Macquarie Linguistics Conversation Analysis Lab

The Macquarie Linguistics Conversation Analysis Lab facilitates and hosts scholarly activities relevant for Conversation Analysis, such as data sessions and seminars. Its members and affiliates include researchers in Sydney, Australia, using Conversation Analysis. The Macquarie Linguistics Conversation Analysis Lab was preceded by the group Conversation Analysis in Sydney.

Conversation Analysis research explores the moment-by-moment organisation of human interaction. Over the last 50 years, conversation analysts have generated new knowledge on the ways that people use language and other semiotic resources (e.g., gesture, gaze, objects) to regulate their interactions. The interactional systems described by conversation analysts are an important form of infrastructure for human social life. Conversation Analysis research has, therefore, been influential for recent theoretical and methodological developments in research on language, cognition, and social organisation, and generated the field of Interactional Linguistics.

The Macquarie Linguistics Conversation Analysis Lab aims to better understand the relationships between the infrastructure of social interaction and  linguistic diversity. Many of our members conduct research in on informal face-to-face conversations conducted in a variety of languages including Arabic, Auslan, English, Gija, Indonesian, Jaru, Kriol, Mandarin and Murrinhpatha, although we are also interested in institutional interaction.

Members

Associate Professor Scott Barnes (see current projects)

Associate Professor Joe Blythe (see current projects)

Dr Josua Dahmen, Australian National University and Macquarie University

Eman Alharbi (PhD candidate)
Thesis topic: Questions in Arabic conversations

Caroline de Dear (PhD candidate)
Thesis topic: Grammatical gender in interaction: Content-questions in Gija, an Australian Aboriginal language

Ashleigh Jones (PhD candidate)
Thesis topic: Simultaneous production as an interactional phenomenon in cross-modal bilingual conversation

Rona Pillay (PhD candidate)
Thesis topic: Patient transfers in the operating theatre

Natalie Skinner (PhD candidate)
Thesis topic: Cultural and linguistic diversity in children with complex communication needs

Hui Tao (PhD candidate)
Thesis topic: Interpreter mediated interactions in health care

Jingyi Yang (MRes candidate)
Thesis topic: Reference to co-present participants in Mandarin conversation