Recruiting help in everyday research work: Epistemic stance taking and accountability in interaction

Abstract

This study examines how novice researchers (master's and PhD students) independently initiate knowledge sharing and instructional activities in the midst of everyday research work. Approaching such activities as instances of help recruitment, the study draws on multimodal conversation analysis to describe how novices mobilize assistance from more experienced peers and supervisors. The interactional data was generated at a Physical Chemistry research program of a Swedish university, and consists of video-recordings of different spontaneous interactions at laboratories and shared offices, including a supervision meeting. The study focuses on recruitment sequences where help seekers refrain from displaying full lack of knowledge or skill. The analyses show how novices (1) use particular framings, such as “quick question”, and confirmation requests to particularize the scope of their problems and mitigate unknowing stances; (2) legitimize their requests for assistance by addressing their shared history with the recipient party; and (3) withhold direct requests in favor of producing accounts and displaying limited epistemic access, as if to “fish” for help. Through these methods, help seekers accountably frame and design their requests finely modulating epistemic stances, while constructing and upholding themselves as potential members of the scientific workplace, i.e., as researchers in training who need assistance at specific moments and regarding particular problems. By uncovering the intricate ways in which epistemic stance taking and issues of accountability relate to the accomplishment of help recruitment, the study also shows how novices address matters of autonomy and competence within apprenticeship situations.