Three members of our ALC team recently attended the IIEMCA International Conference 2015, which was held at the University of Southern Denmark in Kolding.
The theme of the conference – ‘Living the Material World’ – brought together leading researchers from the field of ethnomethdology (EM), conversation analysis (CA), and interaction analysis more broadly, to examine and discuss the role that objects play in face-to-face interaction in a wide variety of settings.
First up for ALC was Chris Leyland, who presented with his former colleague, and friend of the ALC team, Professor Tim Greer (Kobe University). In their presentation ‘Physical artifacts and ‘pre-enactment’ in team-teacher planning discussions‘, Chris and Tim analysed how objects were used in lesson planning meetings between Japanese school teachers and their English language teaching assistants. This research will be published in the coming months.
A few days later, Adam Brandt and Alan Firth presented their research on ‘Material-haggling in the material world of a Bangkok bazaar‘, in which they examined video recordings of haggling in various locations in Bangkok, Thailand to demonstrate the role embodied actions and objects play when customers and vendors try to get the best deals they can. Adam and Alan will be presenting an extended version of this talk in October, as part of the Applied Linguistics Seminar Series in the School of ECLS, so watch this blog for further details!
Finally, on the last day of the conference, Alan Firth was up again, this time presenting alone (and on behalf of the absent Professor Andrea Whittle from Newcastle University Business School). Alan and Andrea’s talk – ”Strategic neutrality’ in commercial debt-collection interaction‘ – unpacked some of the strategies used by debt-collecting agents in telephone calls.
In all ways, the conference was of the highest order, with outstanding presentations from esteemed scholars (many of whom are former colleagues and students of the ALC team). A huge thanks is due to the conference organisers for putting together such an outstanding academic and social programme.
