Exempel på process: Samkonstruerad interaktion

Inom projektet har vi på olika sätt arbetat med att definiera "bra interaktion". Från att inledningsvis har varit ganska styrda av skolkontexten i sig landade vi till slut i att tillämpa konceptet interaktionell kompetens, där interaktion i mångt och mycket definieras i termer av sociala handlingar. Vi får inte visa filmerna från vår datainsamling, men med hjälp av samtalsanalys och detaljerade transkript får ni en möjlighet att följa några av elevgruppernas samkonstruerade interaktion. I transkripten används olika tecken och symboler för att beskriva hur tal och rörelser utförs. Dessa tecken och symboler finns beskrivna i en transkriptionsnyckel. 

Good interaction

When we designed our tasks, our goal was to get our students to talk to one another and engage in “good interaction”. But what do we mean by that? We envisioned a process where the participants in interaction act as engaged conversationalists, who speak, listen to one another, and build on each other’s turns. That is, good interaction means collaborative, co-constructed interaction (i.e., a dialogue rather than a monologue). At the same time, we shouldn’t forget that, when participants talk, they accomplish social actions (see interactional competence). So “good interaction” also has to do with the ability to produce social actions that our coparticipants can recognize and therefore respond to in meaningful ways. To illustrate this, we will look at two examples.

Excerpt 1

Excerpt 1 is extracted from the Excavation task, which was implemented in an English 5 class (first year of upper secondary school). Here Sam and Frida (all names are pseudonyms) are starting to develop the first ideas about how the person ended up in the cave.   

In line 1 Sam touches the card with a picture of sunglasses and proposes the first storyline: the person was wearing this (i.e., the sunglasses). In line 2, Frida produces an acknowledgement token (yeah); with her action, she shows to Sam that she has been listening and that she (potentially) agrees with his proposal (a yeah is a rather mild claim of agreement). After a very short pause (line 3), both participants start talking at the same time. This is something that can happen and it doesn’t mean that the participants are interrupting one another. Simply put, after a silence, two participants might take the floor exactly at the same time. The result is an overlap (simultaneous talk).

Social actions in Excerpt 1

Now, which actions are they accomplishing with their turns? In line 4, Sam clarifies that he is referring to glasses (in line 1 he didn’t say “sunglasses”; he said this). At the same time, in line 5, Frida specifies Sam’s proposal: the glasses were not simply on him (see Sam in line 1); they were actually on his face. Finally, in line 6 Sam further elaborates on the storyline through an account: if the person was wearing sunglasses, then it must have been a sunny day. Frida accepts Sam’s proposal in line 7. 

The analysis of Excerpt 1 shows that the participants accomplish various actions, such as proposals, mild agreements indicated by acknowledgement tokens (lines 2 and 7), clarifications (line 4), elaborations (line 5), and accounts (line 6). Their actions show that they are closely listening to one another, as each of their turns responds to or builds on what was said before. In other words, their interaction is collaboratively co-constructed.

Excerpt 2

Excerpt 2 is also extracted from the Excavation task. Here Adrian and Hans are discussing an apparent incongruity between the picture of the kiwi (which looks fresh) and the scenario suggested by the instructions. Indeed, in their collaborative imagining (Murphy, 2005) of how the person ended up in the cave, Adrian and Hans suggest that the person died in the cave a long time ago and the person’s body was found later on during an excavation.  

In line 1 Hans initiates a lengthy account for their line of reasoning. He sets the scene by inviting Adrian to imagine what happens in the vicinity of a dead body. After a fairly long pause (0.5 seconds), both Adrian and Hans start talking at the same time and find themselves in overlap (see what happened in lines 4-5 in Excerpt 1). Adrian’s action is accomplished with a very short turn: his yeah (line 2) accepts the invitation to imagine a dead body. In his turn, Hans elaborates on his account: spiders and ants would appear next to a corpse (line 4). The delivery of Hans’s turn suggests that he is producing a list: he starts with you see::: spiders, with listing intonation (indicated by the comma) and, after saying a::nts (line 4), he produces and (line 5). However, he doesn’t immediately come up with the third item in the list, as indicated by the 1.3 seconds silence in line 5. At this point, Adrian indicates that he has been following the line of reasoning anyway, even if the list is incomplete; he does so by saying yeah (line 6). However, exactly at the same time, Hans starts completing the list by saying all kinds of (line 5).

What we start to see here is an apparent misalignment between Hans’s and Adrian’s actions; that is, Hans orients to completing the list (see all kinds of in line 5 and animals in line 8), while Adrian treats Hans’s action in line 4 as complete and understandable by producing acknowledgement tokens (lines 6 and 7) and by elaborating on Hans’s account (line 7), as he specifies that spiders and ants would eat a kiwi. Hans then agrees with Adrian’s elaboration (they would e:h definitely eat it, line 8; note the use of definitely here, which upgrades the repetition of Adrian’s turn in line 7 to a strong agreement). Note that Hans says it while touching the kiwi card; so again, as we noticed in line 1 in Excerpt 1, we see how the embodied action of touching a card clarifies what participants are referring to in their talk.

Finally, Hans produces an assessment of the visual appearance of the kiwi on the card (it looks like it’s brand new or, line 11) as he inspects the picture. With this action, he makes the incongruity explicit: next to a dead body, various animals would appear, animals which – in turn – would eat a kiwi; instead, the kiwi on the card looks fresh, untouched. As you might have noticed, Adrian doesn’t quite complete his turn; in fact, he says brand new or. The or projects an alternative evaluation term, which is provided by Adrian with tasty (line 12). Hans confirms with yeah in line 13. We can then say that this assessment is collaboratively co-constructed by the two participants.

Social actions in Excerpt 2

Overall then, as we have seen in Excerpt 1, various actions are accomplished by the participants, who build on each other’s turns to co-construct an account for their line of reasoning, which exposes the incongruity between the fresh-looking kiwi as it appears on the card and their interpretation of the instructions’ scenario. Active listenership is displayed in various ways: through the use of acknowledgement tokens (lines 6-7), elaborations on the emerging account (line 7), full-fledged agreements (line 9), and confirmations (line 13).

Co-constructed and collaborative interaction

The analysis of these two excerpts shows that these students were interactionally competent (see lnteractional competence) in that they managed to produce recognizable social actions (e.g., proposals, accounts, etc.) and to respond to those actions in meaningful ways (e.g., through mild or strong agreements, through elaborations on the previous turn, etc.), thereby displaying their active listenership. Their interaction can therefore be described as highly collaborative and co-constructed, as they truly engaged in a dialogue with one another.