Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Pragmatics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

Writing conference feedback as moment-to-moment

affiliative relationship building
Elena Shvidko
Utah State University, 0715 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT, 84322, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Over the last two decades, a substantial amount of research has been done on interaction
Received 30 April 2017 in writing conferences. However, most previous studies have focused on the cognitive
Received in revised form 29 November 2017 aspects of conference discourse, neglecting its affective components. Yet conferences are
Accepted 11 January 2018
by no means emotionally neutral, as they inherently involve evaluation of student work,
Available online 20 February 2018
correction, directions for improvement, and even criticism–that is, they involve potentially
face-threatening acts. Therefore, it is important for teachers to know how to conference
Keywords:
with students in non-threatening and affiliative ways. The study presented here examines
Feedback
Writing conference
on a turn-by-turn basis how a writing instructor used a wide range of affiliative interac-
Teacher-student interaction tional resources, including talk and embodied behavior, in two potentially face-threatening
Affiliation moments in writing conferences: providing critical feedback and uttering a directive. The
Affiliative interactional resources analysis suggests that the use of affiliative interactional resources during feedback activ-
ities allows writing teachers to maintain positive relationships with students without
deviating from their instructional objectives. Drawing on these findings, the article dis-
cusses the implications of this study for second language (L2) writing pedagogy.
© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Responding to student writing during writing conferences is a powerful means of providing feedback. The benefits of
writing conferences are widely addressed in the first- and second-language writing feedback literature. One benefit is the
negotiation that takes place in conferences, which gives both the teacher and the student the opportunity for better un-
derstanding and learning (e.g., Carnicelli, 1980; Conrad and Goldstein, 1999). Martin and Mottet (2011), for example, noted
that, “Fewer errors in perception occur because students have the opportunity to ask for clarification or further exploration”
(p. 5). Conferences also allow students to exercise their agency by negotiating teacher feedback and standing up for their ideas
(Eodice, 1998; Gilliland, 2014; Newkirk, 1995). Written comments, in contrast, deprive students of this opportunity, providing
only what Carnicelli (1980) called “one-way communication” (p. 108).
While responding to student writing during conferences may be pedagogically beneficial, such feedback is “not
emotionally neutral” (Witt and Kerssen-Griep, 2011, p. 78). Instead, face-to-face encounters regarding students' work may be
considered “emotionally charged interactions” (Trees et al., 2009, pp. 397e398) and become an obstacle to the development
of positive teacher-student relationships. This may happen, first, because as a pedagogical practice, providing feedback enacts
power relations wherein teacher and student perform asymmetrical roles, primarily due to unequal access to knowledge and
institutionalized rights to this knowledge (Drew and Heritage, 1992). Second, responding to student writing involves

E-mail address: elenashvidko@gmail.com.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2018.01.004
0378-2166/© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35 21

evaluation and assessment of student work, correction, and directions for improvement, all of which often involve criticism.
As Trees et al. (2009) put it, “Even when combined with glowing comments about strong aspects of the students' work,
suggestions about improvement inherently contain the message that students did not do as well as they could–and perhaps
should–have” (p. 398, emphasis in original). This may induce negative reactions from students, which can undermine the
effectiveness and value of teacher feedback (Va €rlander, 2008; Witt and Kerssen-Griep, 2011).
It goes without saying that instructors are expected to evaluate student performance; nevertheless, because of the
inherent face-threatening nature of criticism, feedback is likely to “heighten emotional tension” (Kerssen-Griep and Witt,
2012, p. 499). Therefore, even the most delicately and tactfully formulated comments can easily be taken wrongly, and be
destructive to learner identity (Carnicelli, 1980). In some cases, they may even impact students' self-esteem, motivation, and
emotional well-being (Va €rlander, 2008). Finally, criticism may also negatively impact students' perceptions of the teacher
(Lee and Schallert, 2008), which may become an obstacle to the development of positive teacher-student relationships.
Considering the importance of the affective component of writing conferences, it is crucial for writing teachers to un-
derstand how to conference with students in non-threatening and affiliative ways. As Chen (2005) rightly noticed, “Since
feelings and emotions intrinsically pervade conversations, the affective dimension of conferencing cannot be ignored” (p. 19).
Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to examine writing conference discourse from an interpersonal, or relational,
angle. What follows is a review of the relevant literature on the importance of relational aspects of writing conferences and
teacher use of interactional resources to manage such relations.

1.1. Importance of relational aspects of writing conferences

The potentially damaging influence of feedback on positive teacher-student relationships appears to contradict the idea in
the literature that writing conferences should provide a venue for creating and maintaining rapport between participants.
According to Wilcox (1997), for instance, a writing conference cannot be productive if the teacher does not have trusting
relationships with students. The link between positive interactional atmosphere and effectiveness of conferences was also
addressed by Consalvo (2011), who asserted that a friendly conversation between teacher and student promotes their pro-
ductivity in writing conferences. Along the same lines, Kaufman (2000) suggested that positive conference interaction be-
tween teacher and student facilitates further learning: “Rapport usually results in a productive conference in which the
student leaves with new perspectives, a clarified direction for further work, and a renewed enthusiasm” (p. 92). Martin and
Mottet (2011) argued that due to rapport, students are more likely to trust teachers' suggestions. Finally, Chen (2005) pointed
out the importance of embracing the emotional layer ingrained in conference interaction: “[F]eelings of being welcomed or
rejected, encouraged or humiliated, valued or threatened remain strong in learners long after the conference is over” (Chen,
2005, p. 19).
The significance of a positive and supportive conference atmosphere is also documented in the literature from the stu-
dents' perspective. Thus, Liu (2009) examined students' expectations of conferences and found that about half of those he
studied viewed conferences as an opportunity to strengthen “a close personal relationship” (p. 110) with their instructor, as
well as places where they could feel safer and more confident. One of Qureshi's (2013) participants also commented on a
similar feeling of safety and confidence: “[I]t is easy I think [to ask questions] … the teacher is friendly … you didn't get
nervous” (p. 29). Black (1998) also found that students' assessment of writing conference effectiveness was influenced by the
emotional factor. She likewise referred to her own conferencing experience as a learner, which resembled those of her
students: “What makes certain memories of conferencing so strong for me is not whether I got the advice to rewrite a
particular paper and get a good grade, but whether I felt welcomed or humiliated or valued or threatened” (pp. 123e134). As
seen from these statements, students indeed expect writing conferences to be relationship-enhancing activities.
Considering the importance of a positive conference atmosphere and teacher-student relationships on the one hand, and
the existence of a potentially face-threatening component in teacher feedback on the other, conference feedback stands as a
highly complex phenomenon that contains two seemingly contradictory objectives: to deliver evaluative and sometimes
corrective information and to minimize the face-threatening effect of this activity. It is not surprising therefore that writing
teachers sometimes may feel, in Kerssen-Griep and Witt (2012)'s words, “torn between directing students' learning or
maintaining productive rapport with them” (p. 498).

1.2. Managing relational aspects of feedback

How, then, can instructors find a balance between instructional and relational goals? Previous research has demonstrated
that teachers can take advantage of the very nature of oral feedback–face-to-face interaction–and use its various interactional
resources to maximize affiliation and establish solidarity with students in potentially face-threatening moments of in-
struction. Below is a brief review of studies that examined teacher interactional resources during feedback encounters (both
in the classroom and in one-on-one interaction) implemented in order to minimize face-threatening effects of the feedback
act, level power differences, and soften error correction.

1.2.1. Minimizing face-threatening effects of feedback

Various interactional strategies that help to minimize face threat of instructional feedback were examined by Kerssen-
Griep and Witt (e.g., Kerssen-Griep and Witt, 2012; Witt and Kerssen-Griep, 2011) in a series of experiments conducted
22 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35

with college undergraduates. In these studies, students watched a video segment of an instructor providing feedback while
speaking to the camera as if addressing the student directly. The students were asked to imagine that they were receiving
actual feedback from this instructor. The students then completed a questionnaire indicating their perceptions of the feed-
back and the instructor. During this experiment, one of the four video scenarios was randomly assigned to the students, in
which the teacher either used or did not use relationship-building strategies while delivering feedback. The two groups of
relationship-building strategies were: 1) teacher nonverbal immediacy, which includes eye gaze, smile, open body position,
gesture, physical proximity, and relaxed posture, and 2) face-threat mitigation techniques, which include verbal expressions of
solidarity and approbation, tactful hedges, and qualifiers.
Both studies found the relationship between teacher's nonverbal immediacy behaviors and students' perceptions of the
teacher: teacher's perceived credibility (Witt and Kerssen-Griep, 2011), and teacher's ability to motivate students and treat
them fairly (Kerssen-Griep and Witt, 2012). To illustrate, Witt and Kerssen-Griep (2011) revealed that when the teacher used
various relational tools, including frequent eye contact, smiles, relaxed body positions and gestures, students perceived him
as “a credible source of feedback” (p. 87), more competent and intelligent, more ethical, honorable, trustworthy, caring, and
“someone who had their best interests in mind” (p. 88). Furthermore, Kerssen-Griep and Witt (2012) found that when the
teacher used nonverbal immediacy and face-threat mitigation techniques during feedback encounters, students perceived
him fairer and more motivating.
The influence of immediacy behaviors on student affective learning was considered by Martin and Mottet (2011). Their
study was conducted in a high school context comparing how two types of writing conference scenarios presented to ninth-
graders affected their emotional acceptance of the course and the material taught in it. In the first type, the teacher used
immediacy behaviors such as making eye contact, speaking in a soft voice, keeping a relaxed posture, smiling, and using
gestures. In the second type, the teacher exhibited non-immediacy behaviors such as having little eye contact, speaking in a
louder voice, having a rather stiff body posture, and leaning back in the chair. After analyzing the scenarios, students
completed a survey. Findings revealed that students had more positive reactions to the teacher, the conference, and writing in
general in the scenarios in which the teacher used immediacy behavior.

1.2.2. Leveling power difference

Relational interactional moves that help to balance power difference between teacher and student were examined in
Consalvo (2011). The study found that both verbal and nonverbal relational moves were implemented by two instructors as
they interacted with their students during writing conferences. Verbal relational moves included “I-statements” (i.e., teacher
sharing own experience with students) and self-deprecating comments (i.e., “verbal shrinking-of-official-teacher-self” (p.
156)). Nonverbal relational moves included bodily actions teachers utilized to “become physically less imposing” (p. 156),
such as sitting on the floor, kneeling, and squatting. Consalvo found that these relational moves presented the teachers as
“more human, less powerful” (p. 141) and overall created a positive conference atmosphere.

1.2.3. Softening error correction

Error correction is a common instructional activity in L2 classrooms. However, while it may be seen as an inevitable aspect
of language teaching, error correction can be face threatening for students. Previous research shows that teachers can
minimize the harshness of error correction by deploying affiliative interactional resources, thus managing both instructional
and relational aspects of teaching.
To illustrate, Nguyen (2007) showed that relationship-building strategies can be “implicitly blended into instruction” (p.
299, emphasis in original) and thus become an integral part of the teaching-learning process. In her study, conducted in the
ESL classroom, Nguyen described how an instructor corrected students in non-threatening and affiliative ways by imple-
menting various interactional resources, including lexical and prosodic elements of speech, bodily position, gesture, and facial
expression. Similar interactional resources were implemented by a teacher in Park's (2016) study conducted in the Korean as a
foreign language classroom. To express affiliation with the students, the teacher used smile, soft laughter, and compliments in
the moments of correcting students' errors. Both studies suggest that teachers can establish the type of environment “where
real learning tasks are done and real social relationships are built through the authentic and natural employment of various
interactional resources” (Nguyen, 2007, p. 299, emphasis in original).
Although the aforementioned studies provide insight into how teachers can mitigate the face-threatening nature of
feedback through the use of relational tools, they nevertheless beg several unresolved questions due to two major limitations.
The first limitation is the lack in authenticity of the examined phenomena. Thus, the studies by Kerssen-Griep and Witt
(2012), Witt and Kerssen-Griep (2011), and Martin and Mottet (2011) were conducted under experimental conditions by
presenting hypothetical scenarios to the students. Such artificially created situations do not reflect the complexity and
richness of real-life human interaction and the dynamic nature of social activities, mutually constituted by participants on a
moment-by-moment basis. In fact, Martin and Mottet (2011) themselves acknowledged the methodological limitation of
their study: “A more authentic measure through actual conferences between teacher and student could have yielded
potentially more reliable data” (p.13). Therefore, questions remain: How can teachers use the nonverbal immediacy tools and
face-threat mitigation techniques discussed in these studies in real-life teacher-student interaction? How do students
respond to these techniques in unfolding, moment-to-moment activities?
 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35 23

The second limitation is the focus on teacher actions. For example, Consalvo (2011) primarily examined instructors' be-
haviors, essentially overlooking the analysis of students' reactions. In addition, Nguyen (2007) and Park (2016) dealt with
multi-party classroom interaction, making it difficult to analyze thoroughly the reactions of individual students to the
relationship-building strategies implemented by the teachers. Accordingly, questions remain to be answered: What are
students' reactions to teachers' attempts to build solidarity and establish a positive atmosphere during instruction? How are
affiliative moments mutually created in teacher-student interaction?

1.3. The present study

This review of the literature provides compelling support for the argument that it is important for teachers to know how to
provide feedback in non-threatening and affiliative ways. As yet, however, it appears that research has not discussed how
affiliative moments in teacher-student interaction are cooperatively created during potentially face-threatening feedback
activities in writing conferences. Therefore, this study examines how one writing teacher employed mundane but highly
developed interactional resources, including her talk and embodied actions, to respond to student writing in affiliative and
non-threatening ways during writing conferences.

2. Terms used in the study

Before describing the study, it is important to define the terms used in it. Three concepts guided the analysis of the data:
affiliation, affiliative interactional resources, and participation frameworks.
Affiliation. In research on interaction, particularly in conversation analysis (CA), the term affiliation is frequently discussed
in the same context with the concept of alignment to describe the cooperative nature of human interaction. Alignment is used
to refer to the “structural level of cooperation” (Stivers et al., 2011, p. 20), whereas affiliation is seen as “the affective level of
cooperation” (Stivers et al., 2011, p. 21), indexing emotionally positive, pro-social relational connections between participants.
The present study adopts the view of affiliation as expression of social solidarity, and is used to describe teacher-student
interpersonal closeness and social coherence during conference interaction.
Affiliative interactional resources. This term is used in the literature to refer to interactional tools used by participants to
create social solidarity and interpersonal closeness. From this perspective, affiliative interactional resources are somewhat
similar to relationship-building tools. However, unlike the latter, which may not produce an immediate interactional result–
although they may impact relationships in the long run–affiliative interactional resources are employed to reach an im-
mediate affective cooperation between participants by bringing them in a moment of interpersonal closeness and solidarity.
In this study, the term is used to refer to pro-social interactional tools deployed by the teacher to create solidarity and
togetherness with the students in potentially face-threatening moments of conference interaction.
Research on interaction describes a wide range of resources used by participants to convey affiliation. They include verbal
resources, such as lexical and grammatical features (e.g., Couper-Kuhlen, 2012; Jefferson, 2002; Lee, 2016), laughter (e.g., Clift,
2016; Glenn, 2003; Kozlova, 2008), phonetic and prosodic features of talk (e.g., Couper-Kuhlen, 2012; Lindstro € m, 2009;
Müller, 1996; Reber, 2012), and various features of embodied behavior (e.g., Goodwin, 2006; Goodwin et al., 2012). In the
language learning context, Amador and Adams (2013) described a variety of affiliative resources used by the teacher,
including smiling, laughing, joking, implementing playful embodied and verbal parodies, increasing voice pitch, and
increasing physical proximity.
Participation frameworks. This term is used in the literature to describe how participants visibly display their dynamically
changing roles, and how they orient to each other's roles and actions in the unfolding sequential organization of social ac-
tivity. Goffman (1981), who developed this analytical concept, explained:

[W]hen a word is spoken all those who happen to be in perceptual range of the event will have some sort of participation
status relative to it. The codification of these various positions and the normative specifications of appropriate conduct
with each other provide an essential background for interaction analysis (p. 3).

Goffman's model of participation frameworks emphasizes and provides a classification of the roles of participants in
interaction–speakers and hearers. Speakers hold the floor by delivering the utterance and determine “the production format”
(Goffman, 1981, p. 146) of the action in progress, and the other participants are oriented to the speaker's action in a particular
“participation status” (p. 137). Therefore, participation frameworks, according to Goffman, are a combination of the partic-
ipation status of all actors for that particular moment of interaction.
Goodwin (2007b; see also Goodwin, 2003; Goodwin and Goodwin, 2004) challenged Goffman's participation frameworks
by suggesting that his model primarily provided a typology of participants rather than the analysis of the interactive orga-
nization of utterances constructed by the participants in each moment of interaction. Goodwin (2007b) also argued that
Goffman endowed the speaker with the primary role and “considerable cognitive complexity” (p. 20), thereby leaving the
“semiotic life” of the hearer on the periphery (p. 21). Thus, according to Goodwin, Goffman's model placed hearers and
24 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35

speakers in two isolated worlds, which in turn incapacitated the analysis of interaction as a process “in which different kinds
of participants are building action in concert with each other” (Goodwin, 2007b, p. 28).
Accordingly, in Goodwin's model of participation frameworks, which he refers to as embodied participation frame-
works (see Goodwin, 2007b), both speakers and hearers are defined as active co-participants whose talk and embodied
action affect the organization of the action in progress. Goodwin's model demonstrates that the hearer's role entails
more than listening, but involves “situated use of the body, and gaze in particular, as a way of visibly displaying to
others the focus of one's orientation” (Goodwin, 2000b, p. 159). Goodwin (2007b) further argues that even when
hearers are silent, they are actively “engaged in detailed analysis of the unfolding structure of that talk,” and based on
this analysis, they make “projections relevant to their own participation in it” (p. 24). At the same time, because of the
hearers' active co-presence and co-participation enacted through their visible bodily conduct, speakers actively attend
to them and systematically modify their actions in order to accommodate the actions of the hearers. This model
therefore is built on the concept of “mutual reflexivity” (Goodwin, 2007b, p. 28) of all participants at any moment in
interaction. That is, at each moment, participation frameworks are created and sustained through the participants'
mutual attention to the organization of the unfolding action, their embodied displays, which demonstrate whether or
not they are attending to the moment of action, and their reflexive orientation toward each other's talk and embodied
behavior.
To take into account simultaneous multimodal actions of both participants (i.e., teacher and student) in conference
interaction, the present study adopts Goodwin's model of participation frameworks.

3. Methods

3.1. Context

Data were collected in a first-year composition course for international students at a large research university in the
Midwest. One-on-one writing conferences were part of the curriculum. The course syllabus consisted of a sequenced writing
project–a series of assignments written on the same topic, which students developed over the course of the semester by
approaching it from different angles: formulating their research questions (Formal Proposal), consulting with an expert
(Interview Report), synthesizing information from multiple academic sources (Synthesis Paper), making an argument on a
particular issue within their topic (Argumentative Essay), and finally presenting the findings of their research orally (Oral
Presentation).

3.2. Participants

The teacher in this study, Alicia1 (Fig. 1), was a graduate teaching assistant who had come to the U. S. from Eastern
Europe. At the time of this study, she was in the second year of her doctoral program. Although it was her first time
teaching the multilingual version of introductory composition, like most other instructors who taught the multilingual
version, she had taught a mainstream section of the course in her first year of graduate studies. Moreover, before becoming
a doctoral student, she had taught writing and English for Academic Purposes for two years in another institution in the
U.S.
The two other participants were Alicia's students. Bin (Fig. 2) was an exchange student from China studying Economics,
and at the time of the study, he was a junior. Jade (Fig. 3) was a sophomore student from China, majoring in Animal Science.

3.3. Data collection

The data presented here were collected as part of a larger study examining the moment-to-moment construction of
affiliative teacher-student relationships in writing conferences. The corpus of the video-recorded data in the larger study
consisted of 14 writing conferences, with the total of 217 contact minutes of naturally occurring interaction; each student
participant was recorded seven times with an average length of 15.6 min per conference. Although no quantitative measure
was employed to capture the number of affiliative instances occurred in the data, both the conference observations and the
analysis of the episodes revealed the teacher's frequent use of affiliative interactional resources while she was conferencing
with the students.
The data were collected for the purpose of detailed, moment-to-moment analysis. This method, as opposed to researcher's
high-inference data collection through observation and notetaking, allowed for an “emphasis on concrete experience and
performance” (Atkinson, 2011, p. 156) by capturing fine details of participants' talk and embodied behavior. Indeed, human
interaction is highly complex and dynamic; therefore, in order to understand how particular social actions are being mutually
constituted by participants moment to moment, the researcher needed to employ methods that could “grasp the [interactive]
process in flight” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 68).

1
In order to secure confidentiality, the names of the participants were replaced with pseudonyms.
E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35 25

Fig. 1. Alicia.

Fig. 2. Bin.

Fig. 3. Jade.
26 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35

Two video-recorded episodes were selected for the purpose of this article, as they contained potentially face-
threatening acts for students–receiving critical feedback (Excerpt 1) and receiving a directive (Excerpt 2). Both episodes
demonstrate how the teacher mitigated these potentially face-threatening acts by using a range of affiliative interactional
resources.

3.4. Data transcription

A modified version of transcribing conventions (see Appendix) developed by conversation analysts, most notably by Gail
Jefferson (2004), were used to transcribe the selected episodes. This transcription system allows for recording participants'
interaction in a highly detailed manner. Special attention during transcribing was given to capturing the semiotic richness of
interaction; therefore, unlike the classic CA transcription system, transcripts in this study were abundantly annotated to
reflect the “constellation of [multimodal] resources” (Flewitt et al., 2009, p. 44) interwoven in interaction, that is, participants'
embodied displays used in conjunction with their manipulation of physical objects as well as their spatial orientation to each
other and their physical environment.2

3.5. Data analysis

The transcripts were analyzed while watching the selected video-recordings using the discourse-analytic approach known
as multimodal interaction analysis (Atkinson, 2011; Nishino and Atkinson, 2015; Norris, 2004). This method is based on
several traditions in analyzing interaction, including conversation analysis (Jefferson, 1988; Sacks et al., 1974; Schegloff, 2007;
Schegloff and Sacks, 1973), interactional sociolinguistics (Goffman, 1963, 1974; Gumperz, 1982; Kendon, 1990; Tannen, 1984),
microethnography (Erickson, 1992; Erickson and Shultz, 1982), multimodal analysis (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001; Van
Leeuwen, 1999), and nonverbal communication studies (Andersen, 1999; Argyle, 1988; Floyd and Guerrero, 2006; Knapp
et al., 2013). As suggested by its name, multimodal interaction analysis focuses on capturing the moment-to-moment use
of the many and varied semiotic resources (Goodwin, 2000a) that participants deploy to build social action together. By
allowing the systematic examination of these semiotic resources, multimodal interaction analysis provides a deeper un-
derstanding of the complex nature of human interaction.

4. Analysis of excerpts

The analysis below demonstrates how the instructor used multimodal interactional resources (e.g., spoken utterances,
visible embodied displays) during writing conferences to respond to students' writing in affiliative and non-threatening ways.
In Excerpt 1 the teacher softened criticism by using humor, and in Excerpt 2 she converted an unfinished directive into an
expression of empathy toward the student. Thus, both episodes illustrate how affiliation was achieved without deviating from
the instructional objective of the meeting.

4.1. Providing critical feedback

In Excerpt 1, Alicia and Bin are discussing Bin's second draft of the Formal Proposal. The conversation is focused on Bin's
introduction of this paper, which he wrote in a story-like way, i.e., as a narrative. As became apparent from the interaction
preceding this excerpt, Bin was pleased with his introduction, finding it unique and attention getting. Alicia, however, did not
share Bin's view, and prior to Excerpt 1 she had gently explained to Bin that the rhetorical strategy he had used did not meet
her expectations for an academic proposal. She even used the word “surprised” to describe her initial reaction while reading
his narrative-like introduction. In the excerpt, Alicia tries to explain her reaction by referring to Bin's (imagined) audience, and
ultimately, helping Bin understand why a narrative approach is not appropriate for an academic audience. But she does this in
an affiliative way, through creating a humorous role-play situation that demonstrates the inappropriateness of Bin's
introduction.
As Excerpt 1 begins (see below), Alicia sits in front of the desktop computer in the computer lab, gazing at Bin, with her
head resting on her left hand and her right arm resting on the desk next to the keyboard. Bin sits to Alicia's right, gazing at the
computer screen, with his open tablet positioned in front of him (Picture 1).

2
The Jeffersonian transcription conventions were used in this study only as a practical system of transcription, adapted and modified to fulfill its
purposes. As O'Connell and Kowal (2009) noticed, “The Jeffersonian transcription system has been adapted in many ways and for many different
research purposes by other researchers in the course of time […] In fact, no explicit theoretical orientation or set of foundational principles has ever
been provided for this system. It remains largely a skeletal set of variant notation signs” (p. 248). That said, while the Jeffersonian transcription system
provided the researcher of this study with a useful tool that allowed for preparing the data for the analysis, the study does not employ CA as a
methodological framework. Instead, multimodal interaction analysis was used as “a holistic methodological framework” (Norris, 2013, p. 1) to analyze
the integration of participants' verbal and embodied features as they built social action together.
E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35 27
28 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35

Excerpt 1 starts by Alicia's referring to a topic previously covered in class–analyzing business proposals (lines 1, 5).
Having set the stage, she then moves on to providing critical feedback on Bin's introduction. She does so through an
imaginary example (lines 17e20): rather than directly telling Bin how the information should be presented in an academic
proposal, she makes a shift in participation frameworks by creating a mini role-play scenario to make her point. In this
scenario, Alicia–taking the role of a salesperson–presents Bin with a hypothetical proposal, whose purpose is to help her
sell furniture to Bin. This situation appears to be humorous not only because of its content, but also because of the way
Alicia performs it. That is, first, she adopts a stagy facial expression: she widens her eyes and slightly raises her eyebrows
(Picture 2a). Second, she speaks in a dramatic, low-pitched voice, as if describing a scene from a horror story (lines 27e28).
Bin aligns with the humorous nature of Alicia's performance by immediately responding to it with a laughter token (line 31,
Picture 2b).
As soon as the dramatized scenario has been enacted, Alicia resumes her “normal” voice (lines 35e36), thereby indicating
another shift in participation frameworks–from the humorous frame of the role-play back to an instructor orientation. She
explains to Bin the seeming absurdity of the presented situation in lines 35 and 38, and then continues her explanation until
line 57. When Alicia uses the word “Halloween” (line 54), Bin nods and smiles, thus expressing his affiliation with Alicia and
his understanding of the comical nature of her example (line 56, Picture 2c). He also reiterates his understanding of the
meaning of the presented scenario by the statement “uh I know” (line 59) uttered in a smile voice and enhanced, once again,
by a slight head nod. These multimodal actions may also indicate that Bin is now making connections between Alicia's
example and his own writing, as well as increasing his awareness of the genre inappropriateness of his introduction, which
Alicia subjected to criticism.
As the excerpt concludes, Alicia starts discussing the main point of the presented scenario, in other words, explaining what
Bin should learn from this example (lines 63, 67, 69). Just before that–in line 62–she shifts her gaze to the computer screen–
 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35 29

now “the central player” (Nishino and Atkinson, 2015, p. 45) in their discussion. Bin also displays his alignment with this
reframing and his readiness to receive further instruction by shifting his gaze to Alicia in line 66.
In sum, the non-threatening atmosphere in this episode was created by the teacher's shifting participation frameworks
from instruction to a play frame (Kozlova, 2008; Zdrojkowski, 2007) in which she was able to critically evaluate Bin's
introduction but in a humorous, affectively positive, and indirect way. As she did so, Alicia produced an imaginary role-play
scenario by taking on a different identity, which allowed her to temporarily step away from her authoritative teacher role. As
seen from the analysis, the role-play scenario resembled a rhetorical choice (i.e., a story) in Bin's introduction. The combi-
nation of affiliative interactional resources that Alicia used to index the inappropriateness of this rhetorical choice allowed her
to soften the critical nature of her feedback, create an affiliative moment with the student, and prepare a safe environment for
the subsequent instruction.

4.2. Giving a directive

In Excerpt 2, Alicia and Jade are discussing Jade's second draft of the Synthesis Paper. The conversation is focused on the
grammatical accuracy of Jade's paper. Prior to the excerpt, Alicia pointed out several grammatical issues in Jade' draft. In the
analyzed episode, she wants to know if Jade proofread the draft before submitting it. As the excerpt begins (see below), Alicia
sits in front of the desktop computer, gazing at the screen, which displays Jade's draft and in which Alicia appears to have
marked Jade's errors. Jade sits to Alicia's right, gazing at the computer screen, with her open laptop positioned in front of her
(Picture 3).
30 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35

In line 1, Alicia begins to make a statement that looks like an evaluation, or a direct comment on the quality of Jade's
writing: “There is so-sometimes u:m,” perhaps starting to say something like: “There is sometimes lots of mistakes in this
paper.” This assumption can be made based on at least two details. First, the syntactic structure of Alicia's unfinished
statement consists of the nonreferential there followed by the copula verb be, whose function is to indicate “a mental space in
which some entity is to be located” (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 450). This grammatical structure requires the
placement of a logical subject, which in this case seems to be situated in Jade's draft–the locus of both participants' attention.
Second, Alicia and Jade are looking at the computer screen that displays Jade's draft with marked grammatical errors, so
Alicia's statement should be a comment on what both of them can see in the draft.
Due to its critical nature as well as Alicia's authority, this statement would have also appeared to be dissaffiliative and
potentially face threatening for the student. However, without finishing it, Alicia pauses and restarts this utterance as a
question (line 2). Thus, she turns a potentially negative and critical statement into a question, thereby seeking information
rather than asserting the reality or criticizing student's performance. Essentially, we can infer that she is trying to understand
 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35 31

the student from the student's point of view. Alicia's embodied action is significant here as well: she establishes an inter-
personal contact with Jade through turning her head toward Jade and gazing at her (Picture 4a).
In line 18 it becomes apparent that Jade did not proofread her draft. Alicia's relevant task becomes to instruct Jade to
proofread her papers before submitting them. In fact, she starts doing this in lines 22 and 24: “So you can you can do this for
the papers you're writing.” Next, in line 29, Alicia appears to continue to direct Jade: “So once you are done with them …”
While it is not clear how Alicia was going to finish this statement, it can be argued that it would be a direct instruction, based
on the grammatical construction of the beginning of this sentence (i.e., the use of the pronoun “you”). However, without
finishing her directive, she reforms it into an affiliative utterance that describes her personal experience: she employs an I-
statement (Consalvo, 2011), by switching the grammatical perspective from “you” to “I” (lines 33, 36, 38): “Sometimes I write
a paper and don't look at it anymore.”
In addition to changing the grammatical perspective from the student to herself, Alicia also makes a shift in participation
frameworks by momentarily stepping away from her teacher role and taking on the identity of a writer who is familiar with
the difficulties that other writers may face. In other words, by taking the perspective of Jade's fellow writer, Alicia positions
herself on the same level with the student. Thus, by putting herself in Jade's shoes (so to speak) with this statement, Alicia
“maximize[s] affiliative concern” for Jade (Witt and Kerssen-Griep, 2011, p. 76).
While producing her affiliative utterance “Sometimes I write a paper and don't look at it anymore,” Alicia also makes a
pushing away gesture as an affective means of enacting what Jade may be feeling about revising (Picture 4b). In other words,
Alicia embodies her empathy, as described by Bavelas et al. (1990): “Rather than simply saying, “I know how you feel,” the
[interlocutor] actually shows how you feel, in the analogically coded equivalent of the verbal statement” (p. 325, emphasis in
original). This empathetic action elicits a gradually emerging smile from Jade (line 38). Jade then responds in a rather en-
ergetic way: she overlaps with the last word of Alicia's sentence (line 42), starts laughing, brings her hand to her chin, and
nods. Alicia immediately aligns with Jade (line 45), and they both join in laughter (Picture 4c). As a climax point of this
excerpt, their simultaneous laughter appears to be a visible expression of their emotional convergence and mutual affiliation
(Partington, 2006; Thonus, 2008).
The excerpt ends with Alicia's reiterating her empathy in line 53: “I know I know this feeling.” Notice that while Alicia is
making this statement, Jade continues to gaze at Alicia with an affiliative smile on her face (Picture 4d), thus expressing her
solidarity with the teacher.
Thus, in Excerpt 2, the teacher avoided a face-threatening moment in interaction by withholding a critical statement and
directive, but instead performed an act whose function was directly the opposite of threatening the student's face–i.e.,
creating an affiliative bond. As the analysis shows, Alicia temporarily stepped away from her teacher role to create togeth-
erness and solidarity with the student, and it can be argued that by doing so she prepared a more fertile environment for
subsequent instructional activities.

5. Discussion

The data presented here illustrate how the teacher responded to student writing during writing conferences in pro-social
and affiliative ways. The two excerpts selected for analysis illustrated instances of critical feedback and potential direct
instruction. These instances, as argued earlier, are likely to be face threatening for learners (Kerssen-Griep and Witt, 2012;
Martin and Mottet, 2011; Nguyen, 2007; Witt and Kerssen-Griep, 2011), and as such, may cause “social strain” for them
(Amador and Adams, 2013, p. 147). The affiliative interactional resources used by the teacher allowed her to decrease this
threat by minimizing her authoritative position and softening criticism, and helped her project a positive stance and
maintain a collaborative atmosphere. Ultimately, the use of each of these interactional resources allowed the teacher to
balance the instructional objectives (e.g., deliver instructional material, provide helpful feedback, facilitate students'
learning) and the relational objectives (e.g., maintain affiliation with the students, preserve positive relationships with
them).
One affiliative interactional resource that helped the teacher create solidarity with the students in potentially face-
threatening moments of interaction in both episodes was a shift in participation frameworks by Alicia's taking on a
different identity. In Excerpt 1, for example, she switched from the instructional framework “teacher-student” to the imag-
inary framework “salesperson-customer” in a humorous role-play, which allowed her to provide critical feedback while
playing a less threatening role. In Excerpt 2, Alicia took on the role of the student's fellow writer, which allowed her to express
empathy and thus create a moment of affiliation with the student. In both episodes, the shifts in participation frameworks
reduced the perceived distance and power imbalance and created closeness, familiarity, and solidarity with the students in
potentially face-threatening moments of interaction. This observation compliments the findings described in Nguyen (2007),
in which a similar shift in participation frameworks was performed by teacher in order to facilitate affiliation with the
students and maintain positive relationships without deviating from instructional activities.
Furthermore, the teacher's embodied actions played a crucial role in both episodes by appearing to foster affiliation with
the students. That is, in Excerpt 1, the teacher's embodied behavior–in combination with other interactional tools (e.g., pitch
of voice)–allowed creating a dramatic performance, which had a humorous effect and elicited student's laughter. In Excerpt 2,
Alicia's embodied action expressed her affective stance on the action of proofreading, which, presumably, reflected the
student's stance as well. This also made the instructor's expression of empathy more powerful, and, as the analysis of Episode
2 showed, it brought the teacher and the student to the joint moment of mutual affiliation–i.e., simultaneous laughter. It must
32 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35

also be mentioned here that the affiliative effect of the teacher's embodied actions in both excerpts could only be observed in
relation to a particular moment of interaction in which they were employed–that is, in their immediate ecology. Put
differently, they should be viewed not as a combination of actions with static and decontextualized symbolic meanings, but as
environmentally coupled gestures3 (Goodwin, 2007a, 2007c)–that is, with reference to the social and physical context in which
they were produced.
Along with the embodied actions that served affiliative purposes in potentially face-threatening moments of conference
interaction, the instructor used other tools that allowed her to build affiliation during the meetings, such as her voice in
Excerpt 1, and I-statements in Excerpt 2. Thus, in Excerpt 1, Alicia's voice increased the humorous effect by creating a dramatic
feel in the described situation. The tone and the intonation of her voice, used in combination with other interactional re-
sources, created a comical situation, whose effectiveness was recoverable from the student's laughter. In Excerpt 2, Alicia used
I-statements to facilitate solidarity with the student. I-statements are defined by Consalvo (2011) as relational moves, and
they allow the current speaker to temporarily project a different interactional role, thereby inviting the co-participant to take
on a position relevant to this role shift. In Consalvo (2011), for example, the writing instructor employed I-statements to move
from being a teacher-evaluator to being an interested and sympathetic reader. Similarly, in Excerpt 2, the teacher used I-
statements to switch from being a figure of authority to being a fellow writer who is well aware of some of the challenges
writers may face, and this allowed her to create an affiliative connection with the student.
Finally, the students' reactions to the teacher's affiliative actions may be judged as the indicator of their effectiveness. Thus,
in both episodes, the students responded with full-fledged laughter, which marked their affiliation with the teacher and their
appreciation of the teacher's utterance in the particular moment of interaction (Zdrojkowski, 2007). In Excerpt 1, for example,
the student was supportive of the teacher's humorous contribution to their interaction. He interpreted the situation as
laughable (Thonus, 2008) marking it with laughter–a sign of his acknowledgement and appreciation of the teacher's hu-
morous examples. As Lindstro € m and Sorjonen (2013) observed, “By laughing the recipient displays that she has recognized
and understood that a joke was told and that it was funny, and consequently affiliates with the state the joke teller has
conveyed by telling the joke” (p. 353). In such a vein, the teacher's use of humor in this episode appears to be effective (Glenn,
1989).
In Excerpt 2, on the other hand, the student's laughter was not the sign of support of the teacher's humorous contribution
to the interaction, but rather the appreciation of the teacher's empathetic statement. As seen from the analysis of this episode,
Alicia's embodied actions–vibrantly enacting her and Jade's emotional attitude to the action of proofreading–made her
expression of empathy more powerful and produced Jade's animated multimodal response to it: an overlapping utterance
produced at higher volume and immediately followed by her laughter. Put differently, it appeared that with this reaction, Jade
was essentially saying: “You are so right! This is exactly how I feel!” Moreover, student's laughter in this episode was
reciprocated by the teacher. In the literature, mutual laughter is frequently referred to as a rapport-building and affiliative tool
that creates comfort in interaction (Matlock, 2000), helps manage emotional tension (Partington, 2006; Zdrojkowski, 2007),
reduces power imbalances (Thonus, 2008), indicates the interlocutors' intention to share authority (Zdrojkowski, 2007), and
creates solidarity between interlocutors (Kozlova, 2008). It can be argued therefore that Alicia's laughing with the student
marked the highest degree of their affiliation.
As demonstrated, due to their potentially face-threatening nature, providing critical feedback and uttering directives may
pose difficulties to teachers by putting them in front of a potentially inevitable trade-off between instructing students and
maintaining positive relationships with them. As Trees et al. (2009) noted, “Successfully evaluating students' work challenges
teachers to achieve both corrective task and identity-protection goals in interaction” (p. 397). The episodes analyzed above
demonstrate that the teacher in this study took up this challenge by effectively employing a combination of multimodal
affiliative resources during potentially face-threatening moments of interaction, and by doing so, accomplished the
instructional task without damaging her relationship with the students. In other words, the teacher's interactional resources
functioned to meet simultaneously instructional and relational objectives.
To conclude, the study provides an important contribution to the exiting scholarship on the teacher's use of affiliative
resources in face-threatening moments of instruction. Similar to the previous studies examining the implementation of
teacher nonverbal immediacy and face-threat mitigation techniques (Kerssen-Griep and Witt, 2012; Martin and Mottet, 2011;
Witt and Kerssen-Griep, 2011), the present study showed the importance of teacher's affiliative behavior in feedback en-
counters. However, due to the methodological framework employed for the analysis of conference interaction, the study also
demonstrated how affiliative interactional resources were implemented in situ, moment to moment, in real-time interaction–
essentially giving these affiliative resources life, functionality, and substance. In addition, unlike Consalvo (2011), the analysis
in this study also considered students' reactions to teacher's affiliative behavior; and unlike Nguyen (2007) and Park (2016), it
focused on one-on-one, rather than multi-party, interaction. Thus, the study showed in detail how affiliation was mutually
constructed on a turn-by-turn basis, “with the reference to the properties of embodied co-presence” of both interlocutors
(Streeck et al., 2011, p. 3). In sum, the study provides, as Lindstro € m and Sorjonen (2013) put it, “a more fine-grained
appreciation of affiliation as a dynamic phenomenon” (p. 367).

3
An environmentally coupled gesture is described by Goodwin (2007a; 2007c) as a complex and dynamic act that brings together talk, bodily conduct and
material environment and cannot be analyzed in isolation; therefore, its meaning can only be derived with reference to the structure of the relevant
environment.
 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35 33

6. Implications for L2 writing pedagogy

The study offers important implications for second language writing pedagogy. Due to the detailed, turn-by-turn ex-
amination of conference interaction, the findings offer insight into the logistics of teacher feedback by demonstrating,
through the microscopic lens of multimodal interaction analysis, how feedback is accomplished as a moment-to-moment
social action. It is true that the literature on feedback provides writing teachers with a number of valuable suggestions,
tips, and best practices. However, while these are certainly helpful, they appear to be mostly general ideas–“rules of thumb”
and “what-to-dos,” presumed to work in any institutional context irrespective of specific students' needs. This study, in
contrast, has analyzed feedback as a complex interactional phenomenon–i.e., a dynamically unfolding action, mutually
constituted by the teacher and the student in real time. From this perspective, the study suggests that any feedback practice
described in the literature could also be studied as a highly complex and situated social activity, rather than general, static
rules of thumb or all-purpose strategies.
Along with this methodological contribution, the following principles evidenced in this study may be applied by L2
writing instructors.
Feedback has a potential face-threatening effect. When providing feedback on student performance, instructors may
potentially create a distance between themselves and their students due to their assertion of authority and the evaluation–
and even criticism, implicitly or explicitly stated–of written student work. While all students may be sensitive to teacher
feedback (Va €rlander, 2008), correcting students' language errors in particular may be damaging to L2 learner identity and
self-confidence (Amador and Adams, 2013). Therefore, the effectiveness and value of teacher feedback may be undermined by
students' reactions to it. Being aware of the face-threatening nature of feedback will help L2 writing teachers find appropriate
interactional resources to deliver evaluation without damaging learner identity and to provide helpful suggestions for
improvement without straining teacher-student relationships.
Feedback can be an affiliation-building practice. The study also provides L2 writing instructors with a view of teacher feedback
as an affiliation-building practice. Teachers should understand that while feedback may constitute serious face threats for L2
writers, it is possible to decrease its damaging effect by softening criticism, mitigating imposition, and balancing power dif-
ferences through the natural use of affiliative interactional resources, including verbal utterances and embodied actions.
Embodied behavior is a means to affiliate with students. Because of their powerful affiliative capacity, embodied actions
should be considered by L2 writing teachers not only as a tool of instruction (e.g., Belhiah, 2009, 2013; Seo and Koshik, 2010;
Smotrova and Lantolf, 2013; van Compernolle and Smotrova, 2014), but also as a tool for maintaining a positive atmosphere
and creating affiliative moments during conference interaction. As social actors, human beings are highly sensitive to
embodied displays in their daily interaction with each other. Conferences are no exception, and teachers should be conscious
of the effects of their embodied behavior on the progression of a current activity, students' reactions to it, and long-term
consequences, including students' willingness to engage in subsequent instructional activities and their attitudes toward
the teacher and the class (e.g., Fassinger, 2000; Frisby and Martin, 2010; Frisby and Myers, 2008).

7. Conclusion

The ultimate goal of teacher feedback is to facilitate student learning. Examining the effect of conference feedback on stu-
dents' revisions was beyond the scope of this study, and thus it opens a promising direction for future investigations. Never-
theless, based on the findings of previous research examining the link between teacher-student relationships and students'
uptake of teacher feedback (e.g., Lee and Schallert, 2008), it is reasonable to assume that teachers' ability to create a positive and
affiliative atmosphere during writing conferences may affect the extent to which students make subsequent revisions. As
Kaufman (2000) noticed, “Good relationships inspire good conversations. Good conversations influence good writing” (p. 99).
Therefore, this study may serve as a springboard for further discussion on the impact of the relational component of writing
conference interaction on student participation, subsequent revisions, and, ultimately, their writing development.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers who provided valuable suggestions and comments on the earlier versions
of this paper. I am also very grateful to Dwight Atkinson for the helpful discussions we had while I developed this paper, and
for his insightful feedback.

Appendix

Transcription Conventions
, Non-final/continuing intonation followed by short pause
. Final falling intonation followed by pause
? Final rising intonation followed by pause
: Phoneme lengthening
ðð/ÞÞ Non-linguistic event descriptions
ð/Þ Transcriber doubt
34 E. Shvidko / Journal of Pragmatics 127 (2018) 20e35

(.) Short untimed pauses

(0.6) Pauses timed by 10ths of second
¼ “Latching,” i.e. second speaker's turn begins without pause after first speaker's
[ Overlapping talk/embodied action
>No< Diamond brackets enclose talk which is faster than surrounding talk
 No Degree signs enclose talk which is quieter than surrounding talk
No Underlining marks various kinds of ‘voice quality’, e.g. emphasis and stress
CAP Notably high volume
[ Rising intonation
£ Smile voice
BH Both hands
LH Left hand
RH Right hand

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Elena Shvidko is an Assistant Professor at Utah State University. She received her Ph.D. in Second Language Studies from Purdue University. Her research
interests include second language writing, multimodal interaction, and interpersonal aspects of language teaching.