Examining Talk in Post-observation Feedback Conferences: Learning to Do Linguistic Ethnography

Abstract

As this collection of work demonstrates, linguistic ethnography is a dynamic and interdisciplinary field. Yet it is also nascent, and LE researchers are exploring its boundaries through developing approaches to data collection and analysis, and uncovering, sharing and drawing on theoretical constructs from a range of disciplines including sociology, philosophy and cultural studies. Many involved in this work have come to linguistic ethnography from either ethnography or linguistics and have made a number of adjustments to the ways they conduct research; for example, ethnographers learn how to do text analysis, and linguists learn how to observe ethnographically. The questions posed by the editors of this collection to contributors (see Introduction) were designed to encourage explicit reflection on these processes and, in so doing, to demonstrate how researchers situate their work within linguistic ethnography. The questions asked are repeated here:

• 1. In what ways did LE enable you to get to parts of the process you study which other approaches couldn’t reach?

• 2. In what ways has appropriating LE led to changes in your work and the methods you use?

• 3. How has your own discipline influenced/recontextualised the concepts and emphases within LE?