Discourse Research and Teaching Group (DRT)

The DRT group is a community of staff and students interested in discursive research. We run regular skills training sessions for Keele University Staff and Students during term time. The emphasis is on supporting members in their current research projects at all levels. Methodological training in recent years has tended to focus on Conversation Analysis but it is designed to be reflexive to the needs of the members. Current Staff members have expertise in CA, DP, DA, FDA and CDA so just let us know what you need.

Staff and PGR members

  • Dr Alexandra Kent – Requesting, authority in interaction, collaborative decision making in interaction
  • Ms Claire Melia - Discourse of addiction and alcholism, interactions during addiction treatment

Each year we have a range of student projects taking place within the DRT at both BSc and MSc level. Some recent examples include:

  • Knowledge displays during substance abuse group support meetings
  • Using laughter to resolve arguments between couples
  • Teasing and parenting during family mealtimes
  • Using repetition to aid client-insight during counselling sessions
  • Collaborative decision-making during student committee meetings

The DRT Group meets weekly during term time and occasionally during student holidays. Typically our meetings are a 2-hr mix of:

  • Seminars: Skills training workshops designed around current member requirements. You can check out the list of upcoming sessions below. Additional resources and materials for each of the workshops are available to members via the DRT module in the KLE.

  • Data sessions: Collaborative data analysis sessions where we focus on a short piece of data shared by one of our members. We try to encourage all members to bring data at some point so they can benefit from the collective analytic observations of the group. 

  • CA Tutorial: Prof Charles Antaki has put together a good tutorial to get you started working with CA
  • Transcription Tutorial: This is a detailed and well written tutorial for doing Jefferson transcription. It has lots of examples to hear what the various transcription symbols sound like
  • Ethno/CA News: Paul ten Have keeps an extensive list of CA publications in this bibliography. It's a great place to check when you start researching a new topic
  • Schegloff Publications Archive: If you are struggling to get access to an article written by Emmanuel Schegloff it is available from his Publications Archive at this address
  • A Harvey Sacks Lexicon: This is a useful companion to Sack's Lectures in Conversation Analysis. It also provides a useful glossary for various technical terms common in CA work
  • DARG @ Lboro: This is the home page the DARG (Discourse and Rhetoric Group) based at Loughborough University. It gives a flavour of the type of work they do and a large list of publications
  • ISCA: This is the homepage of the International Society for Conversation Analysis