Ript
A simple transcription tool for conversation analysis. It solves three basic problems: finding symbols, numbering lines and styling multimodal transcripts.
Research
My research examines language and embodied conduct in everyday social interaction.
I am Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of York. I use conversation analysis (CA) to study video recordings of everyday activities, investigating how people take turns, organize sequences of action, resolve problems of speaking and understanding, and recruit assistance. Language is fundamentally multimodal, so my research attends not only to the words speakers produce but also to their gestures, gaze, and other visible bodily actions. Close observation and sequential analysis underpin all my work, often in combination with quantitative, experimental and cross-linguistic methods and in collaboration with colleagues across disciplines.
My current interests include: addressee points in both conflictual and cooperative interactions; the uses of AI in conversation analytic research and teaching; and assistance in dementia care, as an extension of my research on recruitment.
Publications
Recent and representative work.
Teaching
I teach conversation analysis as a method of discovery. At every level, from undergraduate courses to doctoral supervision, students learn to record naturally occurring interaction, identify interactional phenomena, build collections of cases, and develop analyses of them. I also create open materials for anyone learning these methods.
Open resources
Modules and supervision
- The Language of Turn & Sequence↗ An introduction to conversation analysis and the mechanics of conversation: turn-taking, sequence organization, repair and preference, and more. Students record a conversation, identify a phenomenon of interest, and develop an analysis of it.
- Conversation Analysis↗ Conversation analysis as a method for studying language and social interaction. Students work hands-on with recordings, build collections of phenomena, and carry out an original research project.
- Multimodality: Language & the Body↗ How people use language and the body together in face-to-face interaction: gaze, gesture and facial expression alongside talk. Students learn to work with video, annotate in ELAN, transcribe multimodal conduct, and then carry out a research project of their own.
- Doctoral supervision Current: Luyang Zhou ↗. Former: Rosario Neyra (2025), Zhiying Jian (2024), Reihaneh Afshari Saleh (2022), Elliott Hoey (2017), Giovanni Rossi (2015)
Tools
I have developed several tools and resources for conversation analysts.
AI for CA
Prompts, example materials and reference files for using AI in conversation analysis, written to be read by people and by AI agents. The collection begins with the supplementary materials for “Using AI for teaching and learning CA” (Research on Language and Social Interaction, in press).