“It's just a comment not really a question”: Meeting examiners' expectations during questioning interactions in PhD Vivas

Abstract

The PhD viva is a research genre where questions feature as a prominent discursive tool for examiners to execute their roles and achieve various intended purposes. For PhD candidates to succeed in such high-stakes examinations, they need to meet the expectations of examiners communicated through questioning practices. Despite this, with very few exceptions, none of the studies on PhD vivas have focused on questioning interactions. Moreover, while the PhD viva remains heavily under researched, the few studies on the genre have usually examined linguistic features only. Consequently, working from a multi-perspective approach involving embodied interaction analysis, the current paper focuses on critical moments during questioning interactions in a small sample of two PhD vivas to highlight how participants employ embodied resources to successfully co-construct questioning interactions during PhD vivas as well as how questioning practices are (mis)understood by participants during the interaction. Videos of PhD vivas were analysed using Goodwin's (2018) co-operative action framework, and results were triangulated with findings obtained from participant interviews thematically analysed. Findings show that examiners communicate their expectations, through questioning, in ways that can be misleading and difficult for candidates to meet. Findings further underscore the relevance of embodied material objects and environment in questioning interactions in academic settings. Additionally, findings from the limited data highlight the possibility of disciplinary differences in the employment of embodied gestures by participants during questioning interactions. The paper, therefore, makes a significant contribution to EAP, with practical implications for PhD viva interactions and research on interactive genres in general.