Assessment

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Assessment
Author(s):	Uwe-A. Küttner (Leibniz-Institute for the German Language, Mannheim) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1688-0896)
To cite:	Küttner, Uwe-A. (2023). Assessment. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI:

Most broadly, an assessment is a type of social action by which an interactant expresses an evaluative stance towards someone or something (e.g., an object, an event, an action, an experience, a state of affairs, a place, a circumstance, etc.). The target of an assessment is typically called the ‘assessable’.

Assessing is pervasive and routine in social interaction and so researchers have adopted different strategies in operationalizing assessments in, and for the purposes of, particular studies. Some have made the presence of positively or negatively valenced lexically assessing terms (e.g., adjectives such as good, lovely, bad, terrible, evaluative verbs like I love/hate it) a decisive criterion (e.g., Sidnell & Enfield 2012: 312; Thompson et al. 2015; Pomerantz 1984). Others have adopted a more inclusive approach, allowing for non-lexical or lexically non-valenced stance displays such as Oo::h!, A::w or Oh wow! and even completely embodied ones to count as assessments (e.g., C. Goodwin 1986; Goodwin & Goodwin 1987; 1992; M. H. Goodwin 1980; see also Barth-Weingarten, et al. 2021; Goodwin & Cekaite 2018: 26-31; but cf. Heath 1989, esp. pg. 122, fn. 6, as well as Jenkins & Hepburn 2015 on pain cries). Yet others have found it useful to distinguish conceptually between taking a stance and assessing as a social action, especially when dealing with lexically non-valenced stance displays (e.g., Kärkkäinen 2012; Local & Walker 2008; Wiggins 2002, 2012).

Evaluating someone or something can be participants’ primary concern in a stretch of talk, such that assessments can constitute independent social actions in and of themselves. In contexts of (presumed) shared experience with, or joint access to, the assessable, first assessments have been said to generally make agreement/disagreement from a co-participant relevant next actions and to thereby engender larger assessment sequences (Heritage & Raymond 2005; Pomerantz 1984). However, there has been some debate about the sequential implicativeness of such first assessments (and whether assessment sequences are indeed generically organized as adjacency pairs), with some research suggesting that they can vary considerably in terms of how strongly they attract or mobilize subsequent agreement/disagreement (Stivers & Rossano 2010a, 2010b; cf. Couper-Kuhlen 2010; Schegloff 2010).

With some exceptions (e.g., self-deprecations, criticism), agreeing responses are generally preferred over disagreeing ones (Pomerantz 1975, 1984; but see Auer & Uhmann 1982; Kotthoff 1993; Mondada 2009a). Both agreement and disagreement may be accomplished in various ways and through a wide range of practices, which themselves mobilize a diverse set of verbal, vocal and embodied resources (see, e.g., M. H. Goodwin 1980, 2007; Mondada 2009a; Ogden 2006; Pomerantz 1984; Schegloff 1987; Thompson, et al. 2015: ch. 4).

Since assessments are (treated as) products of experience and, in their production, embody a claim to such experience/experiential knowledge of the matter being assessed (Goodwin & Goodwin 1987: 9; Pomerantz 1984: 57-58), assessment sequences form a rich site for the display, negotiation and management of epistemic concerns, such as participants’ differential access, entitlement to and authority over (certain stocks of) knowledge and experience (see, e.g., Heritage 2002, 2013; Heritage & Raymond 2005; Raymond & Heritage 2006; Stivers et al. 2011; see also Edwards & Potter 2017; Hayano 2011, 2016; Wiggins & Potter 2003).

Assessments may also be produced in a range of other contexts. For example, they play a prominent role in the responsive receipt of news announcements (e.g., Freese & Maynard 1998; Maynard 2003; Maynard & Freese 2012) and informings (e.g., Thompson, et al. 2015) or as approving receipts of proposals (e.g., Seuren 2018; Stevanovic 2012). Similarly, they may be produced in the context of extended reportings and storytellings, both as teller’s devices for contextualizing the story’s point and as recipients’ devices for affiliating or disaffiliating with the storyteller (e.g., C. Goodwin 1986; Jefferson 1978; Selting 2017; Stivers 2008).

In accordance with their experiential character, it has been observed that assessments are commonly proffered towards the end of topics, sequences and activities, as devices for bringing them to a close (e.g., Antaki, et al. 2000; Antaki 2002; Mondada 2009b; Schegloff 2007; Thompson et al. 2015). On the other hand, assessments are also often produced in, and reflexively create, moments of heightened interactional participation and affective involvement (e.g., C. Goodwin 1986, 2007; Goodwin & Goodwin 1987, 1992; Mondada 2009b; Selting 1994).

Finally, assessments may also figure as co-constitutive ingredients in a plethora of other actions and activities, such as complaining (e.g., Dersley & Wootton 2000; Drew 1998; Günthner 2000; Heinemann & Traverso 2009; Selting 2012), gossiping (e.g., Bergmann 1993), shaming/admonishing (Potter & Hepburn 2020), advice-giving (e.g., Shaw, et al. 2015), praising/complimenting (Golato 2002, 2005, 2011; Pillet-Shore 2015; Pomerantz 1978), as well as numerous others.

Additional Related Entries:

• Adjacency pair
• Affect
• Epistemics
• Object-side assessment
• Preference'
• Stance
• Subject-side assessment

Cited References:

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Antaki, C., Houtkoop-Steenstra, H., & Rapley, M. (2000). “Brilliant. Next Question...”: High-grade assessment sequences in the completion of interactional units. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 33(3), 235–262.

Auer, P., & Uhmann, S. (1982). Aspekte der konversationellen Organisation von Bewertungen. Deutsche Sprache, 10(1), 1–32.

Barth-Weingarten, D., Küttner, U.-A., & Raymond, C. W. (2021). Pivots revisited: Cesuring in action. Open Linguistics, 7, 613-637.

Bergmann, J. R. (1993). Discreet Indiscretions: The Social Organization of Gossip. Aldine de Gruyter.

Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2010). Commentary on Stivers and Rossano: “Mobilizing response.” Research on Language and Social Interaction, 43(1), 32–37.

Dersley, I., & Wootton, A. (2000). Complaint sequences within antagonistic argument. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 33(4), 375–406.

Drew, P. (1998). Complaints about transgressions and misconduct. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 31(3–4), 295–325.

Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (2017). Some uses of subject-side assessments. Discourse Studies, 1461445617715171.

Freese, J., & Maynard, D. W. (1998). Prosodic features of bad news and good news in conversation. Language in Society, 27(2), 195–219.

Golato, A. (2002). German compliment responses. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(5), 547–571.

Golato, A. (2005). Compliments and Compliment Responses: Grammatical Structure and Sequential Organization. John Benjamins.

Golato, A. (2011). Appreciatory sounds and expressions of embodied pleasure used as compliments. In K. Aijmer & G. Anderson (Eds.), Pragmatics of Society (pp. 361–392). Mouton-de Gruyter.

Goodwin, C. (1986). Between and within: Alternative sequential treatments of continuers and assessments. Human Studies, 9(2–3), 205–217.

Goodwin, C. (2007). Participation, stance, and affect in the organization of activities. Discourse & Society, 18(1), 53–73.

Goodwin, C., & Goodwin, M. H. (1987). Concurrent operations on talk: Notes on the interactive organization of assessments. IPrA Papers in Pragmatics, 1(1), 1–55.

Goodwin, C., & Goodwin, M. H. (1992). Assessments and the construction of context. In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin (Eds.), Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon (pp. 147–190). Cambridge University Press.

Goodwin, M. H. (1980). Processes of mutual monitoring implicated in the production of description sequences. Sociological Inquiry, 50(3–4), 303–317.

Goodwin, M. H. (2007). Participation and embodied action in preadolescent girls’ assessment activity. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 40(4), 353–375.

Goodwin, M. H., & Cekaite, A. (2018). Embodied Family Choreography: Practices of Control, Care, and Mundane Creativity. Routledge.

Günthner, S. (2000). Vorwurfsaktivitäten in der Alltagsinteraktion: Grammatische, prosodische, rhetorisch-stilistische und interaktive Verfahren bei der Konstitution kommunikativer Muster und Gattungen. Niemeyer.

Hayano, K. (2011). Giving support to the claim of epistemic primacy: Yo-marked assessments in Japanese. In T. Stivers, L. Mondada, & J. Steensig (Eds.), The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation (pp. 58–81). Cambridge University Press.

Hayano, K. (2016). Subjective assessments: Managing territory of experience in conversation. In J. D. Robinson (Ed.), Accountability in Social Interaction (pp. 207–236). Oxford University Press.

Heath, C. (1989). Pain talk: The expression of suffering in the medical consultation. Social Psychology Quarterly, 52(2), 113–125.

Heinemann, T., & Traverso, V. (2009). Complaining in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(12), 2381–2384.

Heritage, J. (2002). Oh-prefaced responses to assessments: A method of modifying agreement/disagreement. In C. E. Ford, B. A. Fox, & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), The Language of Turn and Sequence (pp. 196–224). Oxford University Press.

Heritage, J. (2013). Epistemics in conversation. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 370–394). Wiley-Blackwell.

Heritage, J., & Raymond, G. (2005). The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in assessment sequences. Social Psychology Quarterly, 68(1), 15–38.

Jefferson, G. (1978). Sequential aspects of storytelling in conversation. In J. Schenkein (Ed.), Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction (pp. 219–248). Academic Press.

Jenkins, L., & Hepburn, A. (2015). Children’s sensations as interactional phenomena: A conversation analysis of children’s expressions of pain and discomfort. Qualitative Research In Psychology, 12(4), 472–491.

Kärkkäinen, E. (2012). "I thought it was very interesting." Conversational formats for taking a stance. Journal of Pragmatics, 44(15), 2194–2210.

Kotthoff, H. (1993). Disagreement and concession in disputes: On the context sensitivity of preference structures. Language in Society, 22(2), 193–216.

Local, J., & Walker, G. (2008). Stance and affect in conversation: On the interplay of sequential and phonetic resources. Text & Talk, 28(6), 723–747.

Maynard, D. W. (2003). Bad News, Good News: Conversational Order in Everyday Talk and Clinical Settings. University of Chicago Press.

Maynard, D. W., & Freese, J. (2012). Good news, bad news, and affect: Practical and temporal “emotion work” in everyday life. In A. Peräkylä & M.-L. Sorjonen (Eds.), Emotion in Interaction (pp. 92–112). Oxford University Press.

Mondada, L. (2009a). The embodied and negotiated production of assessments in instructed actions. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 42(4), 329–361.

Mondada, L. (2009b). The methodical organization of talking and eating: Assessments in dinner conversations. Food Quality and Preference, 20(8), 558–571.

Ogden, R. (2006). Phonetics and social action in agreements and disagreements. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(10), 1752–1775.

Pillet-Shore, D. (2015). Compliments. In K. Tracy, C. Ilie, & T. Sandel (Eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction (Vol. 1, pp. 193–198). John Wiley & Sons.

Pomerantz, A. (1975). Second assessments: A study of some features of agreements/disagreements. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Irvine.

Pomerantz, A. (1978). Compliment responses: Notes on the cooperation of multiple constraints. In J. Schenkein (Ed.), Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction (pp. 79–112). Academic Press.

Pomerantz, A. (1984). Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 57–101). Cambridge University Press.

Potter, J., & Hepburn, A. (2020). Shaming interrogatives: Admonishments, the social psychology of emotion, and discursive practices of behaviour modification in family mealtimes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 59(2), 347–364.

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Schegloff, E. A. (1987). Analyzing single episodes of interaction: An exercise in conversation analysis. Social Psychology Quarterly, 50(2), 101–114.

Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis (Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press.

Schegloff, E. A. (2010). Commentary on Stivers and Rossano: Mobilizing response. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 43(1), 38–48.

Selting, M. (1994). Emphatic speech style—With special focus on the prosodic signalling of heightened emotive involvement in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 22(3–4), 375–408.

Selting, M. (2012). Complaint stories and subsequent complaint stories with affect displays. Journal of Pragmatics, 44(4), 387–415.

Selting, M. (2017). The display and management of affectivity in climaxes of amusing stories. Journal of Pragmatics, 111, 1–32.

Seuren, L. M. (2018). Assessing answers: Action ascription in third position. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(1), 33–51.

Shaw, C., Potter, J., & Hepburn, A. (2015). Advice-implicative actions: Using interrogatives and assessments to deliver advice in mundane conversation. Discourse Studies, 17(3), 317–342.

Sidnell, J., & Enfield, N. J. (2012). Language diversity and social action: A third locus of linguistic relativity. Current Anthropology, 53(3), 302–333.

Stevanovic, M. (2012). Prosodic salience and the emergence of new decisions: On approving responses to proposals in Finnish workplace interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 44(6–7), 843–862.

Stivers, T. (2008). Stance, alignment and affiliation during storytelling: When nodding is a token of affiliation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41(1), 31–57.

Stivers, T., Mondada, L., & Steensig, J. (2011). Knowledge, morality and affiliation in social interaction. In T. Stivers, L. Mondada, & J. Steensig (Eds.), The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation (pp. 3–24). Cambridge University Press.

Stivers, T., & Rossano, F. (2010a). Mobilizing response. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 43(1), 3–31.

Stivers, T., & Rossano, F. (2010b). A scalar view of response relevance. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 43(1), 49–56.

Thompson, S. A., Fox, B. A., & Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2015). Grammar in Everyday Talk: Building Responsive Actions. Cambridge University Press.

Wiggins, S. (2002). Talking with your mouth full: Gustatory mmms and the embodiment of pleasure. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 35(3), 311–336.

Wiggins, S. (2013). The social life of ‘eugh’: Disgust as assessment in family mealtimes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 52(3), 489–509.

Wiggins, S., & Potter, J. (2003). Attitudes and evaluative practices: Category vs. Item and subjective vs. Objective constructions in everyday food assessments. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42(4), 513–531.

Additional References: