| This dissertation investigates how participants in German business meetings collaborate to talk this speech exchange system into existence. Using the methodology of conversation analysis, the study describes how participants in meetings perform different social roles. Specifically, I focus on ways in which the enactment of 'doing-being-boss' and 'doing-being-employee' depends upon a moment-by-moment collaboration between all participants. In my description of how participants enact these social roles through talk-in-interaction, I also provide the first attempt at systematically incorporating embodied actions into the analysis of business meetings.; In Chapter 1, I situate this dissertation within existing studies on business meetings and introduce the research methodology of conversation analysis. Chapter 2 examines all uses of the particle ok in German business meetings. In my presentation of the first description of ok in a language other than English, I argue that certain uses of ok relate to enacting the social role of 'doing-being-boss.' Furthermore, Chapter 3 examines the practice of how employees produce extended reports about ongoing projects. In discussing the social role of 'doing-being-employee,' I compare the practice of story-telling in ordinary conversation to that of producing reports during German business meetings. Specifically, I describe how speakers orient to a systematic use of intonation patterns to enable correct and complete reports. Moreover, Chapter 4 problematizes the notion of pre-assigned social roles. Using the concept of zones of interactional transition, I discuss instances where employees question the role of meeting facilitator, chairperson, and boss. In analyzing the interactional fallout in these examples, I offer additional evidence that social roles such as boss represent a social construct which depends on a constant co-construction of this role. Finally, in the conclusion I situate my findings within the field of institutional talk. |
