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Elizabeth Stokoe Profile picture
@LizStokoe
Apr 6, 2021 • 9 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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How the ‘useless' words of 'small talk' saves lives.

☎️ In a 999 domestic violence call, the caller gets help without making a request ☎️

A short thread with @Richardson_Emm busting two #communication myths in one go.

1. Thread. 🧵
2. If a person threatening violence can hear you on the phone, using ‘small talk’ - in this case, saying "y'all right" at precisely the place where it would routinely appear in an ordinary conversation - will help you sound like you’re having an ordinary conversation.
3. The caller uses her tacit knowledge that saying "y'all right" (or similar, like “how are you”) at this point in a call is routine and ordinary, helping the conversation sound routine and ordinary.
4. Asking 'closed' yes/no questions allows the call-taker to elicit relevant information from the caller, who - for overhearing third parties - could be talking to anybody.
5. The *systematic organization* of social interaction - what people typically say and when - enables the caller to sound like she is talking to someone other than the police (to whoever is overhearing her conversation) and the call-taker to support that to happen.
6. "How are yous" and "y'all rights" and the specific slot they typically occupy (or are omitted from, or are dispensed with) in social interaction tells us a LOT about what kind of conversation this is going to be.

Every turn is data:

7. And the actual use of yes/no ('closed') questions is more nuanced than binary assertions about 'open/closed' questions. Social interaction shows us this every day. It also shows that we know this implicitly, even if we don't say it in comms training!

8. Here's a final example - a 911 call in which the dispatcher asks 'yes/no' questions to enable the caller to get emergency help. The caller produces turns designed and precision-timed (including in overlap) to sound like ordering pizza.
9. Conversation analysis #EMCA shows us how crucial it is to analyse REAL talk, as it is used, to re-consider compelling but flawed assertions about how #communication works.

For more on 999 calls, watch this space for @Richardson_Emm's research @AIFL_Aston

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More from @LizStokoe

Elizabeth Stokoe Profile picture
Aug 20, 2023
Does "please" make our talk polite?

Despite being "the magic word", @AndrewChalfoun @gio_rossi_5 @tanya_stivers show in their recent #EMCA conference paper that "please" appears in <10% of actual requests and does *other* things.

It's another #communication myth busted.

🧵 1/8 Abstract: "Any kid knows how to politely ask for something. That requests should properly be made with Please is drilled into the heads of children from a young age, and children as young as two can spontaneously add the "magic" word as an increment to requests that fail to receive a response. In English-speaking cultures, parents routinely encourage this behavior through explicit instruction. Yet, despite the received wisdom, we find that only a small minority of everyday requests are produced with Please—fewer than 10%. Since Please is far from ubiquitous, what contextual f...
2/8
It becomes very clear if/when you listen to and analyse recordings of actual "in the wild" social interaction (the data used in conversation analytic research) that people make their requests sound 'polite', 'pushy', 'tentative', etc., through a variety of words and phrases.
3/8
(...and, btw, despite the enduring nature of such claims in (pop) communication & some psych & linguistics, so-called 'tentative' or 'polite' requests are NOT gendered, as pretty much any #EMCA research on requesting shows - often as an artefact if not the focus...).
Read 8 tweets
Elizabeth Stokoe Profile picture
Jun 13, 2022
Great to see “signage and ratings”, “awareness”, and “visible assurance” prominent in @RAEngNews @CIBSE recommendations to ensure that the public understands the importance of “good indoor air quality.”

Short 🧵 on exemplar #signage schemes and pilots.

1/8 Image highlighting recommen...
As @CathNoakes writes, 'Scores on the Doors' is an example of such a scheme. 2/8

Between Oct 21-March 22 @IndependentSage and colleagues worked on a project to design, pilot, and evaluate a scheme to convey, in a non-technical way, #ventilation information ('scores / signs on the doors') for rooms, buildings, and venues. 3/8

Report: bit.ly/3CQZ60W
Read 9 tweets
Elizabeth Stokoe Profile picture
May 4, 2022
I haven’t transcribed Johnson for a while (too😡) but for the records here are his responses to Susanna Reid's questions about #Elsie, which include placing a definitive-sounding "no" after Reid suggests "you can't say anything to help Elsie, can you."

Part 1: Opening question:
Part 2, in which Johnson produces incomplete responses, cut off and abandoned sentences, rushed-through turns, deviations, and stated intentions - but does not provide examples of what Elsie "should cut back on".
Part 3, in which Reid repeats her initial question (at line 47); Johnson repeats his earlier answer (line 49); resists addressing Reid's factual challenges, and ends up placing that "no" at line 65 - he can't say anything to help Elsie because "we" are focusing on supply.
Read 4 tweets
Elizabeth Stokoe Profile picture
Mar 3, 2022
What can we learn from the #language of “living with covid”?

We wrote about the origins of “living with it”; how it became associated with Covid-19, and how – like other idiomatic phrases – it closes down discussion (“just live with it!”)

🧵 expands short piece in @bmj_latest Image
2. We searched on @LexisNexisUK for the first use, first use in association with Covid-19, and frequency of use, of twelve variations of ‘living with it’ and ‘learning to live with it’, up to the start of 2022.

It’s clear that ‘live/living’ outpaced ‘learn/learning’ versions. Image
3. Here are some examples from Lexis Nexis.

For each iteration of the phrase, we looked at the date and quote of the first (non-covid) mention; number of hits/mentions (to end December 2021); first Covid-19 mention, and an exemplar recent Covid-19 mention. ImageImageImage
Read 9 tweets
Elizabeth Stokoe Profile picture
Dec 21, 2021
What evidence is there that “using these 8 common phrases” will “ruin your credibility”?

Answer: Not much.

Why do we create and perpetuate #communication myths? Communication is important, and we don't see enough of how it works “in the wild.”

🧵Thread 1/12
The thread is informed by research in conversation analysis #EMCA

There are other research methods for investigating communication, but not all look at actual humans producing, for instance, those “8 common phrases” in social interaction.

That’s what this thread will do. 2/12
The thread gives examples of the “8 common phrases” being used.

As @DerekEdwards23 says, if data-free assertions (advice, theories, models) don’t account for actual interaction, there’s a problem.

Judge for yourself whether the phrases undermine speaker credibility. 3/12
Read 12 tweets
Elizabeth Stokoe Profile picture
Oct 8, 2021
After last week's focus on the science of mechanical and natural #ventilation, today's @IndependentSage briefing focused on its translation into a non-technical #communication #messaging 'proof of concept' scheme.

Full report ➡️ bit.ly/3BrFD5j

1. Summary⬇️
2. The proposed scheme brings together two familiar visual systems: i) the international energy labelling system and ii) icons.

It also builds on previous proposed schemes and the kinds of infographics we’ve seen over the last 18 months

e.g., bmj.com/content/370/bm…
3. NB. Ventilation is complex - as is making decisions about the behavioural mitigations needed following the assessment of any given space - so any such scheme must be underpinned by ventilation and aerosol expertise ...
Read 15 tweets

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