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Where People Inspire Each Other in Group Discussion: From the Design of “Answer-Answer Succession”
Kana Suzuki ([email protected]), Ikuyo Morimoto ([email protected])
National Institute of Information and Communications Technology 3-5, Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Souraku-gun, Kyoto, 619-0289, Japan
Hiroko Otsuka ([email protected]) The Institute of Behavioral Science
2-9, Ichigaya Hommura-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0845, Japan Etsuo Mizukami ([email protected]), Hitoshi Isahara ([email protected])
National Institute of Information and Communications Technology 3-5, Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Souraku-gun, Kyoto, 619-0289, Japan
Introduction Goal and Data It is widely recognized that, compared with two-party discussion, group discussion has some advantages. The most essential advantage is that it makes it possible for participants to stimulate each other and elicit a wider range of ideas that they have not realized or thought about before (Vaughn, et al. 1996; Morimoto, et al. 2006). This study is a preliminary attempt to locate some places where one participant in fact gets ‘inspired’ by their co-participant in actual group discussion. Our concern is not on when or how the cognitive shift occurs within an individual’s mind; rather, we aim to uncover when and how such a cognitive shift of an individual becomes observable and is shared by others during the course of interaction. This view is based on the perspective of conversation analysis that ‘cognition’ figures in the design and the sequential organization of utterances (e.g., Heritage 1984; te Molder and Potter 2005). Our data is from focus group interviews (hereafter, FGIs), which are a qualitative research method undertaken in business marketing and social research. The data set consists of 3 interview sessions in Japanese, in which current cell phone use and the needs of customers are surveyed to develop new cell phone software. All the sessions are approximately 2 hours long, each with 6 interviewees each and a single professional moderator who has 18 years of experience with FGI moderation.
The Scope of the Analysis The most basic activity in FGIs is the moderator (M) asking a question and one of the interviewees (A to F) responding to it, as in extract 1, lines 01-06 (marked by “→”)1. Interviewees can also voluntarily give an answer to the moderator’s question to which someone else has responded, even before the same question is repeated (lines 11/13, marked by “⇒”). (1) G2_t11 →01M: .hh sakki no mittsu no kinoo? (0.9) →02 tsuuwa (0.3) meeru (0.3) netto (0.2) →03 igai no kinoo de (0.2) kore wa zettai →04 hoshii (0.5) nokoshi tai (0.6) kondo wa →05 tsuke tai to yuu no wa donna kinoo? “The three functions of cell phones mentioned earlier? (0.9) call, (0.3) email, (0.3) and the Internet, (0.2) except those three, (0.2)
1 In the transcripts, both Japanese original lines and their English gloss are provided. The following notations are used: “.hh” represents an inbreath; “(0.5)” a pause in seconds; “::” a prolonged sound; “(h)” a laughter token; “[” overlapping talks.
what functions would you like to have definitely, (0.5) the ones you may have now (0.6) or you want to have in the future?” →06C: kamera desu ne:::(hhhhh)
“A camera:::(hhhhh)” 07M: a, C-san kamera
“Oh, Ms.C, you want a camera” 08C: ka(h)me(h)ra(h) [de(h)su(hh) “A ca(h)me(h)ra(h), tha(h)’s wha(h)t I want(hh)” 09M: [un un
“Uh huh” 10 (0.4) ⇒11F: watashi mo kamera::::::: [de “I also want a camera::::::: with” 12M: [kamera
“A camera” ⇒13F: gasosuu ga motto ii
“a better pixel quality” We examine the latter phenomenon, what we call “answer-answer succession”, for it implies the spontaneity and immediateness of the second respondent to express their say about the ongoing topic. Any utterance in interaction is designed to show their relevance to the preceding talk (Schegloff 1996). We thus analyze how subsequent answers are designed to be built on to their preceding answers, and argue that particular designs of the subsequent answers may display the speaker’s cognitive shift of being inspired by the prior speaker.
Analysis Three Types of Answer-Answer Succession The analysis of 65 “answer-answer successions” found in our data shows that there are three ways in which the subsequent answer is tied to the preceding one. They are: (a) contrastive connection (21 cases), (b) analogous connection (22 cases), and (c) associational connection (7 cases; other 15 cases do not have an overt connection marker).
Type 1: Contrastive Connection The subsequent answer which has a contrastive connection with the prior answer either submits the speaker’s opinion that somehow contradicts the prior speaker’s, or introduces a new topical item disjunctive from what has been talked about up to that point. Most typically, they are prefaced by the connective demo ‘but’ (extract 2), or by watashi wa ‘as for me, I…’ (extract 3).
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(2) G3_t11:36 ((D expresses her want to have a TV function on a cell phone so that she can deal with her child’s temper tantrum when going out. Then C starts:)) →01C: demo, yappari umaku tsukawanai to 02 sugoi “But, if we are not very careful to use it well,” ((Agreement tokens from the co-participants omitted)) 03C: yappari kodomo ni totte mo zettai, ii 04 bubun to warui bubun to ryoohoo ya 05 kara… “obviously it has both advantages and disadvantage for
children, so…” (3) G3_t8:3 ((F is talking about the convenience of having a cell phone for meeting friends only with a rough arrangement. Then, E starts:)) →01E: e:to watashi wa,
“Uhm as for me,” 02M: un
“Mhm” →03E: ano::: kodomo no gakkou no jikanwari →04 ga… “uh::: when the school schedule of my child suddenly
changes …”
Type 2: Analogous Connection The subsequent answer with this type of connection conveys that the speaker has an opinion or experience similar to the one the prior speaker has just told. They are frequently accompanied by watashi mo ‘I, too,…’ in the utterance-initial position (extract 4, line 04 onwards). (4) G1_t8:2 01C: ano desaki de tsukaeru(h) tte yuu no ga “Uh being able to use a cell phone when being out” 02M: un
“Mhm” 03C: ichiban benri ya na to omou… “is the most convenient point, I think…” ((About 10 lines omitted in which C continues to detail how she uses a cell phone in meeting up a friend outside.)) →04F: watashi mo ano otomodachi to ne, 05M: un
“Mhm” →06F: natsuyasumi ni kazoku dooshi de, 07M: un
“Mhm” →08F: dokka iku toka yuu toki ni… “((lines 04-08)) I, too, have a similar experience, uh when I had a summer holiday somewhere with the families of friends…”
Type 3: Associational Connection This type of subsequent answer picks up some key word from the preceding talk (like tsuukin ‘commute’ in extract 5) and develop a talk with reference to the key word. (5) G4_t5:1 ((C is being asked why she prefers fax to email.)) 01C: u:n, te yuu ka watashi densha nottari 02 toka ano sooyuu, koo, denwa o zutto 03 miteru jikan ga anmari nai node “We:ll, it’s rather because I hardly have time long
enough to keep checking my cell phone, like on a train,” 04M: a: naruhodo
“Oh I see” 05C: hai
“Yes” 06M: hai
“Yes”
→07C: tabun sono tsuukin mo ie kara toho →08C: gofun inai toka jitensha de juppun 09 toka… “Probably, uh, commuting is also like a 5 minute walk
from home and 10 minutes by bike,” ((C continues to tell that she is often regarded as impolite not replying immediately when she gets a call or message.)) ⇒10B: tsuukin jikan toka okkii to omoi masu. “Commuting time is significant, I think.” 11M: u:n
“Mhm” 12B: atashi ima ichijikan gurai kakatteru n 13 de, himatsubushi mitai ni tsukatteru 14 toki mo… “Since I spend about an hour for that, I almost use email
just for killing time…”
Discussion Although, in extract 5, B picks up the key words tsuukin (jikan) “commuting (time)” (line 10) from the prior speaker’s talk (line 7), she uses the words in a context different from the one in which the words is first introduced. The initial speaker C utters the words for the purpose of providing supportive evidence of her not being a heavy email user. B, on the other hand, re-introduces the words to show how frequently and meaninglessly she exchanges emails. Like this case, when connected by association, the subsequent answer may be led to a direction quite different from the course of the preceding answer. The design could be a way for the speaker to issue and develop a new idea that they associatively get from a part of the prior speaker’s talk.
Concluding Remarks This study reveals three ways in which interviewees present their own ideas in relation to the prior speaker’s. Interviewees are quite sensitive to the connection between the two ideas, which is reflected to the careful selection of the design of their subsequent answer. Especially with the third type, the respondent employs some keyword from the preceding talk as a pivot for developing their answer. This might be seen by the co-participants that the speaker gets some inspiration from another’s talk. The analytic method we adopt in this study can offer a way of accessing from outside to the cognitive shift which is an internal process of an individual.
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