On the participatory agency of texts: Using institutional forms in performance appraisal interviews
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Esa Lehtinen
Esa Lehtinen (Ph.D.) is Professor of Modern Finnish in the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He has conducted research on discourse in organizational, medical and religious contexts. In his recent projects he has investigated the intertwining of face-to-face encounters and written documents in organizations. He has published his work, for example, in
Journal of Pragmatics ,Language and Communication ,Patient Education and Counseling ,Pragmatics , andScandinavian Journal of Management . Address for correspondence: Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
and
Pekka Pälli
Pekka Pälli (Ph.D., Adjunct Professor) works in the Aalto University School of Business in Finland, where he is Senior University Lecturer in Organizational Communication. His research interests cover, in particular, strategy discourse, leadership discourse, and workspace and workplace practices in terms of interaction at work. His scholarly work has been published both in organizational and linguistic journals, such as
Management Communication Quarterly, Long Range Planning ,Discourse & Communication ,Organization , andLanguage and Communication . Address for correspondence: Department of Management Studies, Aalto University, P.O. Box 11000, 00076 Aalto, Finland.
Abstract
Drawing on studies of the performative effects and agency of texts in organizations, the paper investigates how the agency of texts figures through their participatory status in interaction. The empirical data for the study consist of video-recorded performance appraisal interviews in a Finnish public organization in which the interaction relies heavily on an appraisal form. The data are analyzed through a sequential analysis that draws on multimodal conversation analysis and ethnographic knowledge. The analysis shows that the human participants orient to three different acts that are inscribed in the textual document: 1) presenting demands for the participants; 2) offering topics for the discussion as well as perspectives from which those topics should be discussed; and 3) suggesting conventional ways of progressing in the interaction. Furthermore, the material and the semiotic facets of textual documents are shown to be systematically related in that specific orientations to the material aspect of the paper form entail specific orientations to the semiotic content. The study sheds light on the subtle ways through which the distributed, albeit dissymmetric, agency of human and non-human participants is constructed, and on how texts are treated as more or less authoritative in face-to-face interaction.
Funding source: The Finnish Work Environment Fund
Award Identifier / Grant number: 111071
Funding source: Academy of Finland
Award Identifier / Grant number: 253350
About the authors
Esa Lehtinen (Ph.D.) is Professor of Modern Finnish in the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He has conducted research on discourse in organizational, medical and religious contexts. In his recent projects he has investigated the intertwining of face-to-face encounters and written documents in organizations. He has published his work, for example, in Journal of Pragmatics, Language and Communication, Patient Education and Counseling, Pragmatics, and Scandinavian Journal of Management. Address for correspondence: Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Pekka Pälli (Ph.D., Adjunct Professor) works in the Aalto University School of Business in Finland, where he is Senior University Lecturer in Organizational Communication. His research interests cover, in particular, strategy discourse, leadership discourse, and workspace and workplace practices in terms of interaction at work. His scholarly work has been published both in organizational and linguistic journals, such as Management Communication Quarterly, Long Range Planning, Discourse & Communication, Organization, and Language and Communication. Address for correspondence: Department of Management Studies, Aalto University, P.O. Box 11000, 00076 Aalto, Finland.
Appendix 1: Transcription symbols
| . | Falling intonation |
| , | Level intonation |
| ? | Rising intonation |
| ↓ | Fall in pitch |
| ↑ | Rise in pitch |
| word | Emphasis |
| >word< | Faster pace than surrounding talk |
| <word> | Slower pace than surrounding talk |
| wo:rd | Lengthening of the sound |
| wo- | Word cut off |
| £word£ | Smile voice |
| w(h)ord | Laugh particles inside word |
| hehe | Laughter |
| .hhh | Inbreath |
| hhh | Outbreath |
| [ | Beginning of overlapping talk |
| ] | End of overlapping talk |
| { | Beginning of overlapping nonverbal action |
| = | No pause between two adjacent utterances |
| (0.5) | Pause in seconds |
| (.) | Micro pause (less than 0.2 s) |
| (word) | Item in doubt |
| (-) | Talk not heard by transcriber |
| ((word)) | Transcriber’s remarks |
| grabs document | Nonverbal action |
| M->E | direction of gaze |
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Recontextualisation and advocacy in the translation zone
- Towards an integrated approach: A sociolinguistic analysis of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane
- On the participatory agency of texts: Using institutional forms in performance appraisal interviews
- Legal reasoning: a textual perspective on common law judicial opinions and Chinese judgments
- The ART of apologizing: Entering the black box of an intervention program
- Interpreting real and fictional worlds in interaction: A socio-cognitive approach to reading group talk
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Recontextualisation and advocacy in the translation zone
- Towards an integrated approach: A sociolinguistic analysis of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane
- On the participatory agency of texts: Using institutional forms in performance appraisal interviews
- Legal reasoning: a textual perspective on common law judicial opinions and Chinese judgments
- The ART of apologizing: Entering the black box of an intervention program
- Interpreting real and fictional worlds in interaction: A socio-cognitive approach to reading group talk
