Identifying Forms of Advice Delivery and the Impact of Authority in Advisory Interaction (A Conversation Analysis)

Abstract

Utilising conversation analysis, this paper investigates advice delivery formats and the impact of authority in televised advisory interactions between academic colleagues. Analyses of nine advisory sequences from a single-case televised interview identified four different formats of advice; declarations, non-agentives, agentives, and conditionals. Authority was found to impact the advice recipient's response; low-authority responses followed high-authority assertions by advice givers, while high-authority responses occurred with low-authority advice. These findings expand previous CA studies on the influence of authority in advice interactions and offer new insights into academic advisory contexts. Furthermore, this study calls for research to expand on advisory interactions across diverse mediums, genres, and institutional contexts.