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Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 32:1 (2022) ► pp.131–157

Framing in interactive academic talk

A conversation-analytic perspective

ORCID logo | Shanghai Maritime University
Framing involves how language users conceptualize what is happening in interaction for situated interpretation of roles, purposes, expectations, and sequences of action, thus show significant conceptual relevance to the analysis of routinized institutional communication. Having established a working definition of framing based on an intensive review of previous research, this study investigates university students’ and tutors’ framing behaviors in interactive small group talk. Two types of framing-in-interaction, -alternate framing of a single situation and co-framing within/beyond speaker role boundary-, are identified, examined, and characterized from a conversation-analytic perspective. The findings suggest that alternate framings co-occur with traceable interactional devices for sequential organization when the single situation at talk takes on divergent meaning potentials to be accessed. Co-framings happen when at least one (group) of participants is highly goal-oriented, showing conditional relevance to the prior courses of action and more explicit negotiation of epistemic stances. Framing, therefore, can be arguably taken as a global organization resource to characterize contextualization in institutional communication.
Keywords: frame, framing, contextualization, Conversation Analysis, academic talk, institutional communication
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Frame and framing in social interaction
  • 3.The study: Data and methods
  • 4.Findings and discussion
    • 4.1Alternate framings of a single situation
    • 4.2Co-framings within/beyond speaker role boundary
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 23 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.20028.pan
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