NCRM Annual Lecture 2023
The NCRM Annual Lecture 2023 was held on Tuesday, 25 April. This prestigious event brought together researchers from across the UK to discuss some of the latest innovations in research methods and network with colleagues from different sectors and disciplines.
Our keynote speaker for the evening was Professor Elizabeth Stokoe of the London School of Economics and Political Science. She was joined by our discussant, Dr Jon Sutton, editor of The Psychologist magazine.
The event took place in the magnificent surroundings of the Royal Society in central London and was streamed online. It opened with a short presentation from NCRM's Director, Professor Gabriele Durrant, who provided an overview of NCRM's core activities and launched a new publication, Learning Together, which summarises NCRM's highlights from 2020 to 2023.
The lecture
In her presentation, Professor Stokoe discussed the power of conversation analysis to reveal both effective and problematic communication practices in a variety of contexts.
Her talk, A Method in Search of a Problem: The Power of Conversation Analysis, showed how conversation analysis can be used to identify, describe and share effective communication practices, as well as challenge common communication myths and expose inequalities.
Professor Stokoe used research findings and examples from real conversations to illustrate issues in settings including healthcare, dating, sales encounters, crisis negotiation and AI interaction.
She argued that conversation analytic research exposes the workings of real-life inequalities and exclusion, and the otherwise hidden reality of the good – as well as the damage – that turns at talking can do. The full abstract for the lecture and more details about Professor Stokoe are available below.
Video and slides
Watch the video of the lecture
View the slides from Professor Gabriele Durrant's presentation
View the slides from Professor Elizabeth Stokoe's presentation
Further information
Below you can find details on the programme, venue, lecture content and our speaker, as well as contact information.
Programme
18:00 - Reception, with light refreshments
18:35 - Welcome from Professor Gabriele Durrant, Director of NCRM
18:45 - Lecture: Professor Elizabeth Stokoe
19:25 - Discussant: Dr Jon Sutton, Editor, The Psychologist
19:30 - Questions
20:00 - Close
Venue
The venue for the NCRM Annual Lecture 2023 was:
The Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London
SW1Y 5AG
The lecture took place in the Dining Room. Find out more about the venue.
Lecture abstract: A Method in Search of a Problem: The Power of Conversation Analysis
In this lecture, I will explore the power of conversation analysis to reveal ethical, moral, and otherwise problematic communication practices that have personal, legal and societal consequences for those involved. Such practices would otherwise be unknown, imagined incorrectly, unevidenced, disattended or remain obscured, since the world of social interaction is largely investigated using simulation, experimental methods, post-hoc surveys or interviews.
While conversation analysis is sometimes regarded as the soggiest of ‘soft’ qualitative research methods, I will show that its research findings not only challenge common communication myths but can reveal fundamental problems with both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ research data themselves. Using real conversations from settings such as dating, healthcare, sales encounters, crisis negotiation and conversational AI, I will explore all these issues and more.
I will argue that conversation analytic research exposes the workings of real-life inequalities and exclusion, and the otherwise hidden reality of the good – as well as the damage – that turns at talking can do.
About the speaker
Elizabeth Stokoe is a Professor in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), having joined in January 2023 after 20 years at Loughborough University. She conducts conversation analytic research to understand how talk works – from first dates to medical communication, and from sales encounters to crisis negotiation.
She has worked as an industry fellow at SaaS companies Typeform and Deployed. In addition to academic publishing, she is passionate about science communication, and has given talks at TED, Google, Microsoft and The Royal Institution, and performed at Latitude Festival and Cheltenham Science Festival.
Her books include Talk: The Science of Conversation (Little, Brown, 2018) and Crisis Talk (Routledge, 2022, co-authored with Rein Ove Sikveland and Heidi Kevoe-Feldman). Her research and biography were featured on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, she participated in a behavioural science sub-group of the UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and is a member of the Independent SAGE behaviour group. She is a Wired Innovation Fellow and in 2021 was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the British Psychological Society. Read more on the LSE website. Professor Stokoe is also a member of NCRM’s independent advisory board.
Contact us
For more information about the NCRM Annual Lecture 2023, please email: info@ncrm.ac.uk