From paper to practice

Abstract

This paper examines how a standardized question is launched and received in a corpus of performance appraisal interviews, with a focus on how pre-­formulated questions are translated into interaction. Using conversation analysis, we demonstrate that the same question becomes many different actions in practice. Prefaces as well as prosodic and lexical alterations make relevant different responses, and as such, the question can be recruited to initiate diverse interactional projects such as assessments and other socially delicate activities. As a consequence, goals of uniformity and standardization may be subverted. The interactional adaptations further evidence the strength of recipient design as reformulations also result in more fitted and personalized answers. Our study contributes to the understanding of standardization versus interactionalization, and points to the strong interrelationship between question design and the fitting of response options.

The teacher as examiner of L2 oral tests: A challenge to standardization

“…Further, although language teachers "have unique insight into the collateral effects of tests" (Winke, 2011, p. 633), their views are rarely included in evaluations of large-scale testing programs; this is surprising as teachers are "well positioned to recognize discrepancies between classroom and test practices" (p. 633) (cf. Johnson, 2013;Norris, 2008). Moreover, two recent research overviews of testing L2 speaking skills (Roca-Varela & Palacios, 2013;Sandlund, Sundqvist, & Nyroos, 2016) confirm that there are indeed few studies examining how teachers administer, carry out, assess, and grade L2 oral proficiency tests.…”

“…As many scholars have pointed out, challenges for testing L2 oral proficiency include matters such as topic familiarity, interlocutor proficiency, test-taker relations, and task understandings (see, e.g., Brooks, 2009; Davis, 2009; Galaczi, 2008; Iwashita, 2001; Lazaraton & Davis, 2008; May, 2011). Oral tests present additional challenges to standardization, as social interaction is a joint achievement and external conditions are difficult to control; thus, conversations do not lend themselves well to standardization (Nyroos & Sandlund, 2014).…”

Multilingualism in performance appraisal interviews: strategies to bridge language gaps

“…Given their crucial role for both the employee and the employer, there is no lack of research on PAIs (see Asmuß, 2008 for a literature overview), and, especially over the past decade, scholars around Europe have examined these high-stakes interactions from discourse analytical perspectives on the basis of authentic empirical data, including studies from Sweden (Sandlund et al, 2011;Nyroos and Sandlund, 2014;Bowden and Sandlund, 2019), Germany (Meinecke and Kauffeld, 2018), Finland (Mikkola and Lehtinen, 2014;Pälli and Lehtinen, 2014;Sorsa et al, 2014;Lehtinen and Pälli, 2021), Denmark (Asmuß, 2008(Asmuß, , 2013Scheuer, 2014), Belgium (Van De Mieroop andSchnurr, 2017;Van De Mieroop and Carranza, 2018) and the Netherlands (Van De Mieroop and Schnurr, 2014;Van De Mieroop and Vrolix, 2014). The interactions in these studies primarily occur in the respective dominant language of specific nation-state frameworks and have significantly contributed to demystifying the interactional "black box" of PAIs (Clifton, 2012) through foci on facework, the (co-)construction of knowledge, leadership, and employeeship, and the interplay between talk and text during PAIs.…”