Abstract
We study the moment-by-moment unfolding of bad news delivery in an unplanned business meeting between two professionals using English as a lingua franca. We aim to show how the negotiation of the valence and meaning of the news creates a place for the situated construction of professional identities and social relations. Applying multimodal conversation analysis supported by ethnographic fieldwork we analyze audio and video recorded data. The findings show how the professionals first collaboratively (re)establish the conditions for the news delivery and then work toward achieving epistemic and emotional congruence through their use of multimodal resources (talk, gaze, gestures, and material objects) and sociocultural and organizational knowledge. This chapter provides insights into professional identity construction as a collaborative accomplishment, and how it is impacted by situational contingencies. The study also illustrates the situated practices by which egalitarian leadership style is enacted by the Nordic manager in the multinational company.
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Appendix: Transcription Conventions
Appendix: Transcription Conventions
, | intonation is continuing |
. | intonation is final |
? | rising intonation |
↑ | rising intonation/high pitch |
↓ | falling intonation |
= | latched utterances |
[ ] | overlapping talk |
tha- | a cut-off word |
what | word emphasis |
what < | speech pace that is quicker than the surrounding talk |
< what | speech pace that is slower than the surrounding talk |
°what° | speech that is quieter than the surrounding talk |
WHAT | speech that is louder than the surrounding talk |
£what£ | smiley voice |
wh(h)a(h)t | laughingly uttered word |
(what) | uncertain hearings |
(x) | unrecognizable or confidential item |
(.) | micro pause, less than 0.2 seconds |
(0.5) | silences timed in tenths of a second |
((gazes)) | transcriber’s comments |
# | location of the figure in relation to talk and non-verbal action |
*⇀⇀⇀ | gesture or action described continue across subsequent lines |
⇀⇀⇀⇀* | gesture or action described continue until the same symbol is reached |
*⇀⇀⇀ | gesture or action described continue until and after excerpt’s end |
l.9 | gesture or action described continue until the line mention |
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Räisänen, T., Oittinen, T. (2022). Bad News Delivery as an Interactional Context for Constructing Professional Identities and Social Relations: Multimodal Approach. In: Alarauhio, JP., Räisänen, T., Toikkanen, J., Tumelius, R. (eds) Shaping the North Through Multimodal and Intermedial Interaction. Arctic Encounters. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99104-3_3
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