“Getting placed” in time
Responsibility talk in caseworker-client interaction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v9i3.20843Keywords:
accountability, discourse analysis, institutional interaction, responsibility, social workAbstract
This study describes one caseworker’s construction of responsibility through her interactions with three homeless clients in an urban homeless shelter, revealing the significant impact of the shelter, shelter policy, and personal contexts on the construction of responsibility in talk. It explores how responsibility is constructed through a series of discursive choices, including deontic modality, personal pronouns, expressions of time and space, and accounts. These discursive choices expose the ways in which the caseworker’s responsibility talk changes depending on the category of client. Specifically, the study compares the caseworker’s responsibility talk with an undocumented homeless client to her responsibility talk with long-term staying clients. Given policy mandates to place long-term clients (in shelter nine months or longer) more quickly, responsibility talk with these clients as they near the nine-month benchmark is more aggressive. The study shows how the caseworker’s talk with the new undocumented client surprisingly resembles her talk with the long-term clients nearing the nine-month benchmark. She discursively treats this new undocumented client like persisting ones. ‘Imagined time’ and ‘imagined space’ are introduced to aid in describing the projected, future non-compliance of a new undocumented client as established in the caseworker’s responsibility talk.
References
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Coates, J. (1990) Modal meaning: The semantic–pragmatic interface. Journal of Semantics 7 (1): 53–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jos/7.1.53
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Goffman, E. (1961a) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
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Goffman,E. (1967) Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face to Face Behavior. Chicago: Aldine.
Goffman, E. (1971) Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, E. (1981) Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
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Hale, S. (1999) Interpreters’ treatment of discourse markers in courtroom questions. Forensic Linguistics 6 (1): 57–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.1999.6.1.57
Hall, C., Slembrouck, S. and Sarangi, S. (2006) Language Practices in Social Work: Categorisation and Accountability in Child Welfare. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
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Lipsky, M. (1980) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Matarese, M. (2008) Practice, Power, Policy, and Participation: A Linguistic Ethnography of Cumulative Caseworker–Client Interactions in a New York City Homeless Shelter. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University.
Matarese, M. and Caswell, D. (2014) Accountability. In C. Hall, K. Juhila, M. Matarese and C. van Nijnatten (eds) Analysing Social Work Communication, 44–60. London: Routledge.
Maynard, D. (1992) On clinicians co-implicating recipients’ perspective in the delivery of diagnostic news. In P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds) Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, 331–358. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, M. (1994) What should we teach about the spoken language? Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 17 (2): 104–120.
Nikander, P. (2003) The absent client: Case description and decision making in interprofessional meetings. In C. Hall, K. Juhila, N. Parton and T. Pösö (eds) Constructing Clienthood in Social Work and Human Services: Interaction, Identities and Practices, 112–128. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Noordegraaf, M., van Nijnatten, C. and Elbers, E. (2008) Future talk: Discussing hypothetical situations with prospective adoptive parents. Qualitative Social Work 7 (3): 310–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1473325008093704
Olesen, S. P. (2003) Client, user, member as constructed in institutional interaction. In C. Hall, K. Juhila, N. Parton and T. Pösö (eds) Constructing Clienthood in Social Work and Human Services: Interaction, Identities and Practices, 208–222. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Saario, S. and Raitakari, S. (2010) Contractual audit and mental health rehabilitation: A study of formulating effectiveness in a Finnish supported housing unit. International Journal of Social Welfare 19 (3): 321–332. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2397.2010.00726.x
Sacks, H. (1992) Lectures on Conversation. Oxford: Blackwell.
Schegloff, E. A. (2007) Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis, Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208
Scott, M. and Lyman, S. (1968) Accounts. American Sociological Association 33 (1): 46–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2092239
Speer, S. A. and Parsons, C. (2006) Gatekeeping gender: Some features of the use of hypothetical questions in the psychiatric assessment of transsexual patients. Discourse & Society 17 (6): 785–812. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926506068433
Stokes, R. and Hewitt, J. (1976) Aligning actions. American Sociological Review 41 (5): 838–849. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2094730
Thornborrow, J. (2002) Power Talk: Language and Interaction in Institutional Discourse. London: Longman.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803932
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Trans. C. Emerson and M. Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Buttny, R. (1993) Social Accountability in Communication. London: Sage.
Buttny, R., and Morris, G. H. (2001) Accounting. In W. P. Robinson and H. Giles (eds) The New Handbook on Language and Social Psychology, 285–302. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Coates, J. (1983) The Semantics of Modal Auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm.
Coates, J. (1990) Modal meaning: The semantic–pragmatic interface. Journal of Semantics 7 (1): 53–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jos/7.1.53
Duranti, A. (1993) Intentions, self, and responsibility: An essay in Samoan ethnopragmatics. In J. Hill and J. T. Irvine (eds) Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse, 24–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goffman, E. (1961a) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Goffman, E. (1961b) Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.
Goffman,E. (1967) Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face to Face Behavior. Chicago: Aldine.
Goffman, E. (1971) Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, E. (1981) Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Goffman, E. (1983) The interaction order. American Sociological Review 48 (1): 1–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2095141
Hale, S. (1999) Interpreters’ treatment of discourse markers in courtroom questions. Forensic Linguistics 6 (1): 57–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/sll.1999.6.1.57
Hall, C., Slembrouck, S. and Sarangi, S. (2006) Language Practices in Social Work: Categorisation and Accountability in Child Welfare. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Irvine, J. (1992) Insult and responsibility: Verbal abuse in a Wolof village. In J. Hill and J. T. Irvine (eds) Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse, 105–134. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, L. C. and Yanca, S. J. (2006) Social Work Practice: A Generalist Approach. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Juhila, K. (2003) Creating a ‘bad’ client: Disalignment of institutional identities in social work interaction. In C. Hall, K. Juhila, N. Parton and T. Pösö (eds) Constructing Clienthood in Social Work and Human Services: Interaction, Identities and Practices, 83–95. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Juhila, K. (2004) Talking back to stigmatized identities: Negotiation of culturally dominant categorizations in interviews with shelter residents. Qualitative Social Work 3 (3): 259–275.
Juhila, K., Hall, C. and Raitakari, S. (2010) Accounting for the clients’ troublesome behaviour in a supported housing unit: Blames, excuses and responsibility in professionals’ talk. Journal of Social Work 10 (1): 59–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468017309350657
Kurri, K. and Wahlström, J. (2005) Placement of responsibility and moral reasoning in couple therapy. Journal of Family Therapy 27 (4): 352–369. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6427.2005.00327.x
Labov, W. and Fanshel, D. (1977) Therapeutic Discourse: Psychotherapy as Conversation. New York: Academic Press.
Lipsky, M. (1980) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Matarese, M. (2008) Practice, Power, Policy, and Participation: A Linguistic Ethnography of Cumulative Caseworker–Client Interactions in a New York City Homeless Shelter. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University.
Matarese, M. and Caswell, D. (2014) Accountability. In C. Hall, K. Juhila, M. Matarese and C. van Nijnatten (eds) Analysing Social Work Communication, 44–60. London: Routledge.
Maynard, D. (1992) On clinicians co-implicating recipients’ perspective in the delivery of diagnostic news. In P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds) Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, 331–358. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, M. (1994) What should we teach about the spoken language? Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 17 (2): 104–120.
Nikander, P. (2003) The absent client: Case description and decision making in interprofessional meetings. In C. Hall, K. Juhila, N. Parton and T. Pösö (eds) Constructing Clienthood in Social Work and Human Services: Interaction, Identities and Practices, 112–128. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Noordegraaf, M., van Nijnatten, C. and Elbers, E. (2008) Future talk: Discussing hypothetical situations with prospective adoptive parents. Qualitative Social Work 7 (3): 310–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1473325008093704
Olesen, S. P. (2003) Client, user, member as constructed in institutional interaction. In C. Hall, K. Juhila, N. Parton and T. Pösö (eds) Constructing Clienthood in Social Work and Human Services: Interaction, Identities and Practices, 208–222. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Saario, S. and Raitakari, S. (2010) Contractual audit and mental health rehabilitation: A study of formulating effectiveness in a Finnish supported housing unit. International Journal of Social Welfare 19 (3): 321–332. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2397.2010.00726.x
Sacks, H. (1992) Lectures on Conversation. Oxford: Blackwell.
Schegloff, E. A. (2007) Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis, Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208
Scott, M. and Lyman, S. (1968) Accounts. American Sociological Association 33 (1): 46–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2092239
Speer, S. A. and Parsons, C. (2006) Gatekeeping gender: Some features of the use of hypothetical questions in the psychiatric assessment of transsexual patients. Discourse & Society 17 (6): 785–812. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926506068433
Stokes, R. and Hewitt, J. (1976) Aligning actions. American Sociological Review 41 (5): 838–849. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2094730
Thornborrow, J. (2002) Power Talk: Language and Interaction in Institutional Discourse. London: Longman.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803932
Published
2015-07-10
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Section
Articles
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Equinox Publishing Ltd.
How to Cite
Matarese, M. T. (2015). “Getting placed” in time: Responsibility talk in caseworker-client interaction. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 9(3), 341–359. https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v9i3.20843
