Linguists Paul Drew and John Heritage were part of a language research movement that used conversation analysis to study interactions in institutional settings. This research showed certain characteristics or elements present across many different institutional interactions, and we refer to them as institutional talk.
Conversation analysis is when we analyse ordinary conversation to study social interaction in everyday life. This can also be referred to as 'talk-in-interaction'.
This article will look at what institutional talk is, what Drew and Heritage concluded from collating linguistic research, and the different institutional talk elements, with examples so we can better understand the concept.
Fig. 1 - 'Institutional Talk' is concerned with the kind of interactions that happen in professional settings.
Drew and Heritage Institutional Talk: summary
Paul Drew and John Heritage made significant contributions to the study of 'Institutional Talk', a term that refers to communication occurring in institutional contexts such as workplaces, schools, courts, hospitals, and governmental bodies.
Their theory posits that institutional talk has specific characteristics that distinguish it from everyday conversation. These include pre-allocation of roles (such as interviewer/interviewee), constraints on what can be said, the use of specialised lexicon, and the goal-orientation of the interaction. They argue that these interactions follow particular patterns and structures, which are shaped by the institutional context.
For instance, in a courtroom, the interaction is highly controlled, with the judge and lawyers having the power to control the flow of conversation.
Institutional talk is a part of the study of language and social groups and can specifically be applied to the study of language and occupation. This research area looks at the language used in different institutional settings or interactions where there are constraints on elements such as structure, turn-taking, and allowable contributions.
One-sentence summary. Institutional talk refers to the conversational trends of an institutional setting.
Linguists first started researching the concept of institutional talk in the late 1970s. They used conversation analysis to examine institutional interaction for distinctive features that could then be grouped under the term institutional talk.
What do we mean by an institution? The Oxford Dictionary1 defines an institution as 'an organisation founded for a religious, educational, professional, or social purpose.' When we apply this definition to the study of language, institutional talk is the one used in interactions among professionals in their field of work or a situation with predetermined rituals or structures. This could be a marriage ceremony in a church with a vicar or a business meeting at a high-flying marketing company.
The major areas where research was carried out in institutional talk were the courts, education, police, social services, medicine, business meetings, and the mass media. This range provided many different settings where the types of interaction had scope to differ strongly.
Drew and Heritage Institutional Talk: examples
To give some context to what we've covered so far, here are some examples of institutional talk:
The interaction in a courtroom has a fixed structure, strict turn-taking rules, and clear asymmetry. The judge has the most power and can decide who takes turns speaking when creating a clear sense of asymmetry within the interactions. The structure of a courtroom interaction is usually very fixed, with people entering court and the lawyers doing most of the talking. The lawyers for the accused and the defence take turns talking and then have the opportunity to ask their witnesses questions. Finally, the judge asks the jury to deliver a verdict.
A classroom interaction would be much more flexible regarding the structure. However, similar restraints on power, turn-taking, and asymmetry apply. This is because the teacher will have the most control of anyone in the room, lead the conversation, and allow different students to speak at different times. The structure isn't fixed as it's quite likely that some lessons will be vastly different from others; for example, the students may have a guest speaker in, watch a video, or be required to do group work.
The vast differences in scenarios such as these allow linguists to carry out a detailed analysis of the conversational conventions and spot any trends applied across the board.
Fig. 2 -
A court hearing or other courtroom proceeding is an example of where institutional talk would be required.
Drew and Heritage Institutional Talk: theory
In 1992, Drew and Heritage collated and summarised multiple pieces of research into their theory of institutional talk. They defined the concept of institutional talk more clearly, concluding that it has six characteristic elements. These are:
Goal orientation
Turn-taking rules
Allowable contributions
Professional lexis
Structures
Asymmetry
Although these elements have been identified, it does not mean that interaction has to have all of them to be deemed as institutional talk. As Heritage2 said in 2004:
Institutional talk can occur anywhere, and by the same token, ordinary conversations can emerge in almost any institutional context".
By this, Heritage implies that there are no black and white cases of institutional talk. Many instances of the institutional talk don't include all elements. For example, a conversation may start as an institutional talk with a clear workplace topic, digress to cover more personal topics, and then swap back to the original topic discussed with elements of institutional talk. These elements may also depend on the formality of a situation and the audience.
Institutional talk: example
Here's another example of institutional talk:
In the workplace, you’re much more likely to follow the conversational trends of your workplace when speaking to your boss in a meeting than when you’re catching up with your workmates at the coffee station.
To fully understand this theory, we can now look at each element of institutional talk in more detail.
Drew and Heritage Institutional Talk: goal orientation
By goal orientation, Drew and Heritage mean that the people participating in institutional interaction share common goals. They hope to achieve a similar outcome from having the conversation, whether exchanging information, giving and receiving instruction, or even declaring something (as you would in a courtroom interaction).
In a classroom, the teacher and students share a common learning goal. This causes specific language use and structures such as different turn-taking rules to the usual conversation. In a classroom setting, the teacher has more authority and therefore has longer speaking turns but also allows students to talk by asking and answering questions. Adhering to these rules is done through cooperative communication between the students and the teacher, allowing the common goal to be reached.
When there is no goal orientation in an interaction, it can lead to inefficient conversations and even arguments where no useful outcome is reached. In an institutional setting, this can reflect badly on the speaker, often showing them to be unprofessional and uncooperative.
Fig. 3 -
In a classroom, the teacher will have more talk time than the students in order to ensure goal orientation is achieved.
Drew and Heritage’s concept of goal orientation can be linked to John Swales' theory of discourse communities, where he states that people within a discourse community share goals. In both instances, people in these groups share common knowledge or a common interest, such as their occupation, creating effective communicative interactions.
Drew and Heritage Institutional Talk: turn-taking rules
Within the everyday conversation, there are already turn-taking rules and restrictions that apply; for example, we wait for someone to stop speaking before we take our turn to speak. Adhering to these unspoken turn-taking rules shows a person’s general politeness and good manners, showing their respect for their interlocutor.
An interlocutor is a person who participates in the conversation. There are generally two or more interlocutors in a conversation.
These general turn-taking rules also apply in institutional talk but with more distinct rules that consider the social hierarchy within the institutional setting.
Institutional talk: turn-taking rules example
There is a social hierarchy within a classroom where the teacher has more power than the students. As the teacher has more power, they start, lead, and end conversations. The teacher also has the power to decide when someone can talk and when someone has to finish their turn talking.
If a child shouts out answers in a classroom without being asked to speak, they are violating the classroom turn-taking rules, and the teacher then reserves the right to use their authoritative position and tell them to stop talking.
Drew and Heritage Institutional Talk: allowable contributions
Drew and Heritage’s concept of allowable contributions refers to the fact that there are constraints on what someone may contribute to an institutional interaction.
Institutional talk: allowable contributions example
Let's keep consolidating the topic with another example:
If we look at the interaction of a wedding ceremony, there are clear, allowable contributions that participants can make in response to specific prompts, for example, ‘I do.'
Some contributions may not be allowable in this scenario. For example, talking about the weather or the traffic during the wedding ceremony would not be acceptable.
This concept of allowable contributions can also reflect a workplace or institutional social hierarchy. A contribution may be allowable for someone of a high rank to make but not for someone else.
If we link this to Herbert and Straight’s 1989 finding that compliments usually flow from those of the highest rank, we can conclude that compliments are considered an allowable contribution for people who have a high ranking within their institutional hierarchy. As compliments do not flow the other way, from low rank to high rank, a compliment would therefore be deemed an inappropriate contribution from the lowest-ranking person in the room.
Drew and Heritage Institutional Talk: professional lexis
In each institutional setting, there is a corresponding semantic field of specific and frequently used lexis. This lexis differs from that of ordinary everyday conversations and is what Drew and Heritage refer to as professional lexis. Every place of institutional talk (for example, different workplaces) will have its range of professional lexis, allowing clear and effective communication among the participants.
For example, in the police force, there is a range of professional lexis that isn't used in ordinary conversation outside of that profession. These professional lexis terms may be known by laymen but not necessarily used by them.
Some professional lexis terms used in the police profession are:
- arrest (to take someone into police custody)
- assailant (a person who has carried out an assault or attack)
- book (to register someone as a criminal)
- DUI (driving under the influence)
- felony (a major crime)
- misdemeanour (a minor crime)
This concept directly links to Michael Nelson’s theory of business lexis3 which shows certain words or topics are used in professional settings such as companies, money, time, and events. He also found some words and topics not present in business lexis, such as family, holidays, weekends, and social plans.
Drew and Heritage Institutional Talk: structure
Much research into institutional talk has found that different institutional settings each have different conventions for how communication is structured. This may greatly contrast with how ordinary social conversations are structured, as institutional talk may feature the same specific patterns in every conversation. In contrast, social interactions are much freer and can be easily adapted.
If we look at the interaction of a dentist check-up appointment, it follows nearly the same structure every time, like following a flow chart.
- The patient is called in, and they and the dentist exchange pleasantries.
- Then, the dentist enquires about the patient’s dental health and care and then examines the patient’s teeth.
- When doing this, the dentist lists different codes (about the teeth). The assistant responds with a verbal acknowledgement or updates the information and waits for the next piece of data to input.
- During this process, the patient is not required to participate and is not even expected to understand what the dentist is communicating to their assistant.
- After this examination, the dentist lists the information the patient needs to know, either relaying what any issues are or telling them their teeth are in good health.
- It is then usual to either arrange a follow-up appointment if one is needed or to acknowledge that another check-up appointment will be arranged for a later date.
This example shows a consistently structured interaction that is specific to dentist appointments. Although it may have overlapping patterns with other interactions such as doctors’ appointments, certain aspects make it unique to dentistry, such as the recording of the teeth data.
Drew and Heritage Institutional Talk: asymmetry
The final element defined by Drew and Heritage as being part of the institutional talk is asymmetry. There are two aspects of asymmetry: power and a person’s role.
Power can cause asymmetry in an institutional or workplace setting as the person with the most knowledge, or highest rank is usually allowed to talk first. They can also hold the floor and speak for longer without being interrupted, or, when they’re not speaking, they have the power to interrupt without it being viewed too negatively. The person with the most power can also determine the topic of conversation, either steering it towards work matters or choosing a more personal subject.
This links to Hornyak’s language and occupation theory4 that the shift from work talk to personal talk is always initiated by the highest-ranking person in the room.
Aside from power, a person’s role or workplace requirements may cause asymmetry within an interaction. This is because their role may require them to talk more.
Drew and Heritage Institutional Talk: examples
Some more institutional talk examples:
In a wedding ceremony, the vicar is required to speak more to lead the ceremony, with the bride and groom repeating after them. This can be linked to knowledge and power; however, the vicar does not speak more to show power through their language use.
Another situation where we can see asymmetry, but without power as a factor, is in a scenario where someone in a workplace asks a person of low ranking to present findings to a meeting. This gives them a responsibility that requires them to talk more than the rest of the people in the room for the duration of the presentation, creating asymmetry for that time.
Fig. 4 -
During a wedding ceremony, the vicar will usually speak more in order to keep the ceremony on track.
Drew and Heritage Institutional Talk - Key Takeaways
- Paul Drew and John Heritage made significant contributions to the study of Institutional Talk, a term that refers to communication occurring in institutional contexts such as workplaces, schools, courts, hospitals, and governmental bodies.
- Institutional talk refers to the conversational trends of institutional settings.
- Drew and Heritage concluded there are six elements of institutional talk.
Goal orientation – People share goals when engaging in institutional talk.
Turn-taking rules – Institutional settings often mean turn-taking rules differ from ordinary social conversation.
Allowable contributions – There are certain constraints on what different people can contribute in institutional talk.
Professional lexis – Each institutional setting has a semantic field of lexis used by the people participating in conversations.
Structures – Interactions in institutional settings can have specific structures they consistently follow.
Asymmetry – Institutional talk interactions can appear one-sided due to a speaker having more power or being required to talk more than another.
References
- Simpson, J. A., and E. S. C. Weiner. 1989. The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- John Heritage, Conversation Analysis and Institutional Talk. Handbook of Language and Social Interaction. 2004
- Michael Nelson. 2006. Semantic associations in Business English: A corpus-based analysis. English for Specific Purposes.
- Jennifer Hornyak. 1994. Hornyak 1994. Westmount, Quebec: The Galerie.
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