Responsive advice-giving to troubles in supervision interaction

Abstract

Advice-giving is not only a crucial pedagogic activity in student supervision but also responsive conduct to students’ expressions of trouble in talk in-interaction. However, we know little about how advice-giving arrives in such sequences. This study uses conversation analysis to examine supervisory advice-giving in responding turns after students express their trouble. It is demonstrated that students’ reports of trouble make supervisors’ advice-giving normatively relevant. But there may be additional work before the arrival of advice: (1) rephrasing students’ formulations of trouble, (2) using follow-up exploratory questions, and (3) sharing parallel experiences. They are considered to be moves that achieve epistemic symmetries on the advisable issues so the chance of advice resistance is minimized. When delivering the advice proper, two practices are discovered: the construction of It is not X but Y is aimed to mitigate the critical element; the just-formulation reflects supervisors’ orientation to the workability of the trouble. Overall, this set of findings provides that the elimination of epistemic asymmetry is key in the enactment of advice acceptance. The study draws on 67 episodes of responsive advice-giving sequences, found in 12 hours of video recordings of authentic supervision meetings in a UK institution.