Optimizing interactional practices through recurrent participation

Résumé fourni par la source

In the previous chapters, we have uncovered three traceable sources for the two learners’ modifications of interactional practices: troubles at talk ( Chapter 3 ), guests’ turn materials ( Chapter 4 ), and other particular affordances in the infrastructure of social interaction ( Chapter 5 ). In this chapter, we turn our attention to the learners’ changes that were not linked visibly to any particular aspect of specific encounters but may be the result of their performing actions recurrently over time to achieve institutional goals: namely, successfully delivering information and making guests feel welcome. We explore how the two guest-relations officers in our data modified their (a) turn formats, (b) contribution to ongoing talk, (c) orientation to guests’ perspectives, and (d) projection of their own perspectives. We will show that over time, the novice officer fine-tuned her formulations in informings about luggage handling and the complimentary breakfast, adjusted the sequential placement of the informing about the room key’s location in in-room talk, and increased her responsiveness to the guests’ noticings of the hotel’s welcome mat as well as guest-initiated assessments of the hotel. The experienced officer, on the other hand, increased initiation in her tellings about the hotel’s history, showed more sensitivity toward guests’ perspectives in her formulations of landmarks seen from the hotel, and projected a positive stance more frequently in talk about the weather. These modifications of interactional practices indicate the officers’ increased efficiency, recipient design, and overall agency in task performance as a result of recurrent participation in the same speech-exchange system.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.