Talk and Community: The Place of Reporting in a Life Sciences Laboratory

"This study takes a practice-oriented perspective to investigate the laboratory as a community of practice, focusing upon the ""activity"" of interaction as the overall unit of analysis. Ethnographic materials (involving observation, interviews, conversations, and activity logs) and discourse analysis techniques (involving audiotaping and transcriptions of meetings) were used to locate and record data within a university entomology laboratory over a two year period. Through triangulation of data, ""reporting"" is identified as a key discourse activity within the laboratory. As situated communicative practice within the weekly meetings, reporting is found to be compelled discourse through which interactants interactively manage one's ongoing goals and activity while temporally situating that activity within the broader stream of laboratory work. This study provides an example of how engagement in situated discursive activity provides for the coordination of individual lines of progress within the ongoing work of a community."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Speech Communication

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Swieringa, Robert Cecil

Contributors dc:contributor

• Miller, Peggy J.

• Education, Sciences

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9921744

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/87564