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Supervision is widely recognised as a core activity for social work. In this paper, we explore the nature of decision-making in supervision, using a collection of twelve audio-recordings from one child protection team in England. We apply Conversation Analysis to see how potential actions are put 'on the table', by whom, and the interactional work that occurs before any final decision is made. Within these data we find that supervision may not be an especially key site for decision-making. When actions are proposed, we identify three primary patterns: unilateral decision making, bilateral decision making and polar questions which instigate decision making sequences. In each, it is almost always the supervisor who proposes a possible future action, and the social worker who responds. If the social worker is agreeable, there is often little further discussion. When the social worker resists the proposal or there is further talk around the future action, the subsequent conversation was likely to focus on how it reflects on the worker's professional competence, rather than the merits of the action and implications for the family. These findings raise the question of how (and where) casework decisions are made in this social work team, if not in supervision. They also suggest we need to pay more attention to issues of professional standing and creating opportunities for shared decision making when thinking about supervision. Our analysis furthers current knowledge of what happens in social work supervision by demonstrating how epistemic and deontic domains, as well professional competency, are interactionally relevant forces shaping the decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shares a set of cross-cultural conversations between two family learning practitioner-researchers, one from Jamaica and one from England. Our concern that global education policies reflect and reproduce a social investment perspective, positioning family learning as a way to generate productive citizens, drives this paper. Using Charlotte Hardacre's authentic family learning as a conceptual framework, we reexamine our ongoing work with families. An analysis of these cross-cultural conversations reveals that along with valuing the existing agency and identity of participants, there is also a need to balance the role of power enacted by practitioners; ultimately reconceptualizing power as a positive force that does not require inversion, minimization, or removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social care assessments in England are envisaged as conversations, implying an informal and congenial encounter, in which both parties have equal roles. However, a fundamental task during an assessment is to gauge eligibility for resources. This article uses conversation analysis to consider audio recorded data of seven social care assessments in England. The article focuses on topic shifts, where the assessor introduces an 'assessment relevant' topic, and we examine how these shifts are managed. Sometimes assessors used what was said by the client or by the carer as a 'pivot', which could produce a feeling of friendly conversation, but simultaneously lead to an intrusion into the client's personal knowledge domain. Assessors also had other strategies for framing a 'next question', such as noticing something in the environment, referring to previous notes or to previous conversations. The conversation might feel 'friendly', but these tactics could lead to the personal life domain of the client being inadvertently revealed and used as relevant for their assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although women's appearance is theorised as being central to their identity and social currency, much prior research has argued that as women age, other aspects of their lives assume a higher priority than their appearance. Nevertheless, they continue to invest time in appearance practices. In undertaking these various appearance practices, older women have to negotiate a range of conflicting social norms of age-appropriate appearance, such as managing the balancing act between 'letting themselves go', on the one hand, and looking like 'mutton dressed as lamb', on the other. This paper contributes to the growing literature on older women's attitudes to their appearance and related practices. Drawing on data from a two-year research project in a hair-salon catering primarily for older clients, I examine the question of the importance to women of their appearance through the lens of their hair-care practices. Focusing on a group of nine female clients aged 55–90 in a small hair-salon in southern England, I show how participants in their talk and embodied presentation display shifting orientations of investment/interest (or lack of interest) in their appearance. Comparing participants' appearance practices , with their talk in two sequential environments in which a possible interest in appearance is made particularly salient, I argue that these shifting orientations reveal participants' subtle negotiation of competing social norms of appearance for older women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: People with acquired progressive dysarthria typically experience increased problems with intelligibility in everyday conversation as their disease progresses. Such problems are likely to impact on both the person with dysarthria and those with whom they interact. If this is the case then we may ask questions not just about the nature of these problems but how it is that such problems are dealt with by participants when they occur. Aims: To investigate ways through which problems resulting from dysarthria in everyday conversation are resolved by participants. Further, to examine some of the features of repair resolution, particularly where understanding of self-repair attempts themselves prove difficult. Methods & Procedures: Video data of natural conversation from two dyads were selected for this paper. One dyad features a 58 year-old man with multiple sclerosis and moderate intelligibility problems, the other a 79 year-old woman with motor neurone disease with mild to moderate intelligibility problems. Both elected to be recorded in conversation with their spouses. The dyads were video-recorded at home with no researcher present. Using the methods of Conversation Analysis (CA) a collection of sequences was identified and transcribed. The sequences were analysed with reference to how the participants resolve problems in the understanding of dysarthric speech. Outcomes & Results: It is shown how some problems resulting from dysarthria in conversation can be resolved relatively quickly, particularly where a specific element of a prior turn is highlighted by the recipient as problematic. In other instances, the recipient's understanding problem may be more global. These result in longer repair sequences in which problematic elements are addressed individually. Such a resolution method is ultimately successful but may also be characterised by additional understanding problems. These findings draw attention to an important distinction between intelligibility and understandability. Conclusions & Implications: It is concluded that problems resulting from dysarthria in conversation can require extensive repair work involving both parties. This has implications for the assessment of dysarthria in everyday conversation and also the promotion of intervention strategies that encompass the activities of both participants when dealing with dysarthria in interaction. These findings may be usefully employed in informing both direct clinical work and through training those who work with this client group and their significant others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the decision-making process between doctors and parents of babies in neonatal intensive care. In particular, it focuses on cases in which the decision concerns the redirection of care from full intensive care to palliative care at the end of life. Thirty one families were recruited from a neonatal intensive care unit in England and their formal interactions with the doctor recorded. The conversations were transcribed and analysed using conversation analysis. Analysis focused on sequences in which decisions about the redirection of care were initiated and progressed. Two distinct communicative approaches to decision-making were used by doctors: 'making recommendations' and 'providing options'. Different trajectories for parental involvement in decision-making were afforded by each design, as well as differences in terms of the alignments, or conflicts, between doctors and parents. 'Making recommendations' led to misalignment and reduced opportunities for questions and collaboration; 'providing options' led to an aligned approach with opportunities for questions and fuller participation in the decision-making process. The findings are discussed in the context of clinical uncertainty, moral responsibility and the implications for medical communication training and guidance. A Virtual Abstract of this paper can be accessed at: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This article is about interactions that occur when someone with intellectual disabilities is engaged in everyday activities with a personal assistant (PA) or a support worker. Method: We examine the detail of nine hours of naturally occurring video‐recorded interactions, to explore how "relational autonomy" is done in practice. Nine people with ID and seven staff took part in the research, which took place in England from 2016–17. Results: We selected six extracts to illustrate different types of joint decision‐making. Informed by inclusive research with a drama group of people with intellectual disabilities, we focus on the ways in which (a) future plans are discussed; (b) choices are offered during an activity; (c) people reflect on their decisions. Conclusion: The article concludes with discussion about the teaching and learning content of choice‐making, on relational autonomy, and the practice learning for PAs, support workers and for people with intellectual disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines how partners contribute to clinical consultations for people with prostate cancer. It highlights a social practice where a partner responds to talk that addresses a patient. A conversation analysis of twenty-eight prostate cancer treatment and diagnostic consultations was carried out using data collected from four clinical sites across England. The analysis demonstrated that this practice was prosocial and patient enabling. Partners oriented to the patient's primary rights to take their turn as the selected next speaker, only initiating after a substantial delay from the clinician's turn-at-talk. Consequently, the partner consistently opened an opportunity space that the patient took to elaborate upon, or collaborate with the partners' turn as they regularly took up a unified stance resisting the individualised configuration of the encounter. This research highlights the social and clinical utility of partners during these consultations, as they served as important, yet underutilised interactional and informational resources for clinicians and patients. This research indicates a need to reconsider the configuration of these consultations and sanction partners as formal participants. Absent of this, partners will continue to have to work to insert their contributions into consultations while resisting the dyadic structure of these interactions. • Partners were rarely addressed by clinicians and patients and worked to insert their contributions into the consultation. • Partners oriented to the patient's primary rights to respond to talk explicitly addressing patients. • Partners served as an important, yet under-used informational and interactional resource for patient and clinician. • This paper argues for a need to reconsider what it means to enact patient centredness in triadic healthcare encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an evidence-based analysis of the communicative influences on children's engagement in the Youth Justice System of England and Wales. The multidisciplinary criminologist–linguist 'YOT Talk' project utilized Svalberg's (2009) dimensions of engagement (cognitive, affective, social; augmented by behavioural) to explore the enablers of, and barriers to, children's engagement with youth justice assessment processes. A tripartite mixed methodology of observation of assessment interviews, questionnaires with children in the Youth Justice System and youth justice practitioners, and focus groups with practitioners was implemented across three Youth Offending Teams in England and Wales. Analyses synergized methods from conversation analysis and corpus linguistics. Findings inform recommendations for refocusing youth justice assessment and staff training on facilitating children's communicative engagement (that is, enhancing enablers and removing/minimizing barriers). These findings and recommendations challenge asymmetrical (adult-centric) power dynamics during assessment interviews and challenge perceptions of children's communicative deficits as irreconcilable barriers to effective assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the findings of the analysis of authentic interpreter-mediated police interviews with victim-survivors of domestic abuse with a focus on question formation and delivery, language choice and code-switching. It is set against the backdrop of the forces wide inspection of police response to domestic abuse in England and Wales and implementation of EU Directive EU/2012/29 establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims. Drawing on conversation analysis and available police interview guidelines, I show how the voice of the victim-survivor can remain obscured even when professional language support provisions are in place, and shed light on interpreting practices that can limit an interviewing officer's ability to assess risk. I suggest that, while it may not be appropriate for interpreters to be present for the duration of the pre-interview planning phase, it offers a dynamic forum for negotiating approaches to challenges in victim-survivor interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactionally, the workplace may be dilemmatic for a person with "invisible" chronic illness. Risks of stigmatization exist if they disclose their condition to colleagues. Meanwhile, not disclosing threatens well-being and entitlements. Using Bakhtin's dialogism as a theoretical framework, we explored these social aspects of illness: inductively analyzing narratives from 20 participants with multiple sclerosis (MS). Capitalizing on concepts from dialogical and conversation analysis, links between (in)visibility, knowledge, and belief were examined with respect to symptoms and co-worker judgment. Perceived medical legitimacy creates a core social dilemma. At the intersection of genre and action, participants systematically used parody to subvert the traditional workplace hierarchy. "Oh-prefaced" direct reported speech (OPDRS) was deployed to exaggerate workplace interactions, undermining managers/colleagues who misattributed (in)visible symptoms. Parodic OPDRS index emotive interactional dilemmas. As subversions of organizational power, OPDRS denote those very areas where employees feel disempowered. Sensitivity to OPDRS can provide diagnostic support and complement evaluation frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores a 'hybridized approach' to multimodal research drawing on video data of classroom communication involving children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The focus is a short video of 'Luke', aged six, who at snack time declines to request an available food item (carrot, tomato or apple) with the available Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS); instead deploying embodied, idiosyncratic communication including gaze, vocalisation and object manipulation to request raisins. The article explores the potential of a hybridized approach for understanding Luke's communicative competencies which draws upon the theoretical perspectives of Ethnography of Communication, Conversation Analysis and Multimodal (Inter)Action Analysis; and uses two forms of multimodal transcription (the multimodal matrix and annotated video stills). It is argued that each tradition brings distinct affordances to our understanding of this short interaction and that together they can permit inferences which would not have been possible working with one approach alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background When support staff use questions to instruct, advise or guide adults with intellectual disabilities (ID), or to solicit information from them, the interaction does not always proceed smoothly, particularly when replies are ambiguous, absent or not obviously relevant. That can lead to interactional trouble and dissatisfaction, or worse. Methods We report on the ways in which staff members transform their questions over a series of conversational turns in order to solicit an adequate reply, and thereby to fulfil the interactional goal of the question. Our data come from approximately 30 h of recordings of natural conversation between staff members and adults with ID in two residential and one outdoor activities settings. Results We identify seven practices by which staff attempt to resolve the dilemma between undue direction and premature closure. These include: expansion of the original question, simplifying its format, changing its content in various ways and realising its alternatives in physical form. Conclusions We highlight strategies which produce answers satisfactory to both parties, and improve the quality of interaction between staff and people with ID. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a public meeting at which a community inspector from the Metropolitan Police Force (London, UK) addressed an audience of Highgate residents about new arrangements for dealing with crime and anti-social behaviour. The article examines how the identities of criminals and those who engage in anti-social behavior are constructed in talk. In this regard, it highlights the inferential significance of “age” and “urban geography” in the inspector's discourse. A series of jokes are analyzed which are shown to trade—for their intelligibility—upon the audiences' ability to hear how place name descriptions position persons with respect to criminal activity. The article is a further explication of how public speakers generate rapport with audiences; it also reveals highly divisive aspects of community policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes rhetorical and sequential resources used by audiences as they participate in political discourse. The data are recordings of Area Assemblies held in North London between 2001 and 2003. The research contributes to studies of political discourse, by describing the fine interactional organization of the seemingly `unruly' scenes that arise when councillors and officers confront large numbers of angry residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Acute respiratory tract infections (RTI) in children are a common reason for antibiotic prescribing. Clinicians' prescribing decisions are influenced by perceived parental expectations for antibiotics, however there is evidence that parents actually prefer to avoid antibiotics. This study aimed to investigate the influence of parent-clinician communication on antibiotic prescribing for RTI in children in England. Methods: A mixed methods analysis of videoed primary care consultations for children (under 12 years) with acute cough and RTI. Consultations were video-recorded in six general practices in southern England, selected for socio-economic diversity. 56 recordings were transcribed in detail and a subset of recordings and transcripts used to develop a comprehensive interaction-based coding scheme. The scheme was used to examine communication practices between parents and clinicians and how these related to antibiotic or non-antibiotic treatment strategies. Results: Parents' communication rarely implied an expectation for antibiotics, some explicitly offering a possible viral diagnosis. Clinicians mostly gave, or implied, a viral diagnosis and mainly recommended non-antibiotic treatment strategies. In the minority of cases where parents' communication behaviours implied they may be seeking antibiotic treatment, antibiotics were not usually prescribed. Where clinicians did prescribe antibiotics, they voiced concern about symptoms or signs, including chest pain, discoloured phlegm, prolonged fever, abnormal chest sounds, or pink /bulging ear drums. Conclusions: We found little evidence of a relationship between parents' communication behaviours and antibiotic prescribing. Rather, where antibiotics were prescribed, this was associated with clinicians' expressed concerns regarding symptoms and signs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]