Inaugural lectures
Wednesday 21st March, 2012 at 5pm – Lecture Theatre SMB.0.14 (Stewart Mason Building)
The Systematics of Social Interaction
Professor Elizabeth Stokoe, Social Sciences Department
Everything we do in our daily lives is accomplished through social interaction: in the initiation, maintenance and negotiation of our personal and public relationships; in domestic and institutional settings. Contrary to the presumed ‘messiness’ of talk, researchers have shown that social interaction is highly organised in systematic ways.
Actions like questions, offers, assessments, or compliments are organised in ways that have important implications for understanding everything from complaining about a neighbour and assessing a classroom task, to saying no to offers of help and flirting with a potential new partner.
In this lecture, Professor Stokoe will present findings about the systematics of social interaction from her own work, drawing on audio and video-recordings from settings including student tutorials, romantic dating, police interrogations, and neighbour dispute mediation.
She will show how she has developed these findings into practical applications in the world of communication skills training. Finally, she will argue that applications grounded in social interactional work can address ‘the impact agenda’ in higher education without compromising epistemic and academic integrity.
Please be aware this lecture is now fully booked.