Loughborough University
Browse
Stokoe Sikveland JoP formulations IR version 2016.pdf (338.35 kB)

Formulating solutions in mediation

Download (338.35 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2016-01-19, 14:08 authored by Elizabeth Stokoe, Rein Sikveland
This paper examines the work done by formulations in the service of pursuing solutions to disputes between neighbours in a community mediation setting. In particular, it shows how mediators formulate the talk of mediation clients – the parties in dispute – in a particular sequence of activities. Parties’ complaints are formulated by the mediator, often proposing common ground between them. Mediators ask ‘solution-focused questions’ (SFQs), which are treated in mediation training as a key method for effecting client-generated solutions to neighbour disputes. Drawing on a collection of 30 recorded mediation sessions between mediators and their clients, conversation analysis shows how formulations do more than (or do not necessarily) ‘summarize’ what clients have said. Rather, they do institutional work of various kinds, including reconstructing clients’ versions of events and initiating sequences in which decisions about change are accomplished. In other words, formulations are at the heart of the mediation process, in which mediators attempt to scaffold clients to come to an agreement about ways to move forward, without giving direct instruction or advice.

Funding

The data were collected as part of ESRC grant number RES-148-25-0010 “Identities in neighbour discourse: Community, conflict and exclusion”, held by Elizabeth Stokoe and Derek Edwards.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Published in

Journal of Pragmatics

Citation

STOKOE, E. and SIKVELAND, R.O., 2016. Formulating solutions in mediation. Journal of Pragmatics, 105 pp.101-113.

Publisher

© Elsevier

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2016

Notes

This paper was published in the journal Journal of Pragmatics and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.08.006.

ISSN

0378-2166

Language

  • en