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This introductory article to the special issue provides a brief theoretical introduction to pragmatic research on the communication and dissemination of domain-specific knowledge across new media, discussing some of the central problems, such as the impact of digital technologies on understanding and learning, the changes in the participation framework, their impact on the construction of credibility and identity. We also call attention to the need for multimodal and hypermodal analysis of the processes of recontextualisation in selected genres. In this context, the papers in the special issue converge in presenting a nuanced view of a broad range of phenomena. Our goal is to encourage research on digital discourse to keep up with the present technological developments and the increasing complexity emerging from the ensuing interaction of knowledge transmission and knowledge circulation practices. • Communication and dissemination of domain-specific knowledge in a digital world need attention in pragmatic research. • Digital technologies have an impact on understanding, knowing and learning. • Intersubjective positioning can be explored as a concomitant of relevant high-quality information. • Methods can be devised to address credibility construction. • Multiple perspectives can be combined to assess communication strategies in (hyper-)multimodal environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract While always an interdisciplinary endeavour, rapid growth in the fields of Ethnomethodology (hereafter EM) and Conversation Analysis (hereafter CA) has led to the broader application of EM/CA methodologies and the engagement of researchers from beyond the more traditional fields of sociology and linguistics. EM/CA methodologies are being used to both understand the orderliness of social interaction and also to address specific institutional issues, in this instance in higher education settings. This paper explores the challenges inherent in using these approaches to researching institutional relationships, particularly when a primary aim of the research is to inform practitioners of practices used within institutional settings. We argue the need to draw on a variety of analytical tools to understand in situ practices alongside other lenses to translate these understandings of institutional practice to practitioners. Drawing on data from a study of audio-recorded conversations between supervisory and preservice teachers during the school-based professional experience component of initial teacher education, our analysis illustrates how the tools of conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis reveal the intricacies of how supervising and preservice teachers negotiate issues of asymmetry and position themselves through references to specific institutional documents. We then use the work of Dorothy Smith to support the translatability of descriptive findings to support interventions in the field. We use this example to demonstrate the affordances of using various analytic tools in complementary ways to overcome methodological challenges and provide new insights into institutional relationships and inform future practice. Highlights • Proposes the combined use of analytical tools to translate EM/CA findings to inform both method and practice. • Explores the ongoing development of CA methods, focusing on moves to applied Conversation Analysis. • Discusses the changing nature of academic research and positioning of CA researchers within disciplinary fields. • Illustrates the affordances of combining analytical tools from CA, MCA, and the work of Dorothy Smith in uncovering patterns and theorising approaches to interactions between preservice teachers and supervising teachers in school-based professional experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper offers an analysis of instructional sequences in driving lessons. It examines how driving instructors direct learner drivers to perform salient driving actions. On the basis of a video-recorded corpus, the paper looks at the temporal and sequential organization of instructional sequences and analyzes how the participants coordinate their actions with the continuously changing spatiotemporal contingencies. In driving lessons, a first set of instructions project actions that learners have to perform by manipulating car controls or by monitoring the traffic situation. A second set of instructions relate to navigation, requiring the student drivers to turn at intersections, etc. This article describes the turn-constructional features of these instructions and studies their temporal, spatial and praxeological corollaries. Moreover, the paper examines episodes of interaction with multiple instructions, which are regularly found in driving lessons. It analyzes their sequential organization to reveal a recurrent order, with navigational instructions preceding car control instructions. Building on prior research on ordinary driving and on instructions, this paper contributes to our understanding of how mobility both affects and is affected by language use and social interaction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines naturally-occurring university seminar interactions 1 [1] Some of the sessions observed and video-recorded were called ‘lectures’, and some ‘tutorials’. However, all the sessions involved both teacher-centered talk and class discussions with a maximum of 23 students, and for convenience, the term ‘seminars’ is used throughout this paper. in Australia and reports an analysis of the politeness orientation of participants with Japanese and Australian backgrounds in relation to speech and silence. Although the silence of students from Asia, attending universities in countries such as the US, UK and Australia, has been discussed extensively in the literature, empirical studies of silence in classroom settings are still scarce. This paper aims to explain such phenomena, using participant interviews, classroom observation and detailed discourse analysis of classroom interaction. While silence was commonly used by Japanese students to save face, verbal strategies were more common among Australian students. The extensive use of face-saving silences by Japanese students was found to be negatively evaluated by Australian lecturers whose response strategies, while meant to avoid imposition on Japanese students, also resulted in lack of rapport. However, the study also finds that silence may be negotiated when shifts occur in the participants’ perceptions about the footing of their own and/or their interactants. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper investigates how an activity type called “quiz game”, borrowed from one institution (the television game show) is co-constructed in another institutional setting (the classroom) through practices of talk in interaction embodied in systematic prosodic practices. Following research which advocates the analysis of prosody from the perspectives of both production and perception [] this paper uses techniques from conversation analysis to uncover participants’ orientation to the sequence of talk, by focusing on how prosody is used systematically as a contextualization cue in the co-construction of the ‘quiz game’ activity type. Acoustical analysis is also undertaken both to insure analytic reliability and for illustrative purposes in the presentation. The sequence of turns at talk is examined in ‘quiz game’ activities from three class periods in a 9th grade physical science classroom. Findings show systematic uses of pitch level and contour in the triadic dialogue (‘IRF’ exchanges; Sinclair and Coulthard), which distinguish the ‘quiz game’ activities from other classroom pedagogical tasks. A second finding indicates that the action projection of the third part in this three-part sequence in ‘quiz game’ activities differs from the third slot in other instructional talk. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study investigates the rhetorical structure of abstracts of papers published in Applied Linguistics and Education. It examines how abstract authors in these two fields emphasise the significance of their research, and how they appeal to their prospective readership. Although abstracts in both disciplinary groups are found to display a coordinate textual development they exhibit a utilization of different relational schemata to indicate the functional prominence of textual propositions. In particular, different relational patterns are seen to be employed to fulfil the two primary objectives of an abstract: to provide a synopsis of the accompanying article, and to promote it to relevant research and professional communities. The way authors demonstrate the value of their research and their professional credibility appears to be conditioned by disciplinary writing conventions. It is proposed that relational choices, which result in differences in the accentuation of communicative messages in Applied Linguistics and Education abstracts, depend on the perceived relationship between the author and the discourse community in terms of expectations of prior knowledge. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper is concerned with children’s pragmatic competence. It presents the results of an empirical study of Danish children’s language in play, focusing on their use of politeness phenomena. Results from the present study are compared with previous research, most of which has found that girls appear to be more polite than boys when they play. This is not confirmed in the present study which found no significant differences in boys’ and girls’ use of mitigation. The girls as well as the boys often used an assertive, unmitigated style in their play. This result is discussed in relation to different patterns of socialisation in Denmark, emphasising the importance of socio-cultural context and peer group influence on children’s language, as well as children’s sensitivity of contextual norms, i.e., their pragmatic competence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]