Cover not available
Part of
Emotion in Multilingual Interaction
Edited by Matthew T. Prior and Gabriele Kasper
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 266] 2016
► pp. 203–236

Formulating and scaling emotionality in L2 qualitative research interviews

| Arizona State University

From a corpus of ‘troubles-tellings’ (Jefferson 1988) generated in qualitative research interviews with L2 (second language) English-speaking adult immigrants in the US and Canada, this case study examines how formulation and intensification, supported by various linguistic and paralinguistic resources, enable story teller (interviewee) and story recipient (interviewer) to intersubjectively categorize and manage the affect-laden descriptions of people and events set within particular institutional, interactional, psychological, and moral worlds. As a result, emotionality is shown to be more than an outcome of L2 users’ sociolinguistic experiences but a series of highly coordinated actions that progress the interview activity and make accountable as well as account for a complex network of social conduct and categorial relations.

Keywords: categorization, emotion, formulation, interviews, narrative, scaling, stance
Published online: 3 October 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.266.09pri
References
Ahmed, Sara
2004 The Cultural Politics of Emotion. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Antaki, Charles, and Sue Widdicombe
1998 Identity as an Achievement and as a Tool. In Identities in Talk, ed. by Charles Antaki, and Sue Widdicombe, 1–14. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Baker, Carolyn. D
1997 “Ticketing Rules: Categorization and Moral Ordering in a School Staff Meeting.” In Culture in Action: Studies in Membership Categorization Analysis, ed. by Stephen Hester, and Peter Eglin, 77–98. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Bercelli, Fabrizio, Federico Rossano, and Maurizio Viaro
2008 “Clients’ Responses to Therapists’ Re-interpretations.” In Conversation Analysis and Psychotherapy, ed. by Anssi Peräkylä, Charles Antaki, Sanna Vehviläinen, and Ivan Leudar, 43–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Besnier, Nico
1990 “Language and Affect.” Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 419–451. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bilmes, Jack
2009 “Taxonomies Are for Talking: A Reanalysis of a Sacks Classic.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (8): 1600–1610. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 “Scaling as an Aspect of Formulation in Verbal Interaction.” In Language Learning and Socialization through Conversations, ed. by Yuriko Kite and Keiko Ikeda, 3–9. Osaka Japan: Center for Human Activity Theory, Kansai University.Google Scholar
2011 “Occasioned Semantics: A Systematic Approach to Meaning in Talk.” Human Studies 34: 129–153. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burch, Alfred R., and Gabriele Kasper
this volume). “‘Like Godzilla’: Enactments and Formulations in Telling a Disaster Story in Japanese.”
Buttny, Richard
2004 Talking Problems: Studies of Discursive Construction. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Cekaite, Asta
this volume). “Emotional Stances and Interactional Competence: Learning to Calibrate Disagreements, Objections, and Refusals.”
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth
2007 Assessing and Accounting. In Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction, ed. by Rebecca Clift, and Elizabeth Holt, 81–119. Cambridge: ¨Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
2009 “A Sequential Approach to Affect: The Case of ‘Disappointment’.” In Talk in Interaction: Comparative Dimensions, ed. by Markku Haakana, Minna Laakso, and Jan Lindström, 94–123. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society (SKS).Google Scholar
Davis, Kathryn
1986 “The Process of Problem (Re)Formulation in Psychotherapy.” Sociology of Health & Illness 8: 44–74. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drew, Paul
1998 Complaints about Transgressions and Misconduct. Research on Language and Social Interaction 31 (3“4): 295–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, John W
2007 “The Stance Triangle.” In Stancetaking in Discourse, Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction, ed. by Robert Englebretson, 139–182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Derek
1997 Discourse and Cognition. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
1999 “Emotion Discourse.” Culture and Psychology 5 (3): 271–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Englebretson, Robert
2007 Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1981 Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles
2007 “Participation, Stance and Affect in the Organization of Activities. Discourse and Society 18 (1): 53–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Günthner, Susanne
1997 “Complaint Stories.” In Constructing Emotional Reciprocity among Women Communicating Gender in Context, ed. by Helga Kotthoff, and Ruth Wodak, 179–218. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hellermann, John
2009 “Practices for Dispreferred Responses Using No by a Learner of English.” IRAL 47: 95–126. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John
2011 “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, ed. by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John, and D. Rod Watson
1979 Formulations as Conversational Objectives. In Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology, ed. by George Psathas, 123–162. New York: Irvington Publishers.Google Scholar
Heritage, John, and Geoffrey Raymond
2005 “The Terms of Agreement: Indexing Epistemic Authority and Subordination in Talk-in-Interaction.” Social Psychology Quarterly 68 (1): 15–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hester, Stephen, and Peter Eglin
(eds) 1997 Culture in Action: Studies in Membership Categorization Analysis. Washington, D.C.: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis and University Press of America.Google Scholar
Jayyusi, Lena
1984 Categorization and the Moral Order. Boston, MA: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail
1988 “On the Sequential Organization of Troubles-talk in Ordinary Conversation.” Language , Interaction, and Social Problems 35 (4): 418–441. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kasper, Gabriele, and Matthew T. Prior
2015 “Analyzing Storytelling in TESOL Interview Research.” TESOL Quarterly 49 (2): 226–255. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
1984 “Intensity.” In Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, ed. by Deborah Schiffrin, 43–70. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William, and Joshua Waletzky
1967/1997 “Narrative Analysis.” In Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts, ed. by June Helm, 12–44. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger
1991 Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin, Bronwen, and Felizitas Ringham
2006 Key Terms in Semiotics. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Ochs, Eleanor and Bambi B. Schieffelin
1989 “Language Has a Heart.” Text 9 (1): 7–25.Google Scholar
Peräkylä, Anssi, Charles Antaki, Sanna Vehviläinen, and Ivan Leudar
2008 Conversation Analysis and Psychotherapy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peräkylä, Anssi, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen
2012 Emotion in Interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita M
1984 “Pursuing a Response.” In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 152–163. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1986 “Extreme-case Formulations: A Way of Legitimizing Claims.” Human Studies 9 (2/3): 219–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prior, Matthew T
2011 Self-Presentation in L2 Interview Talk: Narrative Versions, Accountability, and Emotionality. Applied Linguistics 32 (1): 60–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 Re-Examining Alignment in a ˜Failed™ L2 Autobiographic Research Interview. Qualitative Inquiry 20 (4): 495–508. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 Emotion and Discourse in L2 Narrative Research. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Rae, John
2008 “Lexical Substitution as a Therapeutic Resource.” In Conversation Analysis and Psychotherapy, ed. by Anssi Peräkylä, Charles Antaki, Sanna Vehviläinen, and Ivan Leudar, 62–79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rapley, Timothy
2012 “The (Extra)Ordinary Practices of Qualitative Interviewing.” In The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft (2nd ed.), ed. by Jaber F. Gubrium, James A. Holstein, Amir B. Marvasti, and Karyn D. McKinney, 541–554. London: SAGE. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roulston, Kathryn
2010 Reflective Interviewing: A Guide to Theory and Practice. London: SAGE. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 “The Pedagogy of Interviewing.” In The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft (2nd ed.), ed. by Jaber F. Gubrium, James A. Holstein, Amir B. Marvasti, and Karyn D. McKinney, 61–74. London: SAGE. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruusuvuori, Johanna
2013 “Emotion, Affect, and Conversation.” In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ed. by Jack Sidnell, and Tanya Stivers, 330–349. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey
1992 Lectures on Conversation, Vol. 1–2. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emmanuel A
1987 “Analyzing Single Episodes of Interaction: An Exercise in Conversation Analysis.” Social Psychology Quarterly 50 (2): 101–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997 “Whose Text? Whose Context?” Discourse & Society 8 (2): 165–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000 “When ‘Others’ Initiate Repair.” Applied Linguistics 21 (2): 205–243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah
2001 Discourse Markers: Language, Meaning, and Context. In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen, and Heidi E. ¨Hamilton, 54–75. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya
2008 “Stance, Alignment, and Affiliation during Storytelling: When Nodding is a Token of Affiliation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 41 (1): 31–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stokoe, Elizabeth
2012 “Moving Forward with Membership Categorization Analysis: Methods for Systematic Analysis.” Discourse Studies 14 (3): 277–303. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Toerien, Merran, and Celia Kitzinger
2007 “Emotional Labor in Action: Navigating Multiple Involvements in the Beauty Salon.” Sociology 41: 645–662. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, Sue, and Celia Kitzinger
2006 “Surprise as an Interactional Achievement: Reaction Tokens in Conversation.” Social Psychology Quarterly 69 (2): 150–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Bilmes, Jack
2020. The discussion of abortion in US political debates: A study in occasioned semantics. Discourse Studies 22:3 ► pp. 291 ff. DOI logo
Hayashi, Reiko
2019. Categorization for occasioned semantics: Reanalysis of a Japanese Yamagata 119 emergency call. Discourse Studies 21:5 ► pp. 495 ff. DOI logo
Kasper, Gabriele & Steven J. Ross
2018. The social life of methods: Introducing the special issue. Applied Linguistics Review 9:4 ► pp. 475 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 september 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.