Abstract
A communities of practice framework views learning in terms of identity (trans)formation within and through participation, utilizing a set of shared resources, in a community organized around a joint endeavor, or practice. From an ethnomethodological perspective, however, the theoretical notions of community, shared resources, and identity constitute not explanatory resources, but rather topics requiring data-grounded exploration. In other words, the following empirical questions arise: If and how the participants (a) organize their group as community, (b) co-constitute a shared repertoire of participatory resources, and (c) work up and manage identities as practitioners within that community. In the present study, I examine interactions at conversation analytic data sessions in Japan. The analyses focus on how the participants use terminology during their participation in doing data analysis, and how such terminology use is implicated in constituting their group as a community, and in working up and managing identities within that community.
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Notes
The analytic sections of the present paper are based largely on Chapter 6 of Bushnell (2011a).
Research student is a particular status at Japanese universities which contrasts with matriculated graduate and undergraduate student status. Research students do not seek degrees from their host Japanese universities, but rather typically engage in research directed by an individual faculty member at the host university for a period of 1–2 years.
Note that Elmer’s self repair in line 2 seems to work to redirect from a production of try mark to providing an apparent circumlocution of the concept of try marking, in lines 4 and 6.
It is relevant to mention that Yi is able to speak English with fair proficiency, as is attested by her occasional participation in another conversation analytic gathering which maintains an English language format. Furthermore, in subsequent data sessions in the current data corpus, Yi uses a distinctly English pronunciation in talking about a bit of data that featured a participant alternating into English to talk about a picture of an urn that she was asked to discuss with another participant. Thus, it is highly unlikely that Yi was incapable of pronouncing try mark with a distinct English phonology. The fact that she deploys Japanese phonology in her productions in Excerpt 3 functions to make the object hearable as an Anglo-Japanese lexical item, and not an English one.
One reviewer was concerned that the status of terminological resources at the data sessions might come across incorrectly as being a “threshold issue” (Schegloff 1991: 62). It should be noted that I do not claim that the terms are necessarily pre-established or pre-known, though the Participants themselves may treat them as such. For instance Zed’s fluent and matter of course production of ripea in Excerpt 4 seems to treat the term as one established within the group as a valued terminological resource prior to his deployment of it. On the other hand, there are some instances in the data that cannot be included here due to space limitations where the Participants seem to constitute terminological items as being valued participatory resources in a rather impromptu or on-the-fly manner. Thus, the valued status of terminology does not seem (a) to necessitate a long history of use, (b) to be brought off in one take, nor (c) to be settled once and for all. Rather, the terminology is, in some sense, constituted anew as a valued resource with each instance of its deployment and ratification by the Participants.
Another possibility is that Yi spends the 1.3 s examining available evidence such as the transcript prior to providing the (relevantly analytical) comment projected by sore wa: in line 7. However, the absence of video data for this excerpt makes an analysis of gaze distribution impossible. It is relevant to note, however, that there are no sounds of paper rustling, or other indications that Yi might be examining the transcript during the pause.
In line 14, Suzuki seems to attempt self selection following her duplicate production of u:n (“yea:h”) by slightly continuing her production of phonological material (not clearly audible). Yi’s left pushed TCU beginning may be in orientation to this move by Suzuki.
Interestingly, later in the interaction, Ru seems to pick up this slip of the tongue usage and deploy it during her participation.
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Bushnell, C. Talking the Talk: The Interactional Construction of Community and Identity at Conversation Analytic Data Sessions in Japan. Hum Stud 35, 583–605 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-012-9248-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-012-9248-7