accept their illness as part of their life story. The role of the peer supporter in these interventions, known as experts-by-experience (EbE), is situated between mutual peer support and semi-professional service delivery, and they face the challenge of balancing an asymmetric, professional relationship with a reciprocal, mutuality-based, equal relationship. This article investigates how EbEs tackle this challenge when responding to clients’ stories about their personal, distressing experiences in peer-based groups in psychiatric services. The results show how the EbEs responded to their clients’ experience-sharing with two types of turns of talk. In the first response type, the EbEs highlighted reciprocal experience-sharing, nudging the clients toward accepting their illness. This invoked mutual affiliation and more problem-talk from the clients. In the second response type, the EbEs compromised reciprocal experience-sharing and advised clients on how to accept their illness in their everyday lives. This was considered less affiliative in relation to the client’s problem description, and the sequence was brought to a close. Both response types involved epistemic asymmetries that needed to be managed in the interaction. Based on our analysis, semi-professional, experience-based expertise involves constant epistemic tensions, as the participants struggle to retain the mutual orientation toward peer-based experience-sharing and affiliation. publishedVersion

This study analyzed interactional practices in the strategic development of teaching at a research university in Finland. Drawing on a novel combination of conversation analysis and cultural discourse analysis, the study investigated how participants negotiate decision-making power and authority when developing new interdisciplinary teaching in workshop groups. Specific attention was paid to the participants' ways of making and responding to each other's proposals and invoking disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge as a basis for steering joint decision-making interaction. The study made use of the distinction between epistemic authority (i.e., expertise in a field of knowledge) and deontic authority (i.e., power to determine action), as well as the notion of academic cultures. The study identified three different academic cultures of negotiating authority, each associated with a workshop group: the collegial, developmental, and managerial cultures. Furthermore, the study showed that both disciplinary and pedagogical mastery can occasionally prevent inclusive dialogue that plays an elementary role in enabling joint decision-making in the development of teaching at universities. publishedVersion

Increasing client involvement in the development of social and health-care services has resulted in clients being invited to present their experiential knowledge in service co-development groups. Nevertheless, research has shown that their opportunities to really contribute to actual decision-making are limited. This article investigates how client representatives initiate turns-at-talk in the decision-making context and the way in which professionals respond to them. Using conversation analysis, we analyzed 15 h of recorded interactions in five co-development workshops. Our data exhibited a systematic pattern that linked client representatives’ self-promoting and self-dismissive turns-at-talk to specific types of responses from professionals. When the client representatives highlighted the relevance of their experiential knowledge for making decisions, the professionals disregarded their contributions. However, if instead, the client representatives cast their experiential knowledge as irrelevant to the decision-making activity at hand, the professionals subsequently appreciated this knowledge. Thus, paradoxically, in order to establish the relevance of their views, client representatives diminished their positions as experiential experts. publishedVersion

In this chapter, we consider movement synchrony from two different perspectives. On the one hand, we report a small-scale empirical study to test the hypothesis that movement synchrony is a sequential phenomenon, which serves as a demonstration of how conversation analytically informed research on participants’ unconscious tendencies to synchronize their body movements could proceed in practice. On the other hand, we consider movement synchrony through three closely related, yet essentially different, conceptual lenses: conditional relevance, dialogic resonance, and affordance. We suggest that a specific combination of the insights provided by these three conceptual tools would make conversation analytically informed study of movement synchrony both possible and fruitful. acceptedVersion

Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors Being identified as “mentally ill” is a complicated social process that may be stigmatizing and socially problematic, as a mental illness diagnosis determines the criteria for what is considered normal. This has given rise to a number of anti-stigma campaigns designed to create awareness of the way stigmas affect people with mental health difficulties and to normalize those difficulties in society. One such campaign is the “diagnosis-free zone”, which declares that those with mental health difficulties should not be categorized on the basis of their diagnosis; rather, they should be encountered as full individuals. In this paper, we investigate how mental health difficulties are discussed in Clubhouse communities, which adhere to the “diagnosis free zone” programme. The findings are based on conversation analysis of 29 video-recorded rehabilitation group meetings, in one Finnish Clubhouse, intended to advance clients' return to the labour market. The analysis demonstrated that members referred to their mental health difficulties to explain the misfortunes in their lives, especially interruptions and stoppages in their careers. By contrast, staff members disattended members’ explanations and normalized their situations as typical of all humans and thus unrelated to their mental health difficulties as such. In this way, the discussion of mental health difficulties at the Clubhouse meetings was implicitly discouraged. We propose that the standards of normality expected of a person not suffering from a mental health difficulty may well be different from the expectations levelled at participants with a history of mental problems. Therefore, instead of considering cultural expectations of normality to be a unified domain, effective anti-stigma work might sometimes benefit from referring to mental-health diagnoses as a means of explicitly tailoring expectations of normality.

Encounters in the field Applied conversation analysis in professional contexts Societal impact is an integral part of academic research today and researchers are expected to share their findings with research participants. Efforts to develop scientific research and science communication from one-way communication towards different forms of co-creation where the researcher and research participants produce knowledge and negotiate about its meaning and applicability through joint actions are in great demand. For the researcher, such developments have brought a new kind of access into the world of research participants and also novel reflections on one’s professional knowledge and identity and their boundaries. This book focuses on the human and social sciences and draws particular attention to the diverse encounters that occur between researchers and research participants at all stages of the research process when studying human subjects and activities. The book presents case studies of applied conversation analysis in a variety of professional contexts. The aim of the book is to shed light on the practices, possibilities, and challenges of applied research within the conversation analytic framework where the research participants’ authentic social situations become the target of the researcher’s detailed analysis. The articles of the book investigate social interaction in occupational health care, mental health rehabilitation, elderly care, welfare education, theatre rehearsals, social circus, military organization, software development, and workplace community break taking. These articles represent applied conversation analysis in different ways. The results of the research have been used in some of the articles, for example, in developing the professional practices of the workplace community whereas in some other articles the whole study has been undertaken collaboratively between researchers and professionals. Each article is divided into two parts: a conventional research report that analyses the patterns of social interaction in a particular professional setting is followed by a story where the authors reflect on how their study originated, how it progressed, and what kinds of encounters and choices it involved. The stories highlighting reciprocal interactions of the researcher and the research participants across the research process bring forth various voices and perspectives that conventionally are not considered as part of the research report. The book brings important information not only on the interactional phenomena examined in the articles but also on the diverse issues of conducting and applying research in professional contexts. It also discusses the practices and definitions of applied conversation analysis within the broader framework of applied research, universities’ third mission, and forms of knowledge and expertise in contemporary society.

This paper examines music instrument teachers’ instructive use of noun metaphors and metonymies of behaviors related to the playing and handling of a musical instrument. Drawing on 10 video-recorded 30–40 min-long instrument lessons as data, and conversation analysis as a method, the paper examines the temporal location of these figurative turns (i.e., instruction turns including a noun metaphor or metonymy) within the instructional activities and in relation to the student’s behaviors. At the beginning of a new instructional sequence, a figurative turn allows the teacher to test and monitor the level of student’s knowledge, while the student orients to a need to demonstrate that knowledge. Figurative turns also enable the teacher to initiate correction in complex movement sequences, its organization as a series of metaphors or metonymies enabling an easy return to an earlier point in a sequence. Furthermore, the flexibility of metaphors and metonymies as interactional resources is evidenced by the ease by which a figurative instruction turn may be transformed into an affirmative evaluation of student conduct. The paper thus suggests that instructing body knowledge through metaphors and metonymies has significant pedagogical advantages, also providing a detailed account for why and how this is the case.

We introduce a focus-group approach where we draw on a combination of discursive focus-group research and conversation analysis. We explore how the analysis of focus-group talk may attend equally to the content of the group members’ talk and to the interactional dynamics of that talk. Essentially, we propose that the notions of social praxis and action allow researchers to consider focus-group data as a window to the social world that pre-exists the focus-group encounter. However, this world is accessible to the researcher only through the local organization of action in the encounter, which needs to be taken as the priority of analysis. In eliciting maximally spontaneous and minimally interview-led talk around the research topic, we demonstrate the fruitfulness of using stimulus material in the research encounters. The end part of the paper consists of examples of data analysis, through which we illustrate our approach.

People who are recovering from a mental illness often have difficulties finding and maintaining employment. One of the main reasons for these difficulties is the negative label, or stigma, attached to mental illnesses. People who possess stigmatizing characteristics may use compensatory stigma management strategies to reduce discrimination. Due to mental illnesses’ invisible characteristics, information control is an important stigma management strategy. People can often choose whether they disclose or non-communicate their illness. Nevertheless, it might be difficult to decide when and to whom to disclose or non-communicate the stigma. Since stigma management is a dilemmatic process, workers in mental health services play an important role in informing their clients of when it is best to disclose or non-communicate their illness. In this article, we adopt the perspective of discursive social psychology to investigate how workers of one mental health service programme evaluate and construct self-disclosure and non-communication as stigma management strategies. We demonstrate how these workers recommend non-communication and formulate strict stipulations for self-disclosure. At the same time, they differentiate non-communication from lying or providing false information. The study contributes to an improved understanding of stigma management in contemporary mental health services. publishedVersion

Sustainable societies require healthy populations that are inclusive of all ages in meaningful social engagement. Given the digital nature of contemporary social life, there is substantial interest in how older adults interact with information communication technology (ICT) and new media. For ageing rural populations, ICT is considered opportune to address increasing social isolation and loneliness by connecting older people in digital society. Understanding how older adults experience and achieve social connectedness through ICT is important to inform the development of programs and services designed for their meaningful engagement in social activities. More data is needed, particularly for people living with cognitive challenges, and in rural areas. But there are methodological challenges for this type of research involving this demographic. People living with dementia, for example, may depend on third party support to participate in programs and to articulate experience using verbal language. This paper introduces an international expansion of a study “Improving social inclusion for Canadians with dementia and their carers through Sharing Dance,” [1] a digitally-delivered dance program. The expansion study will examine the impact of the program for social connectedness in an international context, using similar data collection methods to the Canadian study, while adding an additional layer of analysis using ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EM/CA). This paper will both share findings from the Canadian study and introduce the conceptualization of the international study that builds on its foundation. A sample EM/CA analysis is provided, illustrating observable behaviour for comparison in different contexts, reducing dependence upon verbal language. acceptedVersion

Publisher Copyright: © 2021 John Benjamins Publishing Company. Conversation analytical studies on emotion show how expression of emotion is part of the intersubjective experience. Emotions, however, are as much physiological as experiential events. Physiological processes pertaining to emotion involve changes in cardiovascular activity, in the activation of sweat glands, and in muscular activity. The dyadic systems theory by Beebe and Lachmann (2002) suggests that actions that regulate social interaction also serve in the regulation of internal emotional states of interacting subjects. Drawing from this theory, our overall research questions was: how is the expression of emotion in social interaction linked to physiological responses in the participants? Our main result was that thorough conversational affiliation, the participants share the emotional load in the interaction.

Autismikirjon henkilöiden tarinankerrontaa on tutkittu sekä kokeellisin menetelmin että keskustelunanalyyttisesti, mutta tarinan vastaanottoon liittyvien käytänteiden erittely on jäänyt vähemmälle. Tässä tutkimuksessa paikataan tätä tutkimuksellista aukkoa keskittymällä erityisesti autismikirjon henkilöiden tarinan vastaanottoon ja affiliaatioon. Aineistona on kymmenen videoitua keskustelua kahden mieshenkilön välillä, joista toisella on todettu Aspergerin oireyhtymä (AS) ja toinen on neurotyypillinen. Esittelemme keskustelunanalyyttisen tapaustutkimuksen avulla, miten kolme autismikirjon häiriöön ja sen vuorovaikutukseen liittyvää erityispiirrettä (sääntökeskeisyys, paikallissuuntautuneisuus ja egosentrisyys) heijastuvat AS-henkilöiden tapoihin ottaa vastaan vuorovaikutuskumppaninsa kertomia tarinoita ja millaisilta nämä tavat näyttävät affiliaation näkökulmasta. Lisääntynyt ymmärrys vuorovaikutuksen käytänteiden merkityksestä osallistujien toiminnan ja heidän välisensä suhteen rakentumiselle voi auttaa autismikirjoon liittyvien vuorovaikutuksen erityispiirteiden kuvaamisessa, sekä rakentaa ymmärrystä erilaisten ihmisten ja vuorovaikutustyylien välille. publishedVersion

Artikkelissa tarkastelemme, kuinka mielenterveyskuntoutujat rakentavat käsitystä itsestään Klubita- lon yhteisöllisen mielenterveyskuntoutuksen ryhmävuorovaikutustilanteissa. Tutkimuksen aineisto koostuu 35 videotallennetusta mielenterveyskuntoutusryhmän tapaamiskerrasta, joissa oli läsnä 2–10 kuntoutujaa ja 1–3 ohjaajaa. Aineiston analyysissa hyödynnetään Rom Harrén, Michael Bambergin ja muiden positiointiteoreetikoiden työtä suhteuttaen ja yhdistäen tätä lähestymistapaa keskustelunanalyysiin ja jäsenyyskategorisoinnin analyysiin. Analyysin pohjana toimiva aineistokokoelma koostuu vuorovaikutussekvensseistä (N=96), joiden alussa kuntoutujajäsen tekee tietoisen itsensä positioin- nin yksikön ensimmäisessä persoonassa. Analyysimme osoitti, että jäsenyyskategorioita ”kuntoutujayhteisön jäsen”, ”pätevä työntekijä” ja ”sairas” koskevat kuntoutujien itsen positioinnit eivät saaneet Klubitalon ryhmätapaamisissa paljoakaan tukea ryhmän ohjaajilta. Tulkitsemme ohjaajien toimintaa Klubitalolla vaikuttavien kuntoutusideologioiden – toipumisorientaation ja yhteisöllisen ideologian – valossa. Näihin ideologioihin ankkuroituvien institutionaalisten tehtäviensä ohella ohjaajat kuitenkin osallistuvat asiakkaidensa identiteetinrakennustyöhön myös heidän voimaantumisensa kannalta mahdollisesti ongelmallisilla tavoilla.