Talking Change – Linguistic Insights into the Transformative Intera...

The conversation between coach and client functions as the primary means and method to allow for learning and development in our clients. The utterance-by-utterance co-construction of what coach and client say (and not say) and of how they verbally and non-verbally react to each other’s contributions stimulate and underly the transformation of experience in coaching interaction. Motivated by their professional coaching theories, coaches make use of formulations, interpretations, extensions, and questions to encourage their clients to self-reflect and build new knowledge.

This talk introduces the linguistic perspective on coaching, describes what a micro-level processual focus on coach-client talk-in-interaction can reveal about learning and development and exemplifies this approach with current empirical insights into questioning practices in coaching.