4 Managing interpersonal meaning
In the next activity you’ll listen again to the audio clip.
Activity 2 Interpersonal meaning in mediators’ talk
Listen to the clip again and, as you listen, focus in particular on the ‘typical’ phrases or sentences that Katherine gives as illustrations of mediators’ talk. In particular:
- Think back at the five sentences given at the start of this week and note which ones Katherine says mediators might say and which they would not:
- a.‘I’m wondering if...’
- b.‘It sounds like …’
- c.‘You seem distracted’
- d.‘Am I right in …’
- e.‘So you think Barry’s a bully?’
- Jot down some of the examples of mediators’ language given.
- Make a note of the interpersonal meanings expressed overall in terms of:
- speaker roles and the relative social status of participants
- the social distance between participants i.e. are they of equal standing or does one person have power over another
- speaker positioning.
You might find it helpful to make a note of Katherine’s own explanations of the type of talk she tries to use as a mediator, in relation to these interpersonal aspects.
Transcript
JACKIE:
Hello, I’m Jackie Tuck from The Open University. With me is Katherine Graham, Managing Director of CMP Resolutions, a company based in Hertfordshire, and I’ll be talking to her about the language used in mediation and conflict resolution. Katherine, could I ask you how important it is for a mediator to be aware of the language they’re using?
KATHERINE
It’s really important because it’s one of the only tools they’ve got available to them, and it can be a very explosive matter if you get it wrong. So even a single word like ‘respect’ or ‘professional’ can ignite the conflict that you’ve come to resolve. So, being mindful of the words that you’re using, when you’re using them, which part of the process you’re in, who you’re addressing – all of those different choices make up the personality of the mediation because you’re setting the tone, you’re setting the feeling of the mediation with the language that you use.
JACKIE
Would you be able to give me some examples of the types of language which are usually a good idea for a mediator to employ?
KATHERINE
The types of language that we’d really want mediators to use would be descriptive words, descriptive language. You want to avoid anything that’s analytical or logical or evaluative. So if somebody’s rocking on their chair and looking out of the window, you would say ‘I noticed you’re rocking on the chair and looking out of the window and I’m wondering what’s going on for you’, rather than saying ‘You seem distracted’, which would be a judgement and an evaluative comment.
So you’re constantly looking at ways of reflecting back what you’re seeing, what you’re hearing, what you’re wondering, using language which is as open and tentative as possible. So mediators will typically use a lot of those fluffy bits at the beginning and the end of sentences, like ‘I’m wondering if …’, or ‘It sounds like …’, or ‘Am I right in …’, because you want them to feel that they can correct you. You want them to give you the steer and for them to end up saying what it is that they’re feeling or believing.
So you’d also use the party’s language a lot as well, but reframe it. So if they say ‘He’s an absolute bully and if he moves the papers on my desk one more time I’m gonna make a complaint,’ you would never as a mediator say ‘So you think Barry’s a bully?’, because that is almost solidifying their experience and it’s giving it some legitimacy. So you use their language but you reframe it. So you might say something like ‘It sounds as though your desk is a very private space for you and you have a really strong reaction when Barry touches things on your desk and for you, you feel that that’s bullying.’ You might offer it back but with some softenings, some descriptive language.
When you’re mediating you will try and influence the way the parties are speaking, sometimes in very explicit ways. You might ask them to say something positive about each other. So you’re trying to rebalance perhaps some of the negative versus positive stuff in the room. You might quite explicitly tell them to use ‘I’ statements, not ‘you’ statements, because parties are very, very happy to say ‘you’re lazy’, ‘you’re intolerable’, ‘I can’t bear you’, which isn’t what you’re after, they need to really use an ‘I’ statement.
So there’s quite a lot of coaching going on. And you would say ‘Well can you tell me what you feel?’ And the party will say ‘Yes I feel you’re being unreasonable.’ And you’ll have to go back and say ‘Actually that’s a thought. You think they’re being unreasonable. Can you tell me how you feel?’ And they’ll say ‘I feel he's bullying me.’ And that’s another projected, labelling evaluative statement. So you have to say ‘No. How do you feel?’ And eventually they might say ‘I feel overwhelmed’.
You’ll also find that sometimes you need to be more robust, as a mediator. It’s not all pink and fluffy and ‘How do you feel?’. Sometimes you need to stop people who are raising their voice or going off track. And so mediators will also be quite clear and precise. So you’re changing the language according to how much control you should be exerting over the interaction. So when you need to be more authoritative, you’ll shift your tone, you’ll shift your pace, you’ll start using their names, and you’ll be much, much more descriptive about what you want them to do.
And there should be a continuum: you always start with the softest most interactive intervention and save anything that’s a reference to a ‘rule’, in inverted commas, right to the bitter end. So if you can’t persuade them and encourage them to change how they’re talking to one another, for example, then you will ask, and then if that doesn’t work you might explicitly say ‘We came here on the understanding that both of you were going to have a chance to speak to one another: Janet you’re not letting James speak. I want to check with each of you, are you still here to help each other to speak and listen?’ And then they’ll go ‘Yes, yes’.
And then you’ll say ‘Okay, in that case, Janet, it’s your turn to be quiet, James away you go.’ So you’ll be quite tough sometimes.
Another example of the type of language that you typically use as a mediator would be mutual language, so you’ll hear mediators saying ‘we’ a lot, rather than ‘I’ or ‘you’. You’ll hear them saying ‘You both seem to …’, or ‘This seems a shared experience’. So you’re using language to indicate the connection that they should have or that they’re aspiring to have.
One of the things I like to do is to make sure that I’m using really homely phrases, kind of ordinary language. I know that I’ve had it fed back to me from some co-workers that when I mediate I am obviously working in the room quite spontaneously with language that’s occurring to me at the time. So I may well say things like ‘Okay, let’s crack on, we’ve only got another hour left and we’ve got a heck of a lot to get through.’ Because you’re all in it together, and you want to allow them to see you as an ordinary person, not a special technical user of grandiose language.
When you train people, they’re always wanting a phrase book and they’re very frustrated that you’re not going to give them one, because the key skill is to be alive and creative in each conversation – in each moment of each conversation. So you’re always focusing on what's happening in the room at the time, and it can be really exhausting. And you need to pull all your language resources together, and concentrate on the moment to say the right thing in such a way that it’s going to be helpful.
And so you are always living in the moment when you’re in the mediation. And that’s why I like doing it, because you can't prepare for it. You just rock up and, you know, you always go with what the parties bring you. It’s brilliant.
Discussion
- Katherine suggests that a), b) and d) are examples of mediator’s language. Example c) is rather evaluative and the mediator is more likely to comment on the physical manifestation of the client’s behaviour (‘I noticed you’re rocking on the chair … and I’m wondering what’s going on for you’). Example e) – if uttered by a client – would be reframed by the mediator by describing Barry’s behaviour and something like ‘you feel that that’s bullying’.
- Three examples of mediator language are given below, but there are others in the interview:
- ‘Can you tell me how you feel?’
- ‘This seems a shared experience’
- ‘We came here on the understanding that both of you were going to have a chance to speak to one another, Janet, you’re not letting James speak, I want to check with each of you, are you still here to help each other to speak and listen? [Clients: yes, yes] Okay, in that case, Janet, it’s your turn to be quiet. James, away you go.’
- Expression of interpersonal meaning:
- Speaker roles and relative social status: The mediator has the highest status in the interaction and is responsible for the nature of the whole conversation. The mediator sometimes downplays her controlling role and presents herself as sharing equal status; however, at other times she asserts her authority. Katherine offers clues to this when she comments: ‘you need to stop people who are raising their voice or going off-track.’ She even seeks to direct the language that clients use: ‘you might quite explicitly tell them to use “I statements” not “You statements”’.
- Social distance: The mediator seeks to reduce social distance, creating a sense of informality. Katherine explains that she consciously uses language that will reduce social distance – ‘ordinary language’ – which helps clients to think of her as an ‘ordinary’ person.
- Speaker positioning: The mediator clearly invites the responses and thoughts of others, presenting herself as happy to be corrected and steered by clients, ‘because you want them to feel that they can correct you, you want them to give you the steer and for them to end up saying what it is that they’re feeling or believing.’ However, at times she positions herself as relatively sure of her views.
Social role, social distance and speaker positioning are part of the interpersonal function within Michael Halliday’s theory of language known as systemic functional linguistics or SFL (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2013) – which you first encountered in Week 3.
Activity 3 The language of interpersonal meaning
In this activity you’ll look further at the three following aspects of interpersonal meaning:
- speaker roles and relative social status
- social distance
- speaker positioning.
The partially completed table below lists some aspects of the lexicogrammar – the words or ‘lexis’ and grammar – associated with these three aspects of interpersonal meaning. For example, social roles and status may be indicated by who in an interaction has control of topic choice or speaker turn. In the audio clip, Katherine describes and gives examples of mediator language that illustrates these different lexicogrammatical expressions of different dimensions of the interpersonal.
In your own notes, reproduce the table and, in the right-hand column, make a note of the descriptions and language examples given by Katherine that correspond to these different areas of lexicogrammar. The first row has been completed as a guide. You may wish to listen to the audio clip again to help you complete the table.
| Speaker roles and relative social status: | Descriptions and language examples |
| Control of topic choice | [Example] OK, let’s crack on … we’ve got a heck of a lot to get through. [Description] You might ask them to say something positive about each other. [Description] Sometimes, you need to stop people who are … going off-track ... |
| Control of turn management (who can decide which participant speaks and when) | |
| Reformulation (by mediator) | |
| Control over language choices of others | |
| Social distance: | |
| Choice of colloquial language | |
| Choice of personal pronouns (such as I, you, he, she, we) | |
| First name terms (or use of ‘given name’) | |
| Speaker positioning: | |
| Use of tentative language | |
| Occasionally, use of bare assertions – statements which are baldly given with no softening or hedging |
Comment
Below are some examples of what you might have included.
| Speaker roles and relative social status: | |
| Control of topic choice | [Example] OK, let’s crack on … we’ve got a heck of a lot to get through. [Description] You might ask them to say something positive about each other. [Description] Sometimes, you need to stop people who are … going off-track ... |
| Control of turn management | [Example] Janet, it’s your turn to be quiet, James, away you go. |
| Reformulation (by mediator) | [Example] I feel you’re being unreasonable becomes you think they’re being unreasonable. |
| Control over language choices of others | [Description] You might quite explicitly tell them to use ‘I statements’ not ‘You statements’. |
| Social distance: | |
| Choice of colloquial language | [Example] Let’s crack on … we’ve got a heck of a lot to get through. [Description] really homely phrases ... not a special, technical user of grandiose language. |
| Choice of personal pronouns | [Example] We came here… You both… [Description] You’re using language to indicate the connection that they should have or that they’re aspiring to have. [Description] Using we, a lot, rather than I or you |
| First name terms | [Example] Janet, James |
| Speaker positioning: | |
| Use of tentative language | [Example] I’m wondering what/if, Am I right in [thinking that]..?; It sounds like/as though. [Example] This seems a … |
| Occasionally, use of bare assertions | [Example] We came here on the understanding that…’ [Example] Janet, you’re not letting James speak’ |
This analysis suggests that the mediator is very much responsible for the tone of the session, and so for ensuring that interpersonal meanings are deployed in helpful ways throughout. The mediator projects an open, tentative positioning for herself, creating a sense that all the participants are ‘in it together’. Despite this impression, there are clear differences in mediator/client roles: the mediator seems to have control over topic choice, turn management and even influences the language the clients themselves use, within certain understood ‘rules’ of interaction. One way in which this is achieved is through what linguists call reformulation – referred to in the audio clip as ‘reframing’. In the mediation, clients can and do express attitudes and make evaluations, but the mediator puts them – and is allowed to put them – into different words. This indicates a clear asymmetry between the roles and status of the mediator and the client, in which the professional is in control, and this is a common feature of professional talk studied by linguists.