Public and private spaces in residential care for older people

2020. Gunilla Jansson. Learning from the talk of persons with dementia, 209-240

Chapter

This chapter presents analyzed evidence of care workers’ fine-grained verbal and non-verbal management of private vs. public space in residential care facilities for older people in Sweden. Using conversation analysis and ethnographic observations, the chapter accounts for the methods that care workers adopt to order space in a way that maintains a sense of privacy and dignity for the residents with whom they work. The analyses demonstrate how they negotiate the private and public ambiguity of space in the resident’s bathroom and in the common living room. The findings suggest that despite unavoidable clashes between private and public spheres, care workers possess methods to manage these clashes. These methods are presented in a summary of practical highlights. Mutual orientation to the neutral parts of the body, and casting the care activity as a moment of shared amusement stand out as prominent strategies that dispel potential aspects of embarrassment.

"She didn't expect to get a slap": Modeling "proper" conduct among teachers and students in training classes for care workers in Sweden

2020. Gunilla Jansson, Majlesi Ali Reza. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2020 (262), 39-66

Article

The current study is carried out in an ethnically diverse three-semestervocational adult education programme in Sweden for those who aspire to registeras assistant nurses. The data is based on field notes taken during participantobservations and video-recordings of the classroom interaction in a course ondementia care in the autumn of 2014. In Sweden, care work is framed by the goalsstated in The Swedish Social Services Act, which is to promote the elderly’s rightto self-determination and independence. In the class in which this study wascarried out, this policy informed the teaching of “good” communication practices.The aim of this article is to demonstrate how the strategies taught in school thatembody this policy come into conflict with the seemingly unavoidable dilemmasexperienced by trainee students on the work floor. We analyse two examples ofteachers acting out hypothetical scenes for the purpose of modeling proper caregiverconduct in dealing with frail, powerless individuals with dementia. Thestudents’ descriptions of their own conduct in managing challenging residentbehaviour are thereby considered as accountable actions. The article brings intofocus the complexity of the power relations and institutional asymmetries at playconcerning the teaching situation in training classes for care workers.

Gester

2020. Ali Reza Majlesi, Gunilla Jansson, Maria Rydell. Multimodal interaktionsanalys, 123-141

Chapter

Social interaktion är alltid förkroppsligad och multimodal, det vill säga när vi interagerar med andra använder vi olika kommunikativa resurser där flera av dem utgår från vår kropp. En av de mest framträdande förkroppsligade kommunikativa resurserna är gester. Gester används frekvent och fyller olika funktioner i interaktion. I vissa fall kan de rentav ha en avgörande roll i meningsskapandet.

Hantering av ramkonflikter i vårdplaneringssamtal på ett äldreboende

2019. Gunilla Jansson. Språk och interaktion 2019 (4), 9-39

Article

I den här artikeln undersöks hantering av ramkonflikter, dvs. spänningar som kan föreligga mellan olika behov och syften, i multiprofessionella samtal på vårdplaneringsmöten, som involverar äldre personer med demens. Syftet med föreliggande studie är att utveckla förståelsen av multiprofessionella s amtal genom att utforska samtal där klienten själv deltar. En omständighet, som är mindre utforskad i tidigare studier av behovsbedömningssamtal, är det faktum att klienten är en person med demenssjukdom. Analysen visar att de professionella parterna orienterar sig på olika sätt mot de olika uppgifter och syften som mötet rymmer.

The social organization of assistance in multilingual interaction in Swedish residential care

2018. Gunilla Jansson, Charlotta Plejert, Camilla Lindholm. Discourse Studies, 1-28

Article

In this article, we explore the organization of assistance in multilingual interaction in Swedishresidential care. The data that form the basis for the study cover care encounters involving threeresidents with a language background other than Swedish, totalling 13 hours and 14 minutes ofvideo documentation. The empirical data consists of a collection of 134 instances where residentsseek assistance with the realization of a practical action. For this article, three examples that involvethe manipulation of an object have been selected for analysis. We use the concept of ‘recruitment’to encompass the various methods by which assistance is sought in the care encounter. In thefirst example, the need for assistance concerns the transfer of an object that is recognizable andphysically available for both participants. This, in combination with the resident’s gestural workthat pinpoints the description of the action, facilitates its realization. In the second and thirdexamples, the realization of the action becomes more difficult because the object involved is notrecognizable for the caregiver. The article highlights the collaborative ways in which residentsmanage to support their talk through bodily practices, and the strong and empathetic engagementwith which caregivers become involved in interpreting the meaning of these practices. Finally, wediscuss the implications of our findings for care provision in multilingual circumstances.

Vårdelever om flerspråkighet på arbetsplatsen

2017. Gunilla Jansson, Cecilia Wadensjö. Språk och norm, 45-54

Chapter

Creating Opportunities for Residents to Engage in Social Exchange

2017. Gunilla Jansson, Cecilia Wadensjö. Multilingual interaction and dementia, 103-132

Chapter

In this chapter, by analysing brokering as a set of interactional practices, we demonstrate how participants – residents and caregivers – who do not share a language are brokered into mutual interaction. Three different settings: a ‘how-are-you’ sequence, a singing and dancing activity, and a recreational activity with the use of a photo are analysed. The excerpts illustrate the challenges as well as the potentials of caregivers’ brokering practices. As our analyses attest, in a linguistically and culturally complex care context involving persons who do not share a common language, brokering can be organised not in a single way, but variously and with different interactional outcomes.

Language brokering in multilingual caregiving settings

2017. Gunilla Jansson, Cecilia Wadensjö. Communication & Medicine 13 (3), 277-290

Article

Using the methodology of conversation analysis to examine audio-recorded multi-party conversations between a Swedish/Farsi-speaking resident and multilingual staff in a Swedish residential home, this article describes a practice for establishing shared understanding by one caregiver enacting the role of language broker. The focus is on caregiving settings where caregivers assist an elderly person with her personal hygiene. We demonstrate how brokering is used to 1) maintain the conversational flow in a small talk sequence and 2) address the contents in the resident’s complaints. The article thus advances our understanding of language brokering as an activity that multilingual staff in a linguistically asymmetrical workplace setting take on to assist a colleague in performing client-oriented activities.

Managing complaints in multilingual care encounters

2017. Gunilla Jansson, Cecilia Wadensjö, Charlotta Plejert. Multilingua - Journal of Cross-cultural and Interlanguage Communiciation 36 (3), 313-345

Article

Troubles-telling and complaints are common in contexts of care for older people and need to be managed by care staff in a respectful manner. This paper examines the handling of an older person’s complaints in multilingual care encounters that involve participants who do not share a common language. The data consist of video-recordings and ethnographic fieldwork in a residential home for older people in Sweden that is characterised by a variety of languages and backgrounds. The findings are based on analyses of multi-party interactions involving an Arabic-speaking resident and caregivers with different levels of knowledge in different languages. We focus on complaint sequences when the resident expresses a negative stance (displeasure, anger, etc.) towards some difficult circumstance. Using the methodology of conversation analysis, we analyse the affect-regulating work through which the caregivers attempt to turn a pressing situation into a moment of cheerfulness and intimacy. The analyses bring to light the multilingual practices that the caregivers draw upon in pursuing this work, such as translating and giving voice to the resident’s complaining.

Care identities and interpreting practices

2015. Gunilla Jansson, Cecilia Wadensjö. Språk och identitet, 59-75

Chapter

'You're doing everything just fine'

2016. Gunilla Jansson. Discourse Studies 18 (1), 64-86

Article

This study examines the use of praise in caregiving of nursing home residents with dementia in Sweden. The data consist of video-recordings of staff–resident interaction in residential care settings where caregivers assist residents with personal hygiene. High-grade assessments accomplishing praise or a compliment such as ‘jättebra’ (‘great’) are routinely used online, simultaneously withthe care activity, by the caregiver when the residents are requested to undertake manual tasks ontheir own, such as tooth brushing, washing, dressing, and getting out of bed. It is shown that the primary function of the assessments is to encourage someone to do something, which is discussedas an institutionally related problem. These results contrast with prior research on domiciliary care in Sweden and Denmark, which show that high-grade assessment terms formulated so as toaccomplish praise or a compliment are reserved for situations where the home helper’s institutional role as the senior citizen’s helping hand is downplayed. It is argued that a more sensitive use of assessments and a higher awareness of the social norms concerning epistemic primacy may be a step toward implementing person-centeredness in residential care for older people.

Att utöva personcentrerad omsorg i möten med äldre med demens

2014. Gunilla Jansson. Svenskans beskrivning 33

Chapter

Studien som den här artikeln rapporterar från belyser en central aspekt av den kommunikativa verksamheten i vård och omsorg av äldre personer med demens. Mer specifikt ger den inblick i de utmaningar som det kan innebära att utöva personcentrerad omsorg i möten med individer som har en kognitiv funktionsnedsättning som begränsar möjligheter att etablera gemensam förståelse. Studien beskriver frågepraktiker i förhandlingar om hjälpinsats i multi-professionella vårdplaneringssamtal som omfattar äldre vårdtagare med demenssjukdom. Data i artikeln utgörs av videoinspelningar av fyra vårdplaneringsmöten på två olika äldreboenden. Ett genomgående mönster i samtalen är att yrkesutövaren tar sig rätten och tilldelas rätten att göra förantaganden och fatta beslut om frågor som rör den boendes livssituation, t.ex. genom att designa sina frågeinitiativ på ett sätt som uppmanar till bekräftande svar. Yrkesutövarnas frågepraktiker kan å ena sidan ses som ett smidigt sätt att hantera interaktionella problem och bevara parternas sociala ansikten. Å andra sidan begränsar yrkesutövarens påståendeformuleringar den boendes möjligheter att själv beskriva sin upplevelse. Mer flexibla frågepraktiker som på ett mer dynamiskt sätt tar till vara flerpartssamtalets potential skulle underlätta för yrkesutövaren att behålla den äldre som respondent.

Bridging language barriers in multilingual care encounters

2014. Gunilla Jansson. Multilingua - Journal of Cross-cultural and Interlanguage Communiciation 33 (1-2), 201-232

Article

The present case study demonstrates how the multilingual practicesof a linguistically diverse workforce contribute to the functioning of a modernworkplace. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and recordings in a residentialhome for elderly people with dementia in Sweden, the article explores howmultilingual immigrant care workers creatively use their language skills toovercome linguistic boundaries and communicate with an elderly Kurdish resident.It is shown that despite the fact that the participants do not, or only to alimited extent, share a common language, the care workers manage to createmultilingual encounters that allow them to perform care tasks in an activitycontext where empathy and efficiency are of great importance. Although thedata in this study manifest the struggle of multilingual care workers to bridgelanguage barriers, the study also highlights the complexity of providingadequate and well-functioning care in today’s diverse society, where linguisticand cultural matching of clients and caregivers cannot always be obtained.These results are discussed in the light of new demands on Swedish (and morebroadly Western) care systems to adapt to the increasing number of multilingualolder people, who will become residents in care facilities.

Hantering av ramkonflikter i vårdplaneringssamtal på ett äldreboende

2014. Gunilla Jansson. Språk och interaktion 4 (1), 9-39

Article

I den här artikeln undersöks hur ramkonflikter, dvs. spänningar som kan föreligga mellan olika behov och syften, hanteras i multiprofessionella samtal på vårdplaneringsmöten, där klienten själv deltar. Analysen visar att de professionella parterna orienterar sig på olika sätt mot de olika uppgifter och syften som mötet rymmer. Resultaten kan utveckla förståelsen av multiprofessionella samtal i vården, med betoning på behovsbedömningssamtal.

Response practices in multilingual interaction with an older Persian woman in a Swedish residential home

2014. Charlotta Plejert, Gunilla Jansson, Maziar Yazdanpanah. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 29 (1), 1-23

Article

In the present case study, a care encounter between an older multilingual (Farsi/Swedish/English) Persian woman and staff in an ordinary, Swedish residential home is investigated. The woman is perceived as suffering from dementia symptoms, but has not received any formal diagnosis of the disease. More specifically, the study focuses on how the woman's contributions in her mother tongue, Farsi, are responded to by a carer, who is also multilingual and speaks Swedish as a second language (L2), but has a very limited knowledge of Farsi. The data consists of recorded material from a mundane morning activity in the residential home, as the woman is undressed and prepared to go to the shower. The method employed is conversation analysis, and the study addresses the interactional outcome of this type of multilingual encounters, highlighting the way the establishment of mutual understanding is negatively affected by the fact that the participants do not or only to a limited extent share a common language. Analysis of the data shows that most of the woman's contributions in Farsi are responded to in L2-Swedish by the carer, primarily by means of seven different response practices: soothing talk, instrumental talk, minimal responses, explicit expressions of understanding, mitigating talk, questions, and appraisal. The findings are discussed in light of new demands on Swedish (and Western) care- and health care systems to adapt to the increasing number of multilingual, older people, who will become residents in care facilities and attend day centers within the coming years.

Skrift- och samtalspraktiker i äldreomsorgen

2014. Gunilla Jansson, Anna-Malin Karlsson, Zoe Nikolaidou.

Report

Hur påverkas arbetet på arbetsplatser i äldreomsorgen av ett ökat fokus på läsande och skrivande? Det är den övergripande frågeställningen i ett forskningsprojekt som bedrivits på tre äldreboenden under åren 2010-2011: Omsorg som språkarbete. Hinder och möjligheter med svenska som andraspråk i den nya arbetsordningen. I den här rapporten diskuteras de viktigaste slutsatserna från projektet, som består av två delstudier, en med fokus på skrift och en med fokus på samtalspraktiker. Språkforskarna Gunilla Jansson, Anna-Malin Karlsson och Zoe Nikolaidou har undersökt hur texter och samtal fungerar som arbetsredskap i det dagliga omsorgsarbetet, som till stor del handlar om att anpassa omsorg och bemötande efter de specifika individernas behov. Författarna visar hur institutionens ramar och regelverk lätt kommer i konflikt med andra mer personliga aspekter av omsorgsarbetarens yrkeskunskap. I både samtalsstudien och skriftbruksstudien handlar det om hur standardisering och likformighet krockar med en önskan om att se till unika individer och personliga detaljer. I rapporten diskuteras de strategier som de anställda har utvecklat för att hantera de motstridiga krav som den muntliga och skriftliga kommunikationen med och om de boende för med sig. Rapporten uppmuntrar till fortsatt reflektion kring arbetsplatsens muntliga och skriftliga genrer och hur de kan stödja olika aspekter av yrkeskunskap. Varje kapitel avslutas med förslag på frågor som personalen kan arbeta vidare med utifrån de iakttagelser som gjorts i projektet.

Taking a shower

2014. Gunilla Jansson, Charlotta Plejert. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders/Equinox 5 (1), 27-62

Article

This article focuses on an activity routinely carried out in elderly care: taking ashower. The care setting is two nursing homes in Sweden hosting elderly people with dementia. The data consist of transcriptions of three caregivers’ interaction with their residents prior to, and during the performance of the shower task. While the shower routinely is rejected by the care recipient in these settings, the article demonstrates alternative ways of performing the task that are less imposing for the elderly person and that may maintain the care recipient’s dignity and sense of autonomy. The way opposition occurs during the course of the activity depends on how the care worker frames the performance of the task. When physical action is embedded and aligned with the care recipient’s concerns, the washing of the body progresses more smoothly. The article highlights the importance of allowing the care recipient to feel that her priorities form the basis for how the activity should proceed. The implications of this study for the care system are discussed in terms of providing opportunities for caregivers and elderly persons to build relationships of mutual trust and support.

Rätt svenska på äldreboendet

2013. Gunilla Jansson. Språk i undervisning, 23-36

Conference

Artikeln ger ett kritiskt perspektiv på den arbetsplatsförlagda svenskundervisning för anställda med annat modersmål som inom ramen förutbildningsprogrammet Språksam har genomförts inom äldreomsorgen. Författaren kommer fram till att programmet har inneburit att språket sätts i fokus på ett ganska oreflekterat sätt och görs till syndabock för alla möjliga problem inom verksamheten. Både samarbetssvårigheter och organisatoriska tillkortakommanden tolkas som språkliga problem med risk för att ansvaret för problemen läggs på den andraspråkstalande medarbetaren. Undersökningen visar också hur det som uppfattas som bristande språkfärdighet hos andraspråkstalare i själva verket kan vara ett uttryckför mera generella problem i den kommunikativa praktiken inom verksamheten. För att uppnå de högt ställda målen inom SpråkSam krävs enligt författaren ett nytänkand eoch en från arbetsplatsen fristående utbildning med långsiktiga mål.

Work-identity in ethnographic research

2013. Gunilla Jansson, Zoe Nikolaidou. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 12, 152-167

Article

In this article, we problematize our field roles as two linguistic ethnographers who aim to study the communication and documentation practices drawn upon by care workers in elderly care facilities in Sweden. Our field roles are discussed in relation to the complex nature of care workers’ knowledge and competence, which results from three different aspects of their work-identities: institutional, professional, and individual. As researchers, we found ourselves in constant dialogue with the research participants, and our field roles were continuously shaped and reshaped according to the individuals and the situations in which we became involved. Even aspects of our own identities taken into the field, such as our background and personal qualities, proved to be important in establishing good relations with the care staff. Coming closer to the participants’ professional identity proved to be of utmost importance for interpreting their choices and decisions in the workplace. Identity negotiation is discussed here as a constructive way of discussing ethnographic field roles in the research field.

Äldreboendet som flerspråkig arbetsplats

2013. Gunilla Jansson. Svenskans beskrivning: 32, Förhandlingar vid trettioandra sammankomsten för svenskans beskrivning, 102-113

Conference

Projektet Omsorg som språkarbete: Hinder och möjligheter med svenska som andraspråk i den nya arbetsordningen fokuserar andraspråkstalares arbetssituation på arbetsplatser i äldreomsorgen. Bakgrunden till projektet är de förändringar av arbetslivet som brukar kopplas till den så kallade nya ekonomin, och som ibland benämns den nya arbetsordningen. För arbete inom vård och omsorg, som står i fokus i projektet, innebär det att handfasta och konkreta arbetsuppgifter utökats med betydligt mer komplexa uppgifter som exempelvis dokumentation och kontaktmannaskap. När kraven på språklig och kommunikativ kompetens ökar riskerar de som inte uppfyller dem att bli utan arbetsuppgifter och på sikt hamna utanför arbetslivet. En kategori som är särskilt utsatt är anställda med annat modersmål än svenska. Det övergripande syftet med projektet är att bidra till en såväl vidgad som fördjupad förståelse för vad som brukar beskrivas som bristfälliga kunskaper i svenska och de problem med marginalisering som är förknippade med detta. Hur påverkar de ökande kraven de anställdas möjligheter att delta i centrala arbetspraktiker på arbetsplatsen? Vilka problem uppstår och hur löses de? Vår teoretiska utgångspunkt är att språklig kompetens, såväl skriftlig som muntlig är en del av ett socialt sammanhang. Empiri kommer att innefatta identifiering och analys av skriftpraktiker och samtalspraktiker på arbetsplatsen samt relationen dem emellan. Detta sker med hjälp av en kombination av etnografi (deltagande observation och intervjuer)och mikroanalys av språk och interaktion. Även textanalyser ingår som en komponent i blottläggandet av skrift- och samtalspraktiker. Projektet är tänkt att bedrivas som två delstudier. I delstudie 1 undersöks skriftpraktiker medan delstudie 2 fokuserar samtalspraktiker. Målet är att utveckla metoder som verksamheten kan använda. Förändringsarbetet med praktikerna förväntas leda fram till en effektivare kommunikation vilket även gynnar brukarna i omsorgen.

Hantering av ramkonflikter i vårdplaneringssamtal på ett äldreboende

2019. Gunilla Jansson. Språk och interaktion 2019 (4), 9-39

Article

I den här artikeln undersöks hantering av ramkonflikter, dvs. spänningar som kan föreligga mellan olika behov och syften, i multiprofessionella samtal på vårdplaneringsmöten, som involverar äldre personer med demens. Syftet med föreliggande studie är att utveckla förståelsen av multiprofessionella s amtal genom att utforska samtal där klienten själv deltar. En omständighet, som är mindre utforskad i tidigare studier av behovsbedömningssamtal, är det faktum att klienten är en person med demenssjukdom. Analysen visar att de professionella parterna orienterar sig på olika sätt mot de olika uppgifter och syften som mötet rymmer.

Att stötta identitet - en utmaning i den mångkulturella demensvården

2012. Gunilla Jansson. Sundhetskommunikation, 77-92

Chapter

Artikeln lyfter fram språkets, kulturens och interaktionens betydelse för den tvåspråkige vårdtagarens välbefinnande. Antalet äldre med invandrarbakgrund i äldreomsorgen ökar. Många av dessa har olika former av demensdiagnos. Såväl den internationella som den nordiska forskningen om hur man ska bemöta dessa vårdtagare är begränsad. Den här artikeln ska ses som en ansats att fylla denna kunskapslucka. Syftet med artikeln är att beskriva interaktionen i flerspråkiga triader, då en vårdgivare som talar patientens modersmål i närvaro av en kollega som inte är talare av språket tilldelas eller tar på sig en tolkande roll. I analysen beskriver jag hur tolkningar av patientens yttranden språkligt och interaktionellt konstrueras, eller samkonstrueras i dessa flerspråkiga triader. Syftet är att visa hur patientens perspektiv och känslor medieras i den triadiska kommunikationen. Detta analysförfarande ger mig möjlighet att diskutera olika sätt att stödja den tvåspråkiga patientens personliga identitet i en språkligt och kulturellt komplex vårdkontext.

Att uppfatta komplexiteten i konfliktfyllda situationer.

2012. Gunilla Jansson. Med språket som arbetsredskap., 105-118

Chapter

Att sätta ord på vårdarbetarens yrkeskompetens.

2011. Gunilla Jansson.

Report

"Metodutveckling med forskarstöd: Att sätta ord på vårdarbetarens yrkeskompetens" är ett delprojekt inom projektet SpråkSam, som drivits av Stiftelsen Stockholms läns Äldrecentrum. Delprojektet har bedrivits av en språkforskare och har genomförts på två arbetsplatser i form av grupphandledning och fältstudier, dvs. deltagande observationer av kommunikationssituationer i vårdarbetet. Den ena arbetsplatsen genomgick en privatisering under projekttiden, medan den andra var kommunal. Syftet med delprojektet har varit att stärka moderprojektet SpråkSam genom att pröva metoder, som kan öka de anställdas medvetenhet om språkanvändning och kommunikation i omsorgsarbetet. De specifika målen med projektet har varit att utifrån ett språkligt perspektiv stimulera deltagarna till beskrivning av vardagsgörandet i vårdarbetet, utveckla redskap för reflektion kring hur man använder språk för problemlösning i vårdarbetet samt skapa en gemensam förståelse kring hur man pratar om det man gör i arbetet. Den metod som prövats i delprojektet går ut på att sammankoppla grupphandledning på arbetsplatsen med reflektion kring språk, kunskap och kommunikation. I metodbeskrivningen visas hur språk och kommunikation på olika sätt med handledarens och forskarens stöd kan kopplas till de frågeställningar och problem som lyfts i gruppen.

Ett möte mellan två skrivkulturer

2011. Nils Larsson (et al.).

Thesis (Lic)

The aim of this study is to shed light on and describe a number of secondary school students’ writing practices and their attitudes towards these practices.

The material used in the study comes from a secondary school in a suburb of Stockholm where most of the students are bilingual. The entire study comprises five different smaller studies: a questionnaire, a number of interviews, classroom observations, observations of one particular boy’s writing practices and studies of the same boy’s texts.

The results of these smaller studies show that a form of encounter between two different writing cultures probably takes place in school. These two writing cultures are, on the one hand, one that is concerned with the students’ school work and, on the other, one that constitutes the private writing culture in which young people indulge when they are not occupied with school work. The study shows that there are obvious differences between these two cultures when it comes to students’ attitudes to writing. Their attitudes to private writing are far more positive than to school writing. A further finding of the study is that there are evident differences between the attitudes of girls and boys to writing, although these are most obvious in the students’ school writing. In private writing the differences are smaller, although some boys claim not to write at all in private, even though they send a great many text messages.

One possible implication of the study is that school writing would probably benefit from a widening of the concept of writing to become amore communicative form of writing.

Samverkan mellan språkforskning och arbetsplats i äldreomsorgen

2011. Gunilla Jansson. Språk för framtiden [Language for the future], 81-97

Conference

Skriftburna samtal på en vårdavdelning

2011. Gunilla Jansson. Perspektiv på skrivande, 133-143

Conference

The multifaceted use of a written artefact in student supervision

2011. Gunilla Jansson. Education Research International, artikel-ID 195812

Article

This article explores the use of a written artefact, an assessment form encompassing a checklist with health care terms, in supervised nurse student-patient interactions during assessment interviews in a Swedish hospital ward. The students were doing their clinical practice and were in their first year of a three-year nursing degree. Even though the students are not in charge of the situation, they are expected to perform a professional task for which they lack adequate skills. As demonstrated, the use of the assessment form provided a useful way for the participants to manage specific tasks in an apprenticeship context, such as regulating affect display, demonstrating uptake of the patient's concerns and staging the interview as an exercise. For this article, three excerpts have been selected from history-taking sequences, when the patient's previous illness history is created. The analysis illustrates the affordances provided by the assessment form to handle perspective shifts, when the patient departs from a general pattern of unelaborated answers and offers a window into his/her concerns. Importantly, however, the students' feedback talk with the nurse preceptor offers evidence that the artefact also constrains their forms of action in the practice of gathering assessment data. The article argues for ward-level practices that socialize students into reflective ways of using the artefact.

Handledning i hybrida kontexter

2010. Gunilla Jansson. Språk & Stil 20, 189-219

Article

This article is grounded in a dialogical and sociocultural tradition within research on talk and communication in institutional settings. It is concerned with discourses of merged or mixed kinds in contexts where working life encounters educational contexts. The data are drawn from spoken activities in vocational training for student nurses enrolled in a nursing programme within higher education in Sweden. The students are being trained in the practice of patient assessment on admission to hospital. Based on video recordings from conversations between patients, student nurses and their nurse preceptor on the ward, the article analyzes the complex hybridity in instructional sequences, where the participants focus on several goals simultaneously. The detailed analysis of five excerpts selected from these sequences shows how an experienced nurse preceptor masters multiple roles and tasks embedded within a pedagogical practice encompassing both care work through assessment talk and instructing student nurses. Using a combination of analytical tools from Goffmanian frame analysis and Conversation Analysis rooted in ethnomethodology, the analysis pays attention to the communicative and pedagogical resources drawn on by the participants in their interaction when coping with the differing demands imposed by the situation. The results of the analysis underline the importance of including the use of different modalities as constitutive parts that function together in minimizing the objectivation of the patient in frame shifts. Gaze direction in particular is proposed as a method for the preceptor in this work to enable her to orient simultaneously to both the student and the patient.

Text i samtal

2010. Gunilla Jansson. Svenskans beskrivning 30, 144-155

Conference

Orientering mot språkliga identiteter i samtal om text under arbete i flerspråkiga studentgrupper

2008. Gunilla Jansson. Språk & Stil 18, 156-187

Article

In contrast to most research paradigms in second language acquisition which view interaction as a source of data for the study of language learning, this article employs an ethnomethodological perspective in the analysis of naturally-occurring second language talk. The article seeks to explore how local identities (here defined as being either a first- or a second-language speaker) are mobilized by the participants, and how shifts in their salience can be traced in the sequential organisation of the talk. The data consist of onversations between first-language (FL) and second-language (SL) speakers and between SL-speakers with varying linguistic backgrounds in collaborative writing groups in a multilingual setting at a Swedish university. The analysis focuses on repair sequences (self-initiated other-repairs) in which a linguistic unit is made explicit. The article discusses the cases in which the SL-speaker displays knowledge about the register in an academic laboratory report and instances when she orients to her restricted linguistic knowledge. It is argued that the linguistic status of the speakers is an interactionally-mobile category. In the few cases when the speaker identities are brought into focus in conversations between FL- and SL-speakers, this appears as a result of the help-seeking activities of the SL-speaker. In conversations between SL-speakers, however, the speakers are by contrast more eager to activate their linguistic identity.

Bilingual practices in the process of initiating and resolving lexical problems in students' collaborative writing sessions

2007. Gunilla Jansson. International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (2), 157-183

Article

This study deals with the sequential organization of language choice and code-switching between Persian as a first language and Swedish as a second language in the process of initiating and resolving a problem of understanding and producing the correct version of a lexical item. The data consist of detailed transcripts of audio tapings of two bilingual students’ collaborative writing sessions within the frame of a one-year master’s program in computer science in a multilingual setting at a Swedish university. The students, both Persianspeaking, are advanced speakers of Swedish as a second language. For this article, four lexical language-related episodes, where code-switching between Persian and Swedish occurs, are analyzed. The analyzed excerpts in this article are drawn from a corpus of data consisting of language-related episodes identified and transcribed in the audio tapings. We employ a conversation analysis (CA) approach for the analysis of bilingual interaction. This means that the meaning of the code-switching in the interaction is described in terms of both global (the conversational activity at large) and local interactional factors. In the analysis, a close step-by-step analysis of the turn-taking procedures demonstrates how the communicative meaning of the students’ bilingual behavior in a lexical episode is determined in its local production in the emerging conversational context and how it can be explicated as part of the following social actions: drawing attention to a problem, seeking alliance when a problem is made explicit and confirming intersubjective understanding when the problem is resolved.

Bilingual practices in the process of initiating and resolving lexical problems in students’ collaborative writing sessions

2007. Gunilla Jansson. International Journal of Bilingualism 11 (2), 157-185

Article

This study deals with the sequential organization of language choice and code-switching between Persian as a first language and Swedish as a second language in the process of initiating and resolving a problem of understanding and producing the correct version of a lexical item. The data consist of detailed transcripts of audio tapings of two bilingual students’ collaborative writing sessions within the frame of a one-year master’s program in computer science in a multilingual setting at a Swedish university. The students, both Persian-speaking, are advanced speakers of Swedish as a second language. For this article, four lexical language-related episodes, where code-switching between Persian and Swedish occurs, are analyzed. The analyzed excerpts in this article are drawn from a corpus of data consisting of language-related episodes identified and transcribed in the audio tapings. We employ a conversation analysis (CA) approach for the analysis of bilingual interaction. This means that the meaning of the code-switching in the interaction is described in terms of both global (the conversational activity at large) and local interactional factors. In the analysis, a close step-by-step analysis of the turn-taking procedures demonstrates how the communicative meaning of the students’ bilingual behavior in a lexical episode is determined in its local production in the emerging conversational context and how it can be explicated as part of the following social actions: drawing attention to a problem, seeking alliance when a problem is made explicit and confirming intersubjective understanding when the problem is resolved.

Deltagande i problemsekvenser kring skriftspråksfrågor i flerspråkiga studentgrupper.

2007. Gunilla Jansson. Språkets roll och räckvidd., 126-138

Chapter

Labbrapportskrivande som språkutvecklande lärandemiljö

2006. Gunilla Jansson. Språk & Stil: Tidskrift för svensk språkforskning 15, 129-160

Article

Recontextualisation processes as sense-making practice in student-writers’ collaborative dialogue

2006. Gunilla Jansson. Studies in Higher Education 31 (6), 667-704

Article

The research introduced in this article deals with student academic writing as a social practice and draws from fieldwork in a highly diverse sector within higher education. It explores the potential of peer scaffolding as a means of making sense of tutor comments. The investigation is placed in the field of socially mediated learning processes with emphasis on dialogism following the work of Bakhtin and Wertsch. The data consist of recordings of student talk in two collaborative writing groups on two lab reports collected within an ongoing project on collaborative writing in higher education. The participants are students with second language background enrolled in a course which is part of a one-year master programme in computer science at a Swedish university. The aim of the study is to explore to what extent the students in the writing groups are able to make use of resources in the socio cultural context when trying to decipher the institutional conventions of academic writing and the expectations of their tutors. The analysis is based on transcriptions of episodes in the recordings where the students are engaged in talk about different aspects that can be related to the unfolding text. All instances in these episodes where the students are drawing on teachers’ comments on explicitness with respect to logical reasoning are code. A qualitative analysis of the interaction reveals how aspects from teacher voices are extracted from the institutional frame, paraphrased and put into the students’ colloquial talk. The findings indicate that collaboration that emerges spontaneously as an answer to students’ need for support and dialogue involves students in active meaning making and plays an important role in enabling them to use the tacit meta-knowledge available in the educational setting as a tool for their learning of academic literacies. Pedagogical implications are discussed in terms of the potential of peer scaffolding as a means to support teachers’ discourse around writing..

Gunilla Jansson

Research projects

Publications

Public and private spaces in residential care for older people

"She didn't expect to get a slap": Modeling "proper" conduct among teachers and students in training classes for care workers in Sweden

Gester

Hantering av ramkonflikter i vårdplaneringssamtal på ett äldreboende

The social organization of assistance in multilingual interaction in Swedish residential care

Vårdelever om flerspråkighet på arbetsplatsen

Creating Opportunities for Residents to Engage in Social Exchange

Language brokering in multilingual caregiving settings

Managing complaints in multilingual care encounters

Care identities and interpreting practices

'You're doing everything just fine'

Att utöva personcentrerad omsorg i möten med äldre med demens

Bridging language barriers in multilingual care encounters

Hantering av ramkonflikter i vårdplaneringssamtal på ett äldreboende

Response practices in multilingual interaction with an older Persian woman in a Swedish residential home

Skrift- och samtalspraktiker i äldreomsorgen

Taking a shower

Rätt svenska på äldreboendet

Work-identity in ethnographic research

Äldreboendet som flerspråkig arbetsplats

Hantering av ramkonflikter i vårdplaneringssamtal på ett äldreboende

Att stötta identitet - en utmaning i den mångkulturella demensvården

Att uppfatta komplexiteten i konfliktfyllda situationer.

Att sätta ord på vårdarbetarens yrkeskompetens.

Ett möte mellan två skrivkulturer

Samverkan mellan språkforskning och arbetsplats i äldreomsorgen

Skriftburna samtal på en vårdavdelning

The multifaceted use of a written artefact in student supervision

Handledning i hybrida kontexter

Text i samtal

Orientering mot språkliga identiteter i samtal om text under arbete i flerspråkiga studentgrupper

Bilingual practices in the process of initiating and resolving lexical problems in students' collaborative writing sessions

Bilingual practices in the process of initiating and resolving lexical problems in students’ collaborative writing sessions

Deltagande i problemsekvenser kring skriftspråksfrågor i flerspråkiga studentgrupper.

Labbrapportskrivande som språkutvecklande lärandemiljö

Recontextualisation processes as sense-making practice in student-writers’ collaborative dialogue