| Description: |
Balancing knowledge asymmetries and establishing intersubjectivity as preparatory work for change are core elements of ‘helping’ in helping interactions (Graf & Spranz-Fogasy, 2018). Verbal helping (Pick & Scarvaglieri 2019, in press) thereby is a central component of institutional helping interactions (such as medical, psychotherapeutic, counselling and coaching conversations) (see Graf et al. 2014 on interaction types, Graf et al. 2019 and Pawelczyk & Graf 2019 on change, and Scarvaglieri et al. in press on relationship management in these contexts). Knowledge is generated and updated by the interactants in the sequential unfolding of such institutional helping communication. In this process of mutual documentation of understanding (Spranz-Fogasy 2010; Deppermann 2015), i.e., grounding, the interactants establish a common ground (Clark 1992; Deppermann 2018) that builds the knowledge basis for helping. Co-constructing and managing (problem) knowledge thereby determine the solution (finding) knowledge as procedural knowledge. In this context, different epistemes are crucial, i.e., both, the professional knowledge of those providing help and the biographical, emotional and/or problem- or illness-related knowledge of those seeking help. These manifest themselves as epistemic status in the conversation (Heritage 2012; 2013). Discursive practices such as questions or formulations (Weiste & Peräkylä 2015) as well as narratives (Deppermann 2018), but also explanations, justifications, or excuses (Scott & Lyman 1968; Heritage 1998) are central to the processing of knowledge. Furthermore, participants negotiate their epistemic stance, i.e., the interactants’ attitude towards a certain object of knowledge (Deppermann 2018). Such epistemic stance is expressed with specific interactional practices of knowledge communication and linguistic forms, such as oh -prefacing in English (Heritage 1998, 2018) or the use of modal particles in German (Reineke 2015; Blühdorn et al. 2017). The panel aimed at bringing together up-to-date (Conversation Analytic) research on practices of knowledge transfer and management as one of the most important communicative tasks in helping interactions. The focus is on analyzing the sequential organization and linguistic realization of such practices involved in knowledge management as well as on different interaction types of helping and how practices of knowledge management unfold in them. |