Interactional Trajectory

This refers to the directions and pace of change in the unfolding discourse interaction. For instance, the turn taken by one speaker might change the topic of the current discussion to a new topic, thus effecting a change in direction of the discourse. Another use of the term “trajectory” is linked to emotions, meaning the movement or change from one emotion to another—laughter turning to sadness, for instance. The term can be used to mean a change within one person’s utterance or across a number of speakers’ utterances. To identity the interactional trajectory of a discourse is to pay attention to its choreography and its effects.

Epistemic Modality

When a speaker makes an explicit qualification of their commitment to the truth or credibility of their own account or that given by another speaker, they are said to script “epistemic modality.” For instance, modal adjectives such as “maybe” and “probably” or modal auxiliaries such as “can,” “may,” and “must” all work up an overt note of qualification to the proposal in hand. Thus, to speak of some state of affairs as being “probably correct” projects a sense of probability over the level of correctness.

Candidate Repair

A “repair” is the term given to a linguistic correction given in an utterance. That is, one starts to say one thing, then corrects with something else. People so routinely and frequently effect linguistic repairs that they almost slip past normal notice. A candidate repair is where one speaker offers a proposed reinterpretation of what another speaker has said, which remains a “candidate” until receipted and accepted by the original speaker.

An example of the intricacies of this type of interaction can be seen in Extract 1, from Company A, just over ten minutes into the meeting. The chair is closing one topic, in preparation for another. He has fielded several questions directly to one contributor (John), followed by an “open floor” invitation that is initially responded to by John, then others, the last of which opens this extract.

In Lines 88–90, the chair makes arrangements to engage with Sam at an unspecified future date. Topic closing sequences have been shown to typically contain such follow up plans (Svennevig, 2012b). The chair, then, can be seen to be signaling a topic transition. However the business is shown to be incomplete in Sam’s turn (Lines 93–94), which initiates immediately following the chair’s nonlexical noise. Contrast his reference to future plans (“I will”) with the chair’s use of the modal adverb “probably” (Line 90): the latter conjures epistemic modality that, according to researchers Petra Sneijder and her colleague, displays “…the speaker’s assessment of probability and predictability” (2005: 678). Further analysis suggests that this “probability” is interpreted by Sam as not only referring to future arrangements but also to a question mark over the value of what Sam has to impart.

Sam’s turns (Lines 93–94, 96–98) can be seen as “filling in” vague probability on future arrangements. He is working to establish the publicly available value of his future account, effecting a candidate repair (face-saving) to an unsatisfactorily left state of affairs that, if left unattended, might represent a risk—albeit a mild one—to his reputation. In this sense, Sam orients to reputation as a live issue, which is understood to be a context of identity work. The chair’s repeated “OK” in Line 95 serves to both receipt and confirm (Rautajoki, 2012) Sam’s reformulation of future plans and report values, reinvoking topic closure. However, Sam disallows topic closure (Lines 96–98), displaying his desire for a more explicit response from the chair.

The reputational face-saving now becomes mutually done with matching humor (Lines 98–99), which is elsewhere shown to influence social cohesion and group solidarity (Greatbatch, 2009). The chair’s direct orientation to Sam’s contrast structure (“same,” “different”: Lines 96–97) scripts ratification (Hepburn and Wiggins, 2005), strengthening what Sam has said with the upgrade “world” (Potter, 1998a). Sam signals consensus with the chair’s reformulation of his contribution with reciprocated humor (Lines 100–101). Jonathan Potter and his coworker’s case study of an institutional meeting notes how “…laughter and humour can be used to ‘soften’ troubling or critical actions” (2010: 60): in this instance, it works to smooth the reputational face-saving actions. Later on in this chapter, we come across a different analysis of the function of humor in organizational meetings. The interaction is thus shown to be a complex and delicate, collaboratively accomplished management of mutual stake and interest.

With a final evaluation of the preceding exchange as being “cool,” invoking a satisfactory conclusion to the topic, the chair moves into a more explicit topic winding down sequence (Lines 102–104). Despite no response to his call for any “new ones,” the chair scripts the collaborative nature of the meeting interaction in still not being in a position to bring about topic closure, instead seeking consensus on the matter (Line 105). His choreographed reluctance to use his authority as chair to move the meeting on becomes clear with the interruption from John (Lines 106–115), suggesting interruptions are consistent to the meeting’s “business as usual.” John, nonetheless, orients to his breech of the chair’s attempts to effect closure with an apology (Line 107), which could be seen as both justifying the interruption and heading off rejection (Potter and Wetherell, 1987), but the real stake management work (Silverman, 2007) is done in John’s subsequent report.

The display of searching (Potter, 1998a) in Line 109 emphasizes the just recalled nature of the account given, indexing the need for accuracy. The function and consequence of this action is different to that seen in a previous account given an actor (Steve: Extract 1, Chapter 12) where the display of searching was linked to an indecision over what topic to begin the meeting with. Similar actions by different speakers can work with variable effect and outcome. Note how John hedges his claims with “pretty much,” “I think,” “if you,” and “should get” (Lines 111–117): these have exactly the opposite effect to Jonathan Clifton’s (2012a) “declarative assertions,” which work up states of affairs as concrete reality. Thus, while he is delivering welcome news in Line 117 in predicting a new contract, the entire claim is made contingent on three of its features: the client, the proposal to be written, and the temporal factors, two of which he has no control over. According to Linda Wood and her coresearcher (2000), hedging is a negative politeness strategy that has the function of constructing statements as provisional, which are particularly noticeable in actions of stake management.

Matching Humor

Displays of matching humor or laughter (e.g., two speakers simultaneously, or in close proximity, laugh or giggle as joint action) are shown to display interpersonal affiliation or rapport. That is, such actions represent ways of displaying alignment with what a speaker has said, for instance. These matching actions have collaborative function.

Stake Inoculation

A speaker’s private or personal desires (their personal agenda) can operate crucially in establishing or violating versions of events (accounts). To suggest that someone has a vested interest in the claims they have made is to potentially discredit those claims: the “well he would say that wouldn’t he” accusation made so famous by Mandy Rice-Davies! Consequently, people routinely and mostly unconsciously work to couch their versions and accounts as “disinterested,” as separate from their own personal agenda—this is stake inoculation.

In this way, John inoculates his stake (Wetherell, 2001 ), not so much against potential accusation of having a vested interest in his account, but more rising from his tacitly displayed understanding that future events may not transpire as he predicts. That is, there is a risk that things might not turn out as he hopes. The chair receipts this with a positive token, accepting the contingent nature of the claim, with a move to close the topic and his rising intonation in Line 119 sounding a note of finality. Further interpretation of this interaction would suggest that, similarly to the earlier collaborative work between the chair and Sam, here both actors are orienting to and delicately comanaging the potential risk of accepting “welcome news” at face value.

A second tacitly understood group norm is introduced by the chairs at the outset of both meetings, and this is particularly important in respect of the research focus: “risk,” “high stakes,” and “truth telling.” In the following analysis, the influencing role of this context starts to unfold.

Contextually Situated

For something to be “situated,” it is seen as located or embedded in some phenomenon: an utterance can be contextually situated, for instance, in its orientation to the given context of the situation in which the discourse takes place. An utterance can be “culturally situated” in, for instance, the use of shifts in footing (position/role/identity) according to the cultural context.

Temporal Deixis

Deixis is the term given to markers of reference, and these can be temporal (e.g., “now”), proximal (e.g., “on the spot”), or distal (e.g., “over there”). The important point to note about deixis is that their meaning (for speakers) depends on the context in which they are uttered. Hence, they depend on speakers’ shared understanding of context or experience of events. So, for example, if one speaker said, “he’s not coming until after 9’ to another in an evening context,” they might both understand that this can be understood as being inconveniently late; contrastingly, if the same utterance was made in the context of the morning, it might be collaboratively understood to be convenient in locating the prospective visit after the business of breakfast and so forth.

Why does financial accounting invoke contexts of high stakes and risk? From an observational point of view, it is suggested that foregrounding an account of finances foregrounds the financial health of the firms as contingent on the sales teams’ activities. In constructing reports of financial status, the chairs effectively script participants’ reports as accountable with a mandate for truth and accuracy, which have direct consequence to the organization’s economic success. The present analysis shows how participants orient to this context in their reports. As participants formulate accounts, they employ a range of rhetorical practices to construct selves as knowledgeable and accounts as factual, objective and unbiased by self-interest or motivation. Such actions work as a fundamental layer of management of stake and interest (Sneijder and te Molder, 2005). That is, speakers routinely inoculate descriptions against alternative or counter versions, for instance, or criticism (Abell and Stokoe, 2001). In the previous discussions around trust, the actions of invoking epistemic superiority (Clifton, 2012a) and authenticity are frequently displayed as rhetorical strategies for factualizing and concretizing accounts. In the present analysis, we see speakers accomplishing a slightly different set of strategies in their scripting of accounts as authentic, acceptable, and therefore trustworthy in what they themselves construct as a high-stakes context.

Constructing Consensus

Speakers can construct the consensus of others in many different ways, perhaps the most obvious of which is to use the inclusive pronoun “let’s.” Invoking consensus also serves as a way of describing some state of affairs as common knowledge to others, thus warranting its truth. If everyone thinks “x” is the case, then it must be true. Such actions can be explicit or implicit.

Evaluative Expressions

As a discourse analysis term, this has its origins in the English Philosopher John Austin’s influential book, How to do things with words, published in 1962. Evaluative expressions come in two types: justifications and excuses. The latter involves admitting something but offered with extenuating or influencing circumstances, while the former involves no denial of responsibility. In a wider understanding, phrases are said to be evaluative expressions or inferences when they invoke some property not explicitly included in the phrase itself. One example of this would be to describe how people come and go at all hours of the day and night from a particular house in a street, in which the context of the utterance might suggest that the resident is dealing in drugs, for instance. At their basic level, these expressions make plain a speaker’s sense of entitlement to express an opinion on some topic.

Turn Transition

A turn or topic transition is simply the point in the discourse that affords an opportunity for a different speaker to take up a turn or for a new topic to be introduced. Transition points are typically signaled by markers such as pauses by the current speaker, or nonlexical terms, or the clearly described closure of a topic.

Keeping the eye on the present line of inquiry, the “high-stakes” work is done by implicating the collective participants in the business of establishing financial position for this month (Lines 8–11) and the year’s end (Lines 16–17). The vivid level of detail afforded in John’s account, including the reference to moving money, works as fact construction (Edwards and Potter, 1992) and as a warrant for the truth of the given version, which is evaluated as “probably prudent” (Line 15), with the search for the “truer picture” made explicit in Line 16. Here, the use of “probably” works to distance John as the agent from the probability of the claim (Myers, 1989) should future events transpire otherwise, thus attending to accountability. Sally Wiggins and her colleague (2003), at the UK’s Loughborough University, propose that evaluative expressions serve to work up the speaker’s entitlement to express an opinion, and from this perspective, John can be heard as scripting not just the money move as being “probably prudent,” but reflexively himself too. The high-stakes nature—and prudence—of the enterprise is further strengthened by John’s account being laden with “hedging” (Rasmussen, 2010) over the probability of events (“should put,” “about the same,” “I think,” “probably prudent”) and laced with discourse of accuracy and truth with their connotations of authenticity and trustworthiness (Lines 15–16).

In these actions, then, John raises the importance of accuracy, truth, and caution as foregrounded contexts to the subsequent meeting. When such matters are constructed as live to the enfolding discourse, what is also implicitly constructed is the opposite—inaccuracy, lies, recklessness—and all its associated risks. What happens next is intriguing.

Brian gives a subdued token of agreement (Edwards and Potter, 1992) to John’s initial report (Line 18). John’s reaction is to verbally identify the speaker (obviously dialing in and not visible to all participants). He could have simply ignored Brian’s “yeah” and cough—no one would have been the wiser. But here, he reformulates Brian’s token with an extreme case formulation (Abell and Stokoe, 2001): “violent agreement.” One of the effects of such formulations is to “up the ante” and the accuracy of a claim (Edwards and Potter). However, here, it works up irony (contrast this with Ian Hutchby’s, 2011, “skeptical rejoinder,” which serves to dismiss accounts), implicating an invitation bordering on demand for an explanation. Brian’s token turn cannot be ignored, and he is thus held accountable. This conjures John’s awareness of accountability for his previous turn, as well as indexing his concerns with truth—trustworthy knowledge. Thus, John arguably interprets Brian’s turn as working up doubt over John’s description of affairs, as a challenge to its authenticity that must be resolved.

Understood in this way, John constructs the latter’s turn as a competency challenge (Hutchby, 2011). By casting Brian in the role of violently agreeing, raising connotations of Brian’s personal stake and interest in the affairs being reported, John neatly and reflexively indexes his own concerns with objectivity, thus working to protect his own stake (Edwards and Potter, 2005). Note also John’s laughter preface (Line 20) to his account of “violently agreeing”: unlike the example seen earlier, here, laughter orients to a potential problem with Brian’s brief response. Thus, John is scripting a call to account and the next turn would be normatively taken by Brian in response.

John makes a turn transition opportunity available to Brian (Line 22) with a pause after “previous report,” which Brian does not take up, in contrast to expectations. John proceeds with a topic closing token (“Good stuff”) and a brief display of searching (Potter, 1998a) for the next topic item (“ummm”).

An alternative interpretation might suggest that this “pause” works up a second turn transition opportunity: the topic has been insufficiently reported due to Brian’s lack of contribution. Robin Wooffitt offers a good discussion and explanation of turns and how speakers “…orient to, and display to each other in the design of their turns, what they understand to be the salient features of their context” (2005: 64). Thus, John has issued a call to account, making a turn transition opportunity available, which is not taken: John then creates a second opportunity through his delaying tactic, and this time Brian responds. Consequently, we can suggest that Brian effectively displays his orientation to this particular interpretation as it is at this point that he finally takes up a turn. Moreover, Brian displays his tacit knowing of the meeting’s concerns with accuracy and knowledge to be trusted with his account of “what has been done,” which he scripts as “positive” (Line 22), effecting a contrast to John’s description of “probably prudent.” Brian, in other words, displays his orientation to a need to offer a clearer and more positive picture than that reported by John, with his delayed and hesitant utterance conjuring troubles with John’s preceding account—particularly its precision (see Paul Drew, 2003b, for a fascinating analysis of precision in discourse).

Although he appears to repeat the account made by John, there is a subtle but significant difference. While John’s version of affairs is hedged with contingencies, Brian’s is assertive and shown to be accountable by the issuing of a warrant (Silverman, 2007) in the form of a conditional structure (Potter and Wetherell, 1987): “if I move … (then) it can only be …” (Lines 26–28). Thus, the account is pragmatically occasioned (Edwards and Potter, 1992) and conditional. Brian rescripts the state of affairs, orienting to his knowledge of cause and effect (Chilton, 2004), which is privileged to him and only him but which he has shared in a display of willingness and concerns for accuracy. In so doing, he upgrades the “probably prudent” evaluation to an undoubtedly (“it can only be a good thing”) prudent one. John effectively issues a concession marker (Wood and Kroger, 2000) in Line 30, conceding to the evidence introduced by his colleague: he upgrades his previous evaluation in Line 22 to “So all good stuff,” which also works to presignal the forthcoming topic closing sequence, marking the topic as adequately covered (Lines 31–32).

Pragmatically Occasioned

An utterance is said to be pragmatically occasioned when it is clearly driven and influenced by a speaker’s personal interest (their agenda).

Concession Marker

Concession markers are words or phrases that concede evidence in some way, with examples including “granted that XYZ,” “XYZ fair enough …,” “XYZ can or could be the case ….”

If this is to be shown as a valid analysis of the data from both meetings, accounts given by other meeting participants should orient to similar concerns with truth and accuracy, and an understood context of high stakes, through their turns. Derek Edwards and Jonathan Potter (1992 ) show how two discursive strategies, narrative and consensus–corroboration, routinely work to formulate accounts as factual. This is shown in the next extract.

Minimal (or Nonlexical) Continuer

Continuers, which typically include utterances such as “hmmm” or “mmm,” signal to the current speaker, or the speaker who has just offered a turn transition, that they should continue with their account or report. Thus, these act like “permits,” in giving permission to another speaker to carry on or to take up another turn.

In contrast to the precise narrative work done in her first turn part, Ann now searches for something more to say (“uuum yeh”), finally resorting to what might be described as stating the obvious—the imperative to “just keep going” (Lines 251–252). This combination scripts a classic “doubt marker” conjuring the conditional status of the statement (Wooffitt, 2007 ): it acts like a sort of “watch this space.” Again, the chair gives a minimal receipt, standing in for a second call for further elaboration. Arguably, Anne indexes to the upbeat tone with a further expansion turn formulating a more positive evaluation: “we are having some success,” which is scripted as being tentatively cautious, but obvious, and therefore beyond criticism or doubt.

Ann’s work to effect a warrant (in “having some success”), combined with her earlier account of difficulties to be overcome in a particular way, is tacitly endorsed as a “direction of travel” in the chair’s call for “more” (Lines 257–258). It could also be interpreted as an admonishment to Anne that she needs to do more, that enough is not being done. However, in the context of risk, high stakes, and truth telling in general and the trajectory (“yup,” “yep!,” “Indeed!”) of the chair’s turns in this extract, a more plausible explanation is the chair orienting to endorsement and motivation and that having “more” will not be such a big task or challenge, with “just” doing the downgrading work (Abell and Stokoe, 2001).

According to Derek Edwards and his colleague (1992), narrative accounting scripts claims as more plausible, and factual. The narrative construction here has the effect of bolstering the authenticity of the claim, thus orienting to the tacit understanding of the need for truth telling. This reflexively also has the effect of scripting avoidance of overstated or exaggerated claims, which could run the risk of being shown by subsequent events to have been issued as unwarranted claims. The discursive effect is similar to Petra Sneijder and her colleague’s study of participants in an online veganism forum who are shown to use modal constructions (e.g., “certainly,” “in my opinion”), which, they argue, “… allows speakers to display a concern for saying no more than they can be sure of, thus enhancing the trustworthiness of their accounts” (2005: 675). We will see an interesting contrast to this in Extract 6.

Ann’s consensus–corroboration work accomplishes further “truth-telling” actions and particularly orients to the high-stakes nature of the business in effectively “sharing” the risk among colleagues. For instance, in Lines 242 and 243, Ann’s own account of what needs to be done is obvious to “we”—her colleagues. Also, it is not just her that is going to meet the hiring managers, it is also Tom, which has the effect of calling a witness.

Extract 5 shows how participants in Company A interpret events: but do they orient to concerns with truth and accuracy? This extract comes just before midway through the meeting as part of the meeting agenda item “presentations” and follows a fairly extended two-way positively themed conversation between the chair and John with limited input from anyone else.

There is a slightly accusatory note in the chair’s call to Mark to provide an account: there is no date in his list, and this, combined with his account of being absent the previous week (given earlier in the meeting), leaves him in the position of not knowing, which he constructs as an unsatisfactory version of affairs. Mark orients to the discrepancy with a hesitant start before delivering his account (Lines 175–181). The first part indexes the discrepancy over the missing date with a mitigating (Abell and Stokoe, 2001 ) description of affairs: the date was for the previous week, but the client postponed (as opposed to canceled) with the warrant that they (the client) will be in touch this week with a new date. He emphasizes “this,” which upgrades the veracity of the account, neatly erasing his accountability for the lack of meeting and date. The final part of his account (Lines 179–181) works to upgrade the news value by issuing new information (change of meeting location), which Mark positively evaluates as “good.” The action of delivering this evaluation—with its potential to be called into question—displays his expectation that the chair and others are sufficiently knowledgeable (Svennevig, 2012b) of the meaning of the change of venue to concur with his evaluation. He is, in other words, orienting to the knowledge held by other group members.

The account and warrant are receipted by the chair with a nonlexical minimal utterance. Mark does not actually pause in his account, but continues across the chair’s turn (Line 182). The chair’s utterance in Line 182 can be interpreted in either of two ways: first, it could be understood as a “minimal continuer” (Wooffitt, 2007), as a sanction for further clarification, or it could be interpreted as a skeptical rejoinder (Hutchby, 2011). In both Mark’s continuation of his account and in the marked rise in tone in the chair’s “mm↑m” (Hutchby), it is shown to be mutually understood as agreement for further elaboration.

Mark’s turn and that of the chair in Lines 185 to 188 work as contrasting descriptions (Hepburn and Wiggins, 2005). Mark orients to his previous account of a new date being issued this week, and the currently incomplete list, with a firming up of his belief in his prediction—he will issue the date when it “comes through,” thus working up his version as authentic and trustworthy—and accurate. This is slightly risky in that future events might show him to be wrong about the date: he is laying himself open to future criticism. It also reflexively indexes his role in managing client action, which is a running theme to both meetings. Clients do not fall out of trees: it is the job of the sales and marketing team to find clients and business opportunities and manage these into effect. Mark’s account at this point could also be heard as a further apology for the missing date, with an affirmation that this will be rectified.

The chair’s turn effectively works as a repair in the sense of orienting to Mark’s account confirmation but working to downgrade (Abell and Stokoe, 2001) potential future credibility problems by receipting the report with “ok-I’ll ju.” He will “still keep” Mark’s meeting on the list but placed at the bottom and marked with a “TBD.” Thus, it is the chair who works to remove risk to Mark’s accountability through the construction of a hedge on the probability of future events. Truth, accuracy, and the potential for risk are consequently shown to be live concerns that are constructed and oriented to interactionally.

Collateral Information

This refers to a rich situated or contextual description that is used to evidence the factuality of an account. These expressions offer a vivid and graphic account of a believable state of affairs.

Taken as a whole, it is proposed that Mark orients to the lack of substance in the actual report of business opportunity. His vivid narrative accounting, shown to be explicitly theatrical, combined with factual accounting accomplished through for instance quantification rhetoric, works to obscure this lack. It can be conjectured that if asked subsequently about Mark’s account, what hearers would recall would be the “herd of PhDs,” not the announcement of a potential business partnership opportunity. One could further speculate that it is the narrative accounting, as a form of “collateral information” (Edwards and Potter, 1992 ) that is doing the real “uber authenticating” work, serving to cloud a report that is otherwise risky in its potential to lead to nothing more than talking. The practice of vivid accounting, and emphasis on accuracy and authenticity, as a strategy for masking difficulties is reported in studies of courtroom discourse (e.g., Locke and Edwards, 2003), and other forms of testimony.