The interactional ‘nudge’: Talking about talk from the mundane to the dramatic

First dates, police interviews, doctor-patient communication and commercial sales – they are all driven by talk. And an understanding of how talk works is crucial for success. Elizabeth Stokoe explains how conversation analysis works to provide a scientific understanding of talk as it unfolds in mundane as well as dramatic settings.

Rather than being messy and disorderly, she shows that talk is in fact organised systematically. Like behavioural change in ‘nudge’ theory, she also shows how small variations in what we say impacts on what others say and do next. Finally, she will demonstrate how her research findings can underpin communication training – in contrast to role-play and simulation – and upended common assumptions about how talk works.