Teachers’ use of reported habitual thoughts in research interviews

Abstract

Use of reported thoughts in research interviews has rarely been examined although research interviews are a major source of data in qualitative research. This paper considers a conversation analytic examination of reported habitual thoughts, produced by twelve teachers during research interviews addressing their participation in a three-year action research study. Data are drawn from a collection of 137 reported thoughts and analysis establishes ways that habitual thoughts were used during interviews to report thought produced repetitively over time, rather than a thought produced on just one occasion. Habitual thoughts exhibited features identified with reported thoughts in other interactional environments but appeared particularly responsive to the local context produced through interviewer-interviewee interaction about the longitudinal research study that had required teachers to reflect on their established classroom practices and make changes to them.

Introduction

Interviews are an important data generation method in research. An increasing number of studies have examined talk in the accomplishment of research interviews (Roulston, 2006, 2019), from the perspectives of ethnomethodology (EM), conversation analysis (CA), and Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA). Such studies make the research interview itself the topic for investigation and distinctively seek to describe the interactional work that produces the interview as a social encounter that is highly responsive to ‘local contingencies’ (Rapley, 2001, p. 306). Although other types of interviews have been examined employing one or another of these cognate approaches (e.g. news interviews and parent-teacher interviews), Roulston (2019) focuses on examinations of the research interview. These highlight the importance of recent work, from an interactional perspective, that asserts the continued overlooking of ‘interactional characteristics of interviews’ (p. 19). Roulston (2019) discerns three predominant strands: studies that focus on the construction of interview data, specific interactional phenomena and social actions, or accounting practices of interview participants (p. 13).

CA studies of qualitative research interviews include: the production and management of complaint sequences (Roulston et al., 2001), how interaction accomplishes rapport (Prior, 2017), and the reflexive relationship between interviewee’s identity work and interpreting interview data (Rapley, 2001). According to Roulston (2014), such examinations of research interview-as-topic have provided insight into methodological matters such as interactional troubles in survey research (Suchman and Jordan, 1990), the interactional management of reported speech in focus groups (Myers, 1999); place reference in social research interviews (Myers and Lampropoulous, 2013), devices that solicit the views of interviewees to affirm positions already held by interviewers (Rapley and Antaki, 1998), and the interactional contributions of the interviewer to open-ended qualitative interviews (e.g. Paoletti, 2001).

An interest that has emerged in such studies of interviews is the examination of reported speech and, to a much lesser degree, reported thought. Myers (1999) examined reported speech in focus groups and argued that reported speech ‘can be a way of intensifying specific events or typifying shared events’ (p. 395). Other functions include providing evidence or hypothetical quotes that other focus group members would recognise and providing stances for possible alignment by others in the group who were usually strangers to each other. Barnes and Moss (2007), in a study of reported thoughts, noted the occurrence of the phenomenon across a range of interactional settings but its prevalence in research interviews in their data set.

This paper addresses the use of direct reported habitual thoughts in research interviews conducted with teachers. Each teacher had participated in a three-year action research study which aimed to change classroom practices. Final interviews exhibited a plethora of utterances incorporating reported speech and thought however we focused on habitual thought due to its potential insight into teachers’ reflections on their established classroom practices, in order to improve them. Our analysis extends the observation that ‘both interviews in general and mindfulness practice in particular encourage the kind of self-accounts where inner dialogue can be easily and relevantly topicalized’ (Barnes and Moss, 2007, p. 142). We establish teachers’ use of direct reported habitual thoughts in interviews as central to demonstrating, for the interviewer, their changes to classroom practices because of their participation in action research.

Literature review

Broader phenomenon of reported speech

Reported speech is a phenomenon of interest across a range of disciplines but particularly in literary studies and linguistics. A sociological perspective emerged from the work of Goffman (1981) and his theory of frame analysis in which he posited footing shifts between author or the person who uttered the reported words originally, animator or the person who speaks to report the original utterance, and principal whose viewpoint is evident in the current turn. Analysis of reported speech, from an EM/CA perspective, seeks to understand how talk produces those shifts so that they are hearable as such during ordinary conversations and institutional talk (Clift and Holt, 2007).

In an early conversation analytic study, Holt (1996) highlights the importance of examining direct reported speech in real conversations (rather than in invented examples as found in many previous studies). She identifies recurrent features of direct reported speech, such as incorporation of original deixis and prosody, and use of pronouns to precede the quotation. Roulston’s (2000) examination of her interviews with music teachers highlights that prosody in reported speech ‘points to the moral implications of the scene as portrayed by speakers and how it should be heard’ (Roulston, 2000, p. 147) in the current interaction.

Holt (2002) establishes the relevance of direct reported speech in complaints and in humorous stories. With the former, implicit assessment precedes the reported speech and explicit assessment follows supplied first by the recipient of reported speech and then by an assessment or response by the speaker who reported the original speech. Reported speech in humorous stories is accompanied by laughter or laughter particles, with some ambiguity as to whether the laughter was part of the original talk being reported or whether the current speaker is including laughter now as a response that invites similar from the recipient of the story and reported speech. Such studies establish how reported speech not only introduces past talk into a current interaction but provides contextual information about its prior production and how it should be heard and interpreted by the recipient of the reported speech (Buttny, 1998; Roulston, 2000) in the current interaction here-and-now.

Understandings of reported speech have shifted from simplistic views of it as the provision of a written verbatim record of what was said. Instead, reported speech is understood to encompass a range of phenomena that vary in exactness. Myers (1999) provides one taxonomy for the functions of reported direct speech. The taxonomy encompassed reported speech drawing on speech from specific occasions as well as from repeated events and hypothetical ones. He found that reported speech occurs as part of interaction but rarely as a complete turn by itself, that interjections (or response cries) are a reliable marker of quoted speech (including thought) and that quotatives mark what follows as reported speech (p. 380). Other conversation analytic studies have more specifically examined features such as the boundaries of reported speech (Bolden, 2004), and uses of reported speech, as found in racist remarks in neighbour-meditation services and interviews between police and suspects in neighbour-related crime (Stokoe and Edwards, 2007, p. 338).

Quotatives are one feature of reported speech that has been extensively examined (see Buchstaller, 2013). Quotatives take the form ‘X + Y’ or ‘pronoun or noun + verb of saying’. The verb ‘say’ most directly indicates reported actual speech in English, for example, ‘She said’. Relatively more recent quotatives include ‘like’ (Fox and Robles, 2010; Romaine and Lange, 1991; Tagliamonte and Hudson, 1999) in the form of be + like (e.g. ‘He was like’) and ‘go’ (Buchstaller, 2001) (e.g. ‘She goes’). Often, the meaning of be + like is unclear or ambiguous with the listener needing to infer whether the following quote was spoken or thought (Romaine and Lange, 1991). One form, ‘it’s like’, has been found to enact previous feeling, attitudes and thoughts (Fox and Robles, 2010, p. 715) that were unstated at the time and provided assessment of a previous event or spoken action. Such assessments are designed to be heard as a response that anyone might have had in the situation (p. 716), rather than being specific to the individual.

In an examination of ‘be like’ and ‘go’, Buchstaller (2001) makes the point that repeated habitual speech can be difficult to discern. In addition, she notes that repetition of utterances rarely produces precisely the same wording, the same intonation pattern, and so on. Further, Buchstaller differentiates between repetitively reoccurring ‘real, quoted speech’ (p. 9) and ‘repetitively reoccurring hypothetical speech’, stating that it is the ‘newer’ quotatives that are more likely to appear before quoted habitual speech and thought, with ‘think’ and ‘say’ appearing much less in the data examined.

Reported thoughts

There is now a plethora of studies of direct reported speech but far fewer examinations of reported thought (Barnes and Moss, 2007; Haakana, 2007). The latter has been referred to as ‘inner speech’ (Baffy, 2018, p. 39), ‘inner thoughts’ (Baffy, 2018, p. 39), ‘private thoughts’ or ‘inner dialogue’ (Barnes and Moss, 2007, p. 123). Reported thoughts have been considered within linguistics, particularly their occurrence in written narratives (Haakana, 2007), however the focus within CA is on reported thoughts as they occur during peoples’ actual interactions.

Reported thoughts were initially raised in the conversation analytic work of Sacks (1992) and addressed more systematically by Jefferson (2004a) in her analysis of ‘first thoughts’. Jefferson established, for example, the ways that first thoughts are used by people to normalise events that are out-of-the-ordinary. Jefferson worked with a collection of first thoughts; many of these could be classified as indirect reported thoughts rather than direct, although Jefferson did not employ that distinction. This early work has been extended beyond the analysis of first thoughts.

There has been a tendency to examine reported thoughts together with reported speech (e.g. Couper-Kuhlen, 2007; Sandlund, 2014; Vásquez and Urzúa, 2009); studies addressing only reported thoughts are much fewer (Park, 2018). One reason for this is the similarity between reported speech and reported thought although recent work examining reported thoughts has addressed its distinctiveness and need to understand more about its specific features and uses as an interactional device (Haakana, 2007). Couper-Kuhlen (2007) examines reported speech and thought in assessments and accounts, in non-narrative contexts. By taking this focus, she seeks to understand both phenomena outside of oral storytelling or literary work, where many previous studies have focused their attention due to their existing story frameworks (p. 81). She established ways that reported thoughts may be ‘a means to warrant some accountable action, or the report of some accountable action or lack of it’ (p. 110). Incorporating reported thoughts into a current utterance providing an account, may reveal the decision making that led to it. Other studies examining both reported speech and reported thoughts include hypothetical enactments in advice-giving (Sandlund, 2014) and socialization into academic writing discourse (Baffy, 2018).

Park (2018) addresses the use of reported hypothetical thoughts to provide assessment in advice giving sequences. Conversation analysis of 31 cases identifies a particular format of reported thoughts (quotative + response particle + clause) and reported thoughts used to provide a response to student writing by the instructor (at the time of reading) and to identify an issue or potential issue in the writing. These actions provide a warrant for the ensuing advice given to students. The author ties the employment of reported thoughts in such sequences to the institutional achievement of instructional talk about writing.

In a study of student-tutor interactions about written texts, Haen (2019) considers tutors’ use of reported thoughts to accomplish positive assessments of students’ drafts and affiliations with stances taken by writers. Together, these actions work to satisfy ‘face needs’ (p. 18) and socialization into academic writing practices. Haen articulates similarities between reported speech and reported thought and highlights the particular relevance in the student-tutor interactions of the quotatives ‘think’, ‘realise’ and ‘wonder’ and that thoughts often occur during or following reading.

Complaints are another focus for CA studies. Haakana (2007) addresses reported thoughts in Finnish complaint stories about the misconduct of another who is not present. He demonstrates that ‘reported thought is a well-fitted device for constructing complaints’ (p. 151). He argues that reported thought requires studies that focus on ‘its construction, the activities it is used to perform and its sequential environments’ (p. 151). The distinctiveness of reported thoughts in complaint stories is that they articulate criticisms that were not voiced at the time, raise questions about why they were not and provide some guidance as to how the recipient should hear or assess the complaint. Reported thoughts often employed the quotative verb ‘think’ as the clearest indication of reported thought, used past tense, and were prosodically marked. Difficulties in differentiating reported speech from reported thought were associated with quotatives such as ‘be like’ and with the absence of a quotative (referred to as a zero quotative). Vagueness results as to whether a complaint was voiced or not.

Barnes and Moss (2007) developed formats for what they termed reported private thoughts or inner speech (drawing on Volosinov, 1973). In an analysis of 240 instances, they examine reported private thoughts produced in ordinary and institutional interactions. Interview talk was included in the collection, along with private thoughts from telephone calls at home, from therapy and patient-provider interactions. CA was employed to determine features of reported private speech. The authors address reported private thoughts produced for self and reported private thoughts produced for others, described in terms of their differences in footing positions. General characteristics of the phenomenon are described that accomplish parts of utterances as reporting thought; use of quotatives and zero quotatives, tense shifts, response cries and other non-lexical items, and marking through prosody and changes in volume. These concur with features determined in other conversation analytic studies (e.g. Couper-Kulin, 2007). Importantly, Barnes and Moss (2007) discern formats of reported thoughts. These extend beyond types of reported thoughts that encompass a previous one-off specific thought and include reported habitual private thought whereby speakers report thought that repeatedly occurs in certain circumstances and reported hypothetical thought or thought that might occur.

Reported habitual thought

There appears to be no detailed examinations of reported habitual thought although some researchers address it briefly within broader considerations of reported speech or thought. Barnes and Moss (2007) describe reported habitual private thought using the format ‘“Most of the time I think” + particle + direct reported thought’ (p. 134). This format is illustrated in the example that they analyse, presented out of the context of the transcript extract here:

14 Joy: [A:fterwards I always think (.) °oh I should’ve said°

15    [that, or I ]should ]’ve said thi]s.

(Barnes and Moss, 2007, p. 135)

Analysis indicates markers of reported habitual private thought including a temporal adverb prior to the quotative (e.g. ‘always’), indexical expressions ‘this’ and ‘that’ and use that situates it as ‘a general protype’ (p. 135). Kim (2014) later notes the use of ‘think’ marked habitual thoughts in the ordinary conversation of Korean speakers.

According to Couper-Kuhlen (2007), habitual thought, as with habitual speech, is a useful device for ‘proposing an assessment or account in the here-and-now’ (p. 115). As with other reported thoughts, habitual thoughts are prefaced frequently by expletives or exclamations. Couper-Kuhlen notes that incorporation of habitual thoughts, bears ‘the weight of habituality’ (p. 110) and that such thoughts make contributions to accountability as they may cast actions to be a consequence of repeated considerations. In describing direct habitual thoughts, Couper-Kuhlen draws out their expressive features and ways they enable a demonstration of what went on in the mind.

Perspective and methods

Research interviews are fertile grounds for the occurrence of reported thoughts (Barnes and Moss, 2007). Since there is much to be gained by examining ‘perspicuous settings’ (Garfinkel, 1991), this paper examines reported habitual thought in research interviews in an action research study (Edwards-Groves and Davidson, 2021), conducted over three years in one school. Interviews were conducted with twelve teachers at the conclusion of the study. The interviews were open-ended, whereby semi-structured questions allowed for interviewee responses and interviewer follow-up. The length of the study, incorporation of teacher research, and use of teacher-developed recordings and transcripts, all contributed to an overarching emphasis on changing classroom practices through reflection and consequent action. Final interviews included questions that required or prompted teachers to talk about the processes they had employed to bring about and sustain changes.

A conversation analytic approach informed this research. Initial analysis of the twelve interviews identified 137 occurrences of direct reported thought. A sub-set of 53 direct reported habitual thoughts was discerned, and entire sequences identified by returning to recordings of interviews. Data were viewed numerous times and more detailed transcripts gradually developed employing Jefferson notation (2004b; see Appendix). This was an iterative process requiring repeated viewing of data, refinement of transcripts, and deepening analysis. This process enabled delineation of features that were evident and actions that were accomplished prior to, during, and after the production of habitual thought. Sequences were then selected to represent these. Descriptions were developed and are presented in the following section, beginning with interactional features determined across the data and then shifting to descriptions of ways the device was employed to accomplish actions particular to the interviews.

Findings

Gross features of reported habitual thought illustrate a number of interactional phenomenon, some identified in previous examinations of reported thoughts (e.g. Barnes and Moss, 2007; Couper-Kuhlen, 2007). Habitual thoughts often occurred mid-utterance so that they were preceded by one or more turn-constructional units and were followed by at least one other. Habitual thoughts were preceded most frequently by a quotative rather than zero quotative. Many habitual thoughts were oh-prefaced or prefaced by a response cry. As with reported speech, endings of quotations were often ‘fuzzy’ (Couper-Kuhlen, 2007) exhibiting a gradual shift back into the present, rather than a marked and clear-cut completion. The interactional environment often included assessments, with some quotations following an assessment and followed by an assessment. Stories were less in evidence in turns that produced habitual thoughts and there were some examples of habitual thoughts providing unstated criticisms of the utterance of another.

There were, however, features of habitual thought that were distinctive to this study. Habitual thoughts appeared most frequently in lengthy multi-unit turns produced by interviewees. These turns were in response to an interviewer question or questions, or sometimes in response to an assessment or stance expressed by the interviewer. There were habitual thoughts that were made in relation to a series of events or actions, other than past utterances produced by another. Quotative verbs were sometimes preceded by a temporal adverb but, distinctively, temporal terms were used often in turn-constructional units that came before the quotative verb and following quotation. These adverbs included a range of reoccurrence, from ‘sometimes’ to ‘always’. Also distinctive to this analysis, some interviewees provided a list of thoughts, hearable as recurring alternative thoughts. The following sub-sections describe, and explicate, such features using sequences selected because they represent these how these distinctive features were produced during interaction in the interviews.

Habitual thoughts that counter an account provided by another during interaction

Extract One exhibits some recurring features that were evident in the data set, including habitual thoughts that have occurred over time that counter or question information produced during previous spoken interaction with others.

Extract one

The interviewer had been questioning Lucy about a student in her class. Lucy provided the information that his parents migrated to Australia before the student was born. The extract follows on from that point in the interview.

1 INT: does he have an English-speaking background

2    at home?

3 LUC: ah no- non-English.

4    (0.2)

5 INT: okay.

6 LUC: yep (0.4) yep

7 INT: so (0.2) you know I mean that adds to the

8    complex[ity=

9 LUC:     [yes.

10 INT: =doesn’t it?

11 LUC: yes.

12 INT: when you’r:e you know trying to develop um

13    English=

14 LUC:  =Eng-

15 INT: and communication and (0.2) [as well

16 LUC:                  [cos it’s

17    Swahili Swahili’s the second language (0.2)

18    Mum tells me (0.2) that is (0.2)spoken at home.

19    she says (0.2) English is spoken first (0.4)

20    very thick accent (0.2) Swahili (0.2)

21    second language. but I don’t know how much

22    of

23    (1.0)

24    yeah_

25 INT: mmm.

26 LUC:→ cos I’ve had a lot of families that >tell

27   → me< no! >we speak English< we do speak

28 LUC:→ English ↓but I’m thinking ↑o:h I do think

29   → you speak a lot of your home language as

30   → ↓well.

31 INT: yep! yep! [yep!

32 LUC:       [yeah which is fine.

33 INT: yeah=

34 LUC:  =yeah but if you’re- yeah.

35 INT: ↑a::l↓righty anyway look I will let you go.

The interviewer’s first question about language use in the student’s home results in the information that it is English (lines 1–6). The interviewer continues with an account of the complexity of the situation that this produces, seeking confirmation from Lucy about the accuracy of her account (lines 7–16). The overlaps produced by Lucy (lines 7–9 and 15–16) result from her provision of agreement and then attempt to resume speaking.

Lucy follows with elaboration on the information that she provided in response to the teacher’s first question. Through indirect reported speech (lines 16–18) and then direct reported speech (lines 19–22), she attributes the mother with providing the information that Swahili is the second language spoken at home. The assessment confirms that there is another language spoken in the home, hence is consistent with the answer that Lucy had given the interviewer, however Lucy follows by introducing some doubt (‘but I don’t know how much of’).

In lines 26–30, Lucy employs reported habitual thought to provide her grounds for casting doubts on what the mother has told her. She does this by shifting to a general reporting of past interactions with numerous families about their home language use. The interactions consist of strongly marked reported speech, attributed to families (no! >we speak English< we do speak English), followed by Lucy’s response (‘but I’m thinking ↑o:h I do think you speak a lot of your home language as ↓well’.). The employment of the quotative ‘I’m thinking’ is consistent with its use in numerous such interactions and the reporting of habitual thought. The use of ‘but’ signals an opposing perspective to come and that is strongly marked through sudden rise in pitch and the production of an oh-prefaced thought that casts some doubt on what families have said.

What follows makes apparent that it wasn’t home use of a language other than English that was being criticised but rather that families do not accurately tell her about it. Lucy addresses the delicate matter through provision of an assessment (‘which is fine’), one that the interviewer quickly aligns with (lines 33–34). Although the interview closes without a return to the mother who provided the information about Swahili, the teacher’s talk of such interactions in the past has provided a warrant for her uncertainty about the details that the mother has given.

Habitual thoughts encompassing assessment of students’ language during interactions

The next extract establishes ways that reported habitual thoughts give insight into the reasoning of a teacher during her interaction with students. Here, the teacher draws on assessments of students’ language development and, through reporting of habitual thoughts, demonstrates such assessment as part of her regular practice that has been aided by action research.

Extract two

Jen is a teacher of English as an additional language. She teaches a small group of students who have recently arrived in Australia. In the early part of the interview, the interviewer asks probes for details that are particular to Jen’s work with these children. In the talk examined here, the interviewer directly addresses how the teacher has combined her teaching with the action research study.

1 INT: thank you. and so now, you’ve got the added

2   complexity of (0.2) of being drawn into the

3   (0.2)um, oral language [and=

4 JEN:        [yes.

5 INT:  =writing project

6    (0.4)

7    um I can’t even begin to [(0.2) to

8    understand how you’re

9 JEN:                [((laughing))

10 INT: trying tuh reconcile these (0.2) you know

11    (0.2) that the project from the school

12    perspective and your own teaching practice?

13 JEN: yeah it’s been a bit tricky but in saying

14    that a lot of the oral language project with

15    the revoicing, we do a lot in here any↑way

16    (0.4)

17   → just because they’ll say something and I’m

18   → ↑like (0.2) ↑well, it’s right ↑but ↓the

19   → ↑grammar’s not there ↓or (0.2) their meaning’s

20    not complete↑ly there? so a lot of the

21    revoicing we do in here any↑way

22 INT: hmm mm,

23 JEN: so I found that (0.4) fit in really well,

24   → and doing transcripts >I’ve been able< to see

25   → (0.2) ↑°oh° (0.4) >no they< have been

26   → improving (0.2) cos some days (0.2) when

27    you’re in here every day (0.2) I don’t seem

28    to notice it?

29 INT: uh huh

30 JEN: but then talking to their teachers or

31   → looking at transcripts I go (0.2) ↑oh (0.4)

32   → no their grammar is getting there or some

33   → days is just [(0.2) not there at all.

34         [((laughing))

35 INT: hm mm

36 JEN: and then some days they’ll write something

37   → and you go ↑oh ↓it’s ↑there, ↑°yeah°.

38 INT: [°yeah°

39 JEN: [baby steps.

40 INT: yeah so I- so you’re (0.2) you’re sort of

41    (0.2) indicating that that has been a [

42 JEN:                        [yeah

43 INT: helpful process for you

44 JEN: it has been.

The interviewer’s comments in lines 1–2 encompass ‘added complexity’ and projects the evaluation that involvement in the project has added demands for her. The interviewer continues, highlighting her own lack of understanding of how the teacher would reconcile the project and her own teaching practice (‘I can’t even begin to [(0.2) to understand’). This extreme case formulation prompts laughter from Jen. The interviewer’s insertion of ‘you know’ however attributes Jen with such understanding. Thus, the utterances can be heard as inviting agreement (Pomerantz, 1984) and the provision of an account that might help the interviewer understand as well.

In her response, Jen employs a variation on the ‘yeah but’ (Niemi, 2014) device, whereby she initially provides agreement and the assessment that ‘it’s been a bit tricky’. The employment of ‘bit’ downgrades from the interviewer’s previous reference to ‘complexity’ and Jen follows with ‘but in saying that’ followed by the claim that in her class she is already using revoicing (or recasting of students’ utterances). Use of the ‘yeah-but’ device introduces something that the interviewer would possibly not know and illustrates that while Jen’s assessment claims some trickiness it has not involved the complexity that the interviewer may have had in mind.

Jen introduces a justification for ‘revoicing’ students’ turns in talk. This is situated as habitual spoken practice with the use of ‘we do a lot in here anyway’ and ‘they will say something’ which lacks the specificity of a particular occasion. In lines 17–19, she employs the quotative ‘be like’ followed by a general thought that she regularly has about the students’ lack of correct grammar (↑well, it’s right ↑but ↓the ↑grammar’s not there). It is strongly prosodically marked. Her pitch drops on ‘or’ and she continues (↓or (0.2) their meaning’s not complete↑ly there?). The absence of strong emphasis suggests that Jen has ‘trailed off’ and is now talking in the ‘here-and-now’, providing a comment for the interviewer, which she follows with an assessment that a lot of revoicing is done in her classroom (lines 20–21).

Jen follows with a further assessment and introduces her use of transcripts in the project (lines 25–26); by inference, transcripts developed on several occasions. Here she prefaces the habitual thought with ‘I’ve been able to see’ followed by the thought itself ((0.2) ↑°oh° (0.4) >no they< have been improving) which provides a positive assessment of students’ progress. This is followed by the temporal expressions ‘some days’, and ‘when you’re in here every day’, and the information that she doesn’t notice (their improvement). She introduces the additional information that it is when talking with other teachers about students or looking at transcripts that she has the thought. This time the quotative ‘go’ is employed. It can precede either spoken or inner speech (Buchstaller, 2001), and Jen’s words on this occasion are hearable as encompassing her interactions with other teachers about student’s talk and her own private thoughts when reading transcripts of that classroom talk. Again, she points out that change or improvement remains unnoticed, on a daily basis. Therefore, the repeated events of talking with teachers or doing transcripts enables her to see students’ progress and make on-going positive assessments, as part of her teaching and her involvement in the research project.

Jen employs another reported habitual thought, flagged with reference to ‘some days’ and ‘something’, then the quotative ‘go’ followed by the thought that is oh-prefaced, incorporates an assessment encompassing indexicals (‘it’s there’) and a softly voiced response cry. Habitual talk here is not produced as always occurring but, rather, sometimes. Nevertheless, Jen is not reporting a thought that occurred on a single occasion but rather talk that occurs more repetitively. The teacher’s agreement overlaps with Jen’s provision of the description ‘baby steps’. The interviewer provides a self-repaired formulation of Jen’s talk (lines 40–43), encompassing the assessment adjective ‘helpful’ which makes relevant the positive confirmation that Jen provided.

Habitual thoughts that justify courses-of-action as responses to students’ written texts

In Extract Three, a teacher uses habitual thoughts to justify a course-of-action that she took as a response to her continued thoughts about students’ written work. She incorporates ‘or’ to produce alternative thoughts that are nevertheless habitual and made in response to written language not spoken. Here, it is Jen’s habitual thoughts in the past that have resulted in changes in the present.

Extract three

Prior to the interview, the interviewer observed Mia teaching a lesson to a small group of students. In this part of the interview, she asks Mia to talk about the lesson, particularly why she employed guided instruction.

1 INT: thank you. and um so today in the little

2    guided um session (0.2) what was just- can

3    you just talk a little bit about (0.2) why

4    guided at that point for these students? Why

5    a guided session?

6 MIA: yeah sure.

7 INT: yep

8 MIA: so (0.2) when I’ve worked with them and whe-

9    cos my (0.2) um my focus for the project is

10    th- ah encouraging discussion so they will

11    elaborate and using sentence stems to do that.

12    which we have been do↑ing (0.2) but it wasn’t

13    transferring always into their writing. so I

14    would do it (0.2) we’d ↑have our discussion

15    and ↑it was really great! that was starting

16    to build their confidence- and then I’d say

17    (0.2) okay now (0.2) go write your ideas? or

18    whatever the context was. and then when I

19    would mark their work or have a look (0.2)

20   → ↑oh (0.2) he didn’t even use his i↑deas that

21   → he came up with, or um ↑this one’s got

22   → t↑otally confused. >it just sort of< wasn’t

23    transferring over. so::

24    (0.4)

25    after reflecting on the transcript and that

26    I thought maybe I’m just missing the next

27    step which would be the guided writing and

28    s- going from discussion to being a bit more

29    0.2) poignant with the questioning and asking

30    them what- (0.2) how we can extend and elaborate

31    their idea and then eventually (0.4) go back

32    to their group (0.2) and become a little bit

33    more independent with it.

34 INT: hm mmm

35 MIA: so I felt like there was a step missing for

36    me (0.2) for my

37 INT: yep

38 MIA: yeah.

39 INT: yep. yeah I mean that’s really interesting

40    that you that you used your observations and

41    reflections yesterday or that these students

42    needed an interim step and I think I mean

43    what you’re demonstrating there is a real

44    action research process

45 MIA: yeah okay

The interviewer uses why-interrogatives to make relevant the provision of a justification (lines 1–5). In the beginning of her response, Mia self-repairs to insert information about the focus of her project (‘encouraging discussion so they will elaborate and using sentence stems to do that’) and provides the assessment that elaboration and use of sentence stems in students’ discussion wasn’t always transferring to their written work (lines 12–13). She gives a description of the course-of-action that used to occur in lessons and a high-grade assessment of the discussion part of them as ‘really great!’. Mia shifts to what followed – writing down ideas – by directly reporting what she would say (lines 17–18). Her past habitual utterance is introduced by ‘I’d say’ and marked through short gaps before and after the initial part of the turn constructional unit. It’s ending is not marked however and so Mia ‘slides’ back into the ‘here and now’ with the addition of ‘or whatever the context was’, suggesting that what students were writing about varied over lessons, but the progress of activities, from discussion to writing, was repetitive.

Mia uses reported habitual thought to demonstrate what happened when she read or marked students’ written work after lessons (lines 18–19). Thoughts are presented as alternatives through incorporation of ‘or’ and provide negative assessments of students’ writing or thinking. The first habitual thought employs oh-prefacing and both thoughts are prosodically marked but there is no quotative. Such features emphasise as well, the contrast between her earlier enthusiastic assessment of discussions in lessons (↑it was really great!) and her thoughts when examining students’ writing. Following her reported thoughts, Mia reiterates the assessment (it just sort of< wasn’t transferring over.) that preceded her description of her previous course-of-action in lessons and demonstration of habitual thoughts that followed these. Mia explains that it was reflection on a transcript that led to the guided writing lesson today, however, the context she has built within her extended turn has introduced repeated negative assessments of student writing or thinking over lessons as the evidence of an absence of transfer that needed to be addressed. The interviewer’s response formulates Mia’s explanation for guided instruction, including her ‘reflection’, as demonstrating ‘a real action research process’ (lines 39–44). That is, on-going reflection or thoughts has resulted in a change to previous classroom activity.

Habitual thoughts about previous own actions that inform future classroom activity

In the final extract, a teacher’s talk incorporates alternative habitual thoughts however here these include criticism of her own actions, rather than those of others. Thoughts are about transcripts of lessons and demonstrate how researcher activities promoted in the research – transcribing and reflecting – informed what the teacher did next.

Extract four

Prior to the talk in the extract, the interviewer had asked Chloe about her learning in the project. Chloe responded with a list of three things. Here the interviewer follows up on one of these.

1 INT: so so that- you spoke about transcripts. so

2    talk a little bit more about ↑that ↓cos

3    that’s a, it’s a- it’s an interesting um way

4    for as you said to really understand your own

5    practice=

6 CHL: =yeah. yeah. and it’s not, it-

7    (0.4)

8    yeah, it’s good because you sit there and

9    you can nut out- and the- and the dynamic

10    between the kids and my own practice. but

11    um I’m pulled so much from (0.2) transcribing.

12    it’s time consum↑ing but

13    (0.4)

14    and then often I’ll I’ll transcribe and I I

15    think the lesson’s gone well, and then I’ll

16   → do my transcript and go, ↑°O(h)h° >I could

17   → have done tha:t< or >I could have done this<

18    (0.4)

19   → or look what happened here? and then I’ll

20    go and do the activity a↑gain

21 INT: mmm

22    CHL using those tools (0.4) and pull so much

23    more from it.

24 INT: yeah (0.2) and you started to mention that

25    you’re starting to really notice some of the

26    repertoire of (0.2) of your own talk moves

27 >if you want to use [that language<

28 CHL:              [oh absolutely

29 INT: yourself. so can you talk a little bit

30    about (0.2) you mentioned wait time (0.2)

31    can you talk about some of the others that

32    you (0.2) that you’ve noticed through (0.2)

33    your own analysis kind of thing.

The interviewer directs the teacher to provide more information about transcripts, giving her own assessment of their worth that she attributes, in part, to an earlier comment by the teacher that transcripts are an interesting way ‘to really understand your own practice’ (lines 1–5). Chloe endorses the assessment. She begins to comment, repairs her talk to provide her own assessment (‘it’s good’) and a formulation of what she does with transcripts (lines 8–10). She follows with a negative assessment (‘It’s time consuming’) but mitigates this with an example of what often happens for her.

Chloe refers to the course of activities she describes as occurring ‘often’ (line 14). She describes ‘doing’ her transcript with the assessment in mind that the lesson has gone well. The assessment is given as an indirect thought, unmarked save for the quotative ‘think’ (‘I think the lesson’s gone well’), and then she reports her thinking during, or perhaps after, that activity. Chloe’s thoughts are preceded by the quotative ‘go’ and presented as a list of alternative thoughts (lines 16–17), marked by initial rise in pitch, and lowered volume. The initial thought is oh-prefaced, indicating a realisation. This is followed by two alternative generic suggestions and a noticing. The generic suggestions are marked by tempo changes and exhibit a pattern (‘I could have done X’), employing ‘this’ and ‘that’ in the ‘X slot’, which indicates habitual practice. Chloe’s thoughts provide possible alternative actions that she could have done, indicated through ‘or’. The final thought (line 19) is not marked as the previous thoughts have been (‘or look what happened here?’), blurring the boundary between thoughts and return to talk of here-and-now.

A description of a course of action follows. Chloe teaches the lesson again and ‘pulls so much more from it’, presumably incorporating alternative actions represented by ‘this’ and ‘that’ in her previously reported thoughts. Once again, this demonstrates that habitual thoughts have resulted in changes to actions and activities in the classroom. The interviewer’s brief agreement with Chloe’s final assessment is followed by her topic shift (lines 29–33), drawing on another comment made by Chloe earlier.

Discussion

Formats enable distinctions to be made amongst reported thoughts in a data set but ‘grossly simplify matters’ (Barnes and Moss, 2007, p. 134). While such formats provide important patterns that can guide classification of reported thoughts (e.g. as habitual thought or hypothetical), it is by through examining the entire sequential environment that the work of reported habitual thoughts can be understood best. Analysis for this paper confirms that reported habitual talk can be particularly challenging to discern (Buchstaller, 2001) and that examining entire sequences produces necessary contextual information (Buttny, 1998) the analyst needs to identify habitual thought, just as participating in such interactions enables speakers to produce such thoughts and recipients to hear thought as reoccurring on numerous occasions. It is not always the incorporation of a temporal adverb into the quotative pattern ‘I + think’ (e.g. I always think) that indicates habitual thought, although it is certainly one clear indicator. In the data set examined, participants themselves were frequently contextualising the occurrence of habitual thoughts through reference to repeated activities, events or interactions and related thoughts. Participants produced thoughts that were hearable as habitual, not just because of a specific adverb used with a quotative but in the broader context of a multi-unit turn during talk between interviewer and teacher. Further, some habitual thoughts were given by interviewees as warrants for the changes that they had made to their pedagogical approaches.

Consideration of reported habitual thoughts in the context of interviews establishes some of the ways that reported habitual thoughts are presented as arising from, and relating to, teachers’ on-going everyday work. That is, repeated institutional activities (such as marking student work), actions (e.g. making assessments), conversational interactions (with students, parents, other teachers) and forming decisions about instruction (e.g. the need to use a different instructional strategy) are what teachers usually do and entail ‘the usual ways, having the usual thoughts, usual interests’ (Sacks, 1984, p. 415). During the research interviews, teachers deploy reported habitual thoughts to establish or display their competence in such work as they provide accounts in response to the interviewer’s questions or prompts.

More broadly, ‘the weight of habituality’ (Couper-Kuhlen, 2007, p. 110) is shown to be a consequence of engagement with the social world whereby repetitiveness is integral to predictability and members’ sense-making practices themselves. The social production of ‘commonplace everyday activities’ (Garfinkel, 1967, p. vii) entails a moral accountability, such that members’ produce the everydayness of what they do when talking about such activities. In these research interviews, reported habitual thoughts are a resource for establishing teachers’ moral accountability in their ‘sense-making’ about and during institutional work, including through participation in the workplace research such that ‘what I used to do’, or previous routine practice, has become ‘what I do now’. Reported habitual thoughts are used to establish the rationality of previous actions and activities and to provide the commonsense grounds for changes to some of these to produce what has come to be everyday in the here-and-now.

One distinctive feature of reported habitual thoughts produced in the interviews was that thoughts reported often occurred initially in response to circumstances other than to a conversational interaction with another, as has been found in complaint stories (Haakana, 2007), for example. Teachers produced reported habitual thoughts as originally made in response to their use of texts (e.g. developing and reading transcripts, students’ writing) or during observations of others (such as students). Although thoughts about written texts have been the focus for some studies (e.g. Haen, 2019; Park, 2018), thoughts were not presented as hypothetical responses to students when discussing their written texts, in this study. Rather, habitual thoughts were produced frequently as evidence of teachers’ own learning or demonstrating that learning, evident in later changes to teaching practices. Other thoughts were produced about students’ work in class but provided or demonstrated assessments that were about the effectiveness of a teacher’s own practices or were of methods of observation and reflection that they had applying over time. Hence there were varying reasons as to why private thoughts were not made public at the time of occurrence.

There was a plethora of assessments in the interviews, many in the environment of reported thoughts (Kim, 2014). Assessments appear prior to quoting of habitual thoughts, as habitual thoughts, or post completion of such thoughts. Often assessments were evident in all these positions in utterances. These gave assessments of students, including of their development and of the work they produced in their classrooms. Related to this are assessments that justify the need for change, initially and during the project, or that illustrate the worth of the changes implemented because of participation in it. Interviewees also gave assessments of research tools such as development and examination of transcripts and the talk encoded in those. Because thoughts were reported as habitual, they produced the action of making assessments as an essential part of teachers’ teaching practice, but also as part of participation in the research project and in the final interview itself.

It is well acknowledged that reported speech frequently does not provide an accurate rendering of what was said on a previous occasion (e.g. Buchstaller, 2001; Holt, 2002); current speakers may use reported speech to achieve their own interactional purposes. Hypothetical reported speech perhaps best illustrates this but reported habitual thought provides another strong example. This is so because it is highly unlikely that habitual thoughts would be repeated word-for-word on numerous occasions over time. The inclusion of words such as ‘this’ of ‘that’ serves to highlight that the specific talk from one occasion is not merely replicated in another. One useful practice in the research interviews was the inclusion of ‘or’ between reported thoughts such that reported habitual thoughts encompassed similar thoughts or several thoughts with specific actions that varied on particular occasions. This provides another illustration of the diversity of habitual thoughts as an interactional resource.

Conclusion

This paper examined reported habitual thoughts in research interviews to determine its features and the ways that the device was employed. The occurrence and design of reporting clearly oriented to the local setting and a specific type of research interview, providing accounts of common-sense making by teachers. Local contingencies included long-term participation in a research study, applying action research methods such as reflection on transcripts to question and change regular practices, and participation in the final interview itself.

The analysis confirms that the context of the interviews contributed to, and was shaped by, interviewees’ incorporation of a particular type of reported thought – there were others. Reported habitual thought and reported thought itself are worthy of further attention from the methodological perspective of CA, especially through sequential analysis of accounts provided during interactions between interviewers and interviewees in other research interviews.