Writing in task-based multiparty settings is a collaborative and multimodal process where the social and material environment intertwine (Magnusson, 2021; Mondada & Svinhufvud, 2016). It involves using objects (i.e., writing utensils) and, typically, one person enacting as a composer. Collaborative writing has been found complex due to participants' differing rights and responsibilities that are constantly negotiated during the writing activity. However, little is known about the practices for coordinating writing in on-site and video-mediated professional training.

Drawing on data from crisis management training, we take an EMCA approach to examine the joint accomplishment of writing in two different contexts: 1) field training, which involves report writing as part of vehicle patrolling and 2) online training, where participants collaboratively work on a PowerPoint presentation. In both examined training settings, collaborative work and producing texts together based on either joint observations or jointly processed material is an important underpinning for the organization of the interaction and an emblematic part of the training. Our analysis shows the affordances of these training settings for collaborative writing and how team members in charge of the writing equipment include or involve others in their projects. We also discuss how the socio-material environment and access to the writing activity influence the temporal and sequential organization of the joint activity.

Magnusson, S. (2021). Establishing jointness in proximal multiparty decision-making: The case of collaborative writing. Journal of Pragmatics 181, 32-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.05.003

Mondada, L. & Svinhufvud, K. (2016). Writing-in-interaction: Studying writing as a multimodal phenomenon in social interaction. Language and Dialogue 6(1). 1–53. https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.6.1.01mon

Mediation is a non-adversarial, alternative approach to conflict resolution, widely used in resolving minor crime and civil disputes in Finland. As a distinct form of institutional interaction, mediation has been the focus of numerous studies that examine various aspects of its interactional structure—for instance, how mediators maintain neutrality or which strategies for problem-solving interactants employ (Heisterkamp 2006; Bush 2013).
This study investigates the relevance rules that shape the interactional practices typical of mediation meetings. More specifically, it aims to explore the kinds of conduct that participants themselves consider as violations of these rules—in other words, behaviour for which they hold each other interactionally accountable (cf. Robinson 2016).
The study employs conversation analysis and interactional linguistics (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting 2018; Kim 2016) to study how disputants tell in detail about the events preceding the conflict. These tellings, realized as extended monologues, represent certain conduct as being accountable. Striving to provide sufficient explanation for own and co-disputants’ actions, participants systematically make use of certain linguistic resources, such as necessive structures and consecutive clauses. To analyze these linguistic resources presenting actions or events as accountable in extended turns by a single speaker, the study makes use of other tools in addition to sequential analysis, namely, construction grammar and metapragmatics (e.g. Verschueren 2000). This combined methodological approach enables a detailed examination of the specific linguistic resources used in interaction by which participants display orientations to relevance rules and accountability. The data consists of video-recorded mediation sessions in Finnish.

This presentation outlines a study with the aim to clarify how military identity and culture are reproduced and negotiated on the micro-level in interaction between officers and conscripts in the Swedish Armed Forces. The Swedish Armed Forces is a highly hierarchical institution that values uniformity, discipline and obedience, and a military identity is characterized by stress tolerance, group orientation and a strong work ethic (Stalpe 2018; Grimell 2024; Beder 2012). A key institutional aspect is the military language, which serves to efficiently manage large, complex units (Ben-Ari 1998:11), and is institutionally regulated both lexically and multimodally. The study undertaken investigates the interaction between officers and newly enlisted conscripts to analyze how the military values are reproduced and negotiated through the military language used in the daily routines.

The data was collected ethnographically within a conscript group, and consists of video recordings of institutional interactions between conscripts and their officers in the Swedish Armed Forces. The study investigates multimodal interaction from a conversation analytic perspective (Broth & Keevallik 2020) to highlight the interactional work from an emic perspective.

Initial results indicate that the asymmetry in the interaction is stated and reinforced through the military language, and the officers´ epistemic and deontic stance and status are used as resources that bridges the transmission of the military culture and identity. The military language use creates an atypical interactional order compared to everyday communication, evident in turn-taking and in the structure of speech acts, reinforcing the military discipline and obedience.

References
Beder, J. (2012). Advances in social work practice with the military. Routledge.
Ben-Ari, E. (1998). Mastering soldiers: Conflict, emotions, and the enemy in an Israeli military unit (Vol. 10). Berghahn Books.
Broth, M., & Keevallik, L. (2020). Multimodal interaktionsanalys. Studentlitteratur AB.
Grimell, J. (2024). You can take a person out of the military, but you can’t take the military out of the person: Findings from a ten-year identity study on transition from military to civilian life. Frontiers in Sociology, 9, 1406710.
Stalpe, J. (2018). Att tänka nytt och pröva nya idéer inom Försvarsmakten.

In this presentation we discuss our analysis of an online discussion about a municipal decision in the Netherlands allowing Community Service Officers to wear religious symbols on duty. We designed a search string in monitoring tool Spottler to collect messages posted in a demarcated period following this decision.

To analyze the data, we used the perspective of discursive psychology which focuses on the way language is used to perform social actions and construct versions of reality (Edwards & Potter, 2001). During the iterative process of analysis, we became interested in the specific technical affordance of a quoting mechanism in which X-posts are quoted and commented on. In comments to quotes, participants did not merely agree with the original posts, but rather demonstrated their epistemic rights to the issue, and constructed their opinions as independent (Heritage & Raymond, 2005; Sneijder & Te Molder, 2006). Moreover, participants using this mechanism intensified the message of the original post by using different discursive devices such as extreme case formulations and elaborations.

Our findings add to the discursive psychological understandings of identity construction in a society where social media is increasingly important. This understanding supports communication professionals in designing responses while taking into consideration the identity constructed by posters as having independent epistemic access. Moreover, the intensification of the message of the original posts may contribute to issue formation in a broader sense and may help professionals to notice these mechanisms and enhance dialogue in an early stage (Strauß & Jonkman, 2017).

During the last two decades, podcasting has become an increasingly popular way to broadcast various content. Here, we focus on private conversational podcasts, consisting of two or several persons having a conversation. Thanks to podcasts, there are much conversational data already produced that we could use for research in Interactional Linguistics (cf. Couper-Kuhlen & Selting 2018).

In our presentation, we discuss what to consider when using podcast data in Interactional Linguistics. More specifically, we discuss how participants are 'doing podcasting'. We use podcast data from our own studies of word order variation (e.g. Strandberg 2024) and pragmatic borrowings from English in Finland-Swedish (e.g. Huhtamäki, ongoing) and perform sequential analyses of this data.

Our analyses show that podcasters orient in many ways to an overhearing audience. This may take the form of planned turn-taking, greeting and saying goodbye to the listeners, explaining things to the listeners, and engaging with the listeners by questions and requests. Podcast interaction is thus staged interaction, much like radio and television conversations (cf. Nylund 2000), but the listeners have more possibilities to affect the interaction in podcasts. Consequently, we have to treat podcast conversations not as everyday interactions but as institutional interactions in their own right and with their own characteristics.

References

Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Margret Selting 2018. Interactional Linguistics. Studying Language in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Huhtamäki, Martina, ongoing. Pragmatic borrowings from English in Finland-Swedish podcast interactions.

Nylund, Mats 2000. Iscensatt interaktion. Strukturer och strategier i politiska samtal. Helsinki: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland.

Strandberg, Viktoria 2024. Varför V3 nu? Temporala och konditionala bisatser som fria initiala annex. Språk och interaktion 6(1).

Podcasting and podcast listening have evolved into activities with significant social impact potential. According to Spotify (2024:4), 42% of Swedes listen to podcasts at least once a week, and more than half of the listeners feel such a strong sense of community with the podcasters that they consider them friends (Acast 2024).
This CA-based study of 40 Swedish conversational podcasts aims to identify how Swedish podcasters create interactional intimacy and achieve an intimate public, defined as “a porous, affective scene of identification among strangers” (Berlant 2020:viii). The podcast medium's capacity to foster a ‘hyper-intimacy’ (Berry 2016) between participants and listeners – linked to individual and mobile listening, technological accessibility, and the content and format of the podcasts – has been cited as a reason for its growing popularity (Berry 2016; Swiatek 2018; Spinelli & Dann 2019). This study aligns with Euritt’s (2023) perspective of podcast intimacy as socially constructed discourses rather than an inherent quality of the medium. The analysis builds on two of Adler Berg’s (2023) analytical parameters: intimacy in what is said (e.g. topics’ breadth and sensitivity, subjective or personal information) and in how it is said (e.g. non-lexical vocalisations).
Preliminary findings suggest that regardless of the podcast's focus (e.g. sports, humour), podcasters share their experiences of pleasures and pains using similar emotional wording and non-lexical vocalisations. However, differences in emotional intensity seem to be closely related to the participants' perception of their target audience, as expressed through epistemic presuppositions and frames of reference.

References
Acast (2024). Podcasting trends in established vs. emerging markets: Acast's global report for international podcast day - September 30th, 2024. Acast.
Adler Berg, F. S. (2023). Analysing podcast intimacy: Four parameters. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies [Advance online publication]. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231220547
Berlant, L. (2020). The female complaint: The unfinished business of sentimentality in American culture. Duke University Press.
Berry, R. (2016). Part of the establishment: Reflecting on 10 years of podcasting as an audio medium. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 22(6), pp. 661-671.
Euritt, A. (2023). Podcasting as an intimate medium. London: Routledge.
Spinelli, M. & Dann, L. (2019). Podcasting: The audio media revolution. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Spotify (2024). Poddrapporten 2024. Spotify.
Swiatek, L. (2018). The podcast as an intimate bridging medium. In Llinares, D., Fox, N. & Berry, R. (eds.) Podcasting: New aural cultures and digital media. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 173-187.