Item Details

A listener’s stance-taking in mediation

Issue: Vol 2 No. 2 (2017)

Journal: Mediation Theory and Practice

Subject Areas:

DOI: 10.1558/mtp.33373

Abstract:

This article analyses a highly acrimonious conflict mediation session between a previous romantic couple in order to illustrate how one listening disputant’s embodied stances influence the trajectory of another disputant’s unfolding narrative. For example, even without speaking, the listener’s facial expression and postures serve to refuse the other speaker’s participant framework. In order to unpack the complexity of this interaction, we drew on both conversation analytic and dialogic notions of stance. We found that to analyse embodied stances in our data requires an understanding of both the local sequential analysis of the unfolding orientations of the participants as embodied stances are being deployed, as well as the larger interactional patterns that occur across the entire mediation session. This case study illustrates the challenge, to mediators and researchers alike, posed by unequal access to the disputant’s shared background knowledge.

Author: Matthew Bruce Ingram, Madeline M. Maxwell

View Original Web Page

References :

Bavelas, J. B., & Chovil, N. (2000). Visible acts of meaning: an integrated message model of language in face-to-face dialogue. Communications Abstracts, 23 (6), 164-194. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X00019002001

Chovil, N. (1991). Discourse‐oriented facial displays in conversation. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 25, 163-194. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08351819109389361

Cobb, S., & Rifkin, J. (1991). Practice and paradox: Deconstructing neutrality in mediation. Law & Social Inquiry, 16 (1), 35-62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-4469.1991.tb00283.x

Du Bois, J. W. (2007). The stance triangle. In R. Englebretson (Ed.), Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction (pp. 139-182). Amsterdam; John Benjamins.

Du Bois, J.W., & Kärkkäinen, E. (2012). Taking a stance on emotion: affect, sequence, and intersubjectivity in dialogic interaction. Text & Talk, 32 (4), 433-451. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2012-0021

Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1989). Human ethology. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.

Ekman, P. (1979). About brows: Emotional and conversational signals. In M. von Cranach, K. Foppa, W. Lepenis, & D. Ploog (Eds.), Human ethology (pp. 169-222). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (2003). Unmasking the face: A guide to recognizing emotions from facial clues. Cambridge, MA: Malor Books.

Englebretson, R. (2007). Stancetaking in discourse. In R. Englebretson (Ed.), Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction (pp. 1-25). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Garcia, A. C. (1991). Dispute resolution without disputing: How the interactional organization of mediation hearings minimizes argument. American Sociological Review, 56 (6), 818-835.

Garcia, A. C. (1996). Moral reasoning in interactional context: Strategic uses of care and justice arguments in mediation hearings. Sociological Inquiry, 66 (2), 197-217. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.1996.tb00217.x

Garcia, A. C. (2010). The role of interactional competence in mediation. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 28 (2), 205-228. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/crq.20020

Garcia, A. C., Vise, K., & Whitaker, P. S. (2002). Disputing neutrality: a case study of a bias complaint during mediation. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 20 (2), 205-230. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/crq.20

Glenn, P. (2010). A Mediator's Dilemma: Acknowledging or Disregarding Stance Displays. Negotiation Journal, 26 (2), 155-162. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1571-9979.2010.00263.x

Glenn, P., & Kuttner, R. (2013). Dialogue, dispute resolution, and talk-in-interaction: On empirical studies of ephemeral phenomena. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 6 (1), 13-31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ncmr.12001

Goodwin, C. (2007). Participation, stance and affect in the organization of activities. Discourse & Society, 18 (1), 53-73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926507069457

Goodwin, M. H. (1980). Processes of mutual monitoring implicated in the production of description sequences. Sociological Inquiry, 50 (3-4), 303-317. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.1980.tb00024.x

Goodwin, M. H. (1983). Aggravated correction and disagreement in children’s conversations. Journal of Pragmatics, 7 (6), 657-677. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(83)90089-9

Goodwin, H., & Goodwin, C. (1986). Gesture and coparticipation in the activity of searching for a word. Semiotica 62-1/2, 51-75. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1986.62.1-2.51

Goodwin, H., & Goodwin, C. (2004) Participation. In A. Duranti (Ed.), A companion to linguistic anthropology (pp. 222-243). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Greatbatch, D., & Dingwall, R. (1990). Selective facilitation: Some preliminary observations on a strategy used by divorce mediators. Law and Society Review 23 (4), 613-642. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.174-1617.1990.tb01230.x

Greatbatch, D., & Dingwall, R. (1994). The interactive construction of interventions by mediators. In J. Folger and T. Jones (Eds.), New Directions in Mediation: Communication Research and Perspectives (pp. 84-109). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage:

Greatbatch, D., & Dingwall, R. (1999a). Professional neutralism in family mediation. In S. Sarangi, and C. Roberts (Eds.), Talk, Work and Institutional Order: Discourse in Medical, Mediation and Management Settings (pp. 271-292). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Greatbatch, D., & Dingwall, R. (1999b). The marginalization of domestic violence in divorce mediation. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 13 (2), 174-90. https://doi.org/10.1093/lawfam/13.2.174


Grammer, K., Schiefenhövel, W., Schleidt, M., Lorenz, B., & Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1988). Patterns on the face: The eyebrow flash in crosscultural comparison. Ethology, 77 (4), 279-299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1988.tb00211.x

Gruber, J., King, J., Hay, J., & Johnston, L. (2016). The hands, head, and brow: A sociolinguistic study of Māori gesture. Gesture, 15 (1), 1-36. http://dx.doi.org 10.1075/gest.15.1.01gru

Heath, C. (1992). Gesture’s discreet tasks: Multiple relevancies in visual conduct and in the contextualisation of language. In P. Auer & A. di Luzio (Eds.), The contextualisation of language (pp. 101–128). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.

Heisterkamp, B. L. (2006). Conversational displays of mediator neutrality in a court-based program. Journal of Pragmatics, 38 (12), 2051-2064. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2006.03.005

Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Polity Press.

Heritage, J., & Clayman, S. (2010). Talk in action: Interactions, identities, and institutions. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Iwasaki, S. (2015). Collaboratively organized stancetaking in Japanese: Sharing and negotiating stance within the turn constructional unit. Journal of Pragmatics, 83 (1), 104-119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.04.007

Jacobs, S., & Aakhus, M. (2003). What mediators do with words: Implementing three models of rational discussion in dispute mediation. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 20 (2), 177-203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/crq.19

Jaffe, A. (2009. Introduction: The sociolinguistics of stance. In A. Jaffe (Ed.). Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives (pp. -28). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G. H. Lerner (Ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp. 13-23). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Jenks, C., J., Firth, A. Trinder, L. (2012). When disputants dispute: interactional aspects of arguments in family mediation sessions. Text & Talk, 32, (3), 307-327. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2012-0015

Kärkkäinen, E. (2006). Stance taking in conversation: From subjectivity to intersubjectivity. Text & Talk, 26 (6), 699-731. https://doi.org/10.1515/TEXT.2006.029

Kaukomaa, T., Peräkylä, A., & Ruusuvuori, J. (2013). Turn-opening smiles: Facial expression constructing emotional transition in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 55, 21-42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.05.006

Kaukomaa, T., Peräkylä, A., & Ruusuvuori, J. (2014). Foreshadowing a problem: Turn-opening frowns in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 71, 132-147. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.08.002

Kaukomaa, T., Peräkylä, A., & Ruusuvuori, J. (2015). How listeners use facial expression to shift the emotional stance of the speaker’s utterance. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 48 (3), 319-341. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2015.1058607

Kjøs, P., Tjersland, O. A., & Roen, K. (2014). The mediation window: Regulation of argumentation and affect in custody mediation. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 55, (7), 527-538. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2014.950901

Lempert, M. (2008). The poetics of stance: Text-metricality, epistemicity, interaction. Language in Society, 37, 569-592. doi:10.1017/S0047404508080779

Matoesian, G. (2005). Struck by speech revisited: Embodied stance in jurisdictional discourse. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9, (2), 167-193. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-6441.2005.00289.x

Mittelberg, I. (2007). Methodology for multimodality: One way of working with speech and gesture data. In M. Gonzalez- Marquez, I. Mittelberg, S. Coulson, M. J. Spivey (Eds.) Methods in cognitive linguistics (pp. 225-248). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub.

Mondada, L. (2012). Video analysis and temporality of inscriptions within social interaction: the case of architects at work. Qualitative Research, 12 (3), 304-333. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794112438149

Norris, S. (2004). Analyzing multimodal interaction: A methodological framework. New York, NY: Routledge.

Peräkylä A., Ruusuvuori J. (2006). Facial expression in an assessment. In H. Knoblauch, B. Schnettler, J. Raab, & H.G. Soeffner (Eds.), Video-analysis: Methodology and Methods (pp. 127-142). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Ruusuvuori, J., & Peräkylä, A. (2009). Facial and verbal expression in assessing stories and topics. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 42 (4), 377-394. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08351810903296499

Schegloff, A. E. (1987). Analyzing single episodes of interaction: An exercise in conversation analysis. Social Psychology Quarterly, 50 (2), 101-114.

Schegloff, A. E. (1998). Body torque. Social Research, 65 (3), 535-596.

Schegloff, A. E. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: Volume 1: A Primer in conversation analysis. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Starr, A., & Page, N. (2005). Dealing with nonverbal cues: A key to mediator effectiveness. Mediate.com. Retrieved from http://www.mediate.com/articles/starrpage1.cfm#comments.

Streeck, J. (2007). On projection. In E. N. Goody (Ed.), Social intelligence and interaction (pp. 87-110). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Streeck, J. (2009). Forward-gesturing. Discourse Processes, 46 (2-3), 161-179. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01638530902728793

Streeck, J. (2010). Ecologies of gesture. In J. Streeck (Ed.) New Adventures in Language and Interaction (pp. 223-242). John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Streeck, J., & U., Hartge (1992). Previews: Gestures at the transition place. In P. Auer & A. di Luzio (Eds.), The contextualisation of language (pp. 135-157). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.

Stivers, T. (2008). Stance, Alignment, and Affiliation During Storytelling: When Nodding Is a Token of Affiliation. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 41 (1), 31-57. doi:10.1080/08351810701691123

Stokoe, E. (2013). Overcoming barriers to mediation in intake calls to services: Research based strategies for mediators. Negotiation Journal, 29 (3), 289-314. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nejo.12026

Vasilyeva, A. L. (2012a). Topics as indication of being on-task/off-task in dispute mediation. Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication, 3 (1), 61-82.
https://doi.org/10.1386/ejpc.3.1.61_1

Vasilyeva, A. L. (2012b). Argumentation in the context of mediation activity. Journal of Argumentation in Context, 1 (2), 209-233. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jaic.1.2.04vas