Setting the agenda: The sequential construction of student concerns in academic consultations
| Author: | Limberg, Holger |
| Abstract: | |
| Counseling is a widespread activity in many social, academic, and other professional institutions (Erickson and Shultz 1982; Nothdurft 1984, Silverman 1997). A common organizational framework for counseling is the so-called office hour or consultation hour. This institutional practice usually consists of a face-to-face and one-on-one meeting between a professional and a client who seeks help about a particular individual concern. The office hour is a discursive site for a task-oriented talk in which different discourse practices are employed that are tailored to the client’s needs (e.g., listening, informing, advising, giving feedback). In this paper, I will analyze the interactional organization of faculty – student talk during office hour sessions at university. More specifically, the focus lies on the opening sequences in which students and teachers establish common ground for the consultation as well as (implicitly) agree on some kind of agenda for the subsequent discussion. Opening phases of institutional talk are considered crucial for a successful interaction, since they provide the basis upon which the subsequent discussion is constructed (cf. Heritage and Maynard 2006). During the opening, students present their reason for visiting their professor. At the same time, they make a direct or indirect request that projects a sequence of actions for the consultation. The sequential construction of these request actions varies, depending on the nature of the concern as well as on prior contact between both participants. Although the presentation phase allows students to take control and present their concern, the activity is a discursive achievement of both participants. Teachers actively contribute toward the presentation by providing back-channeling signals, initial assessments or requests for repair. Data from two academic settings are used to illustrate these situated turn-taking mechanisms. These are general office hour sessions from a German university and sessions of a writing tutorial in a U.S. university context. By using a CA-oriented approach to the data, different sequential patterns of student concerns are revealed. These have an effect on the overall structural as well as social organization of the office hour talk. |
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