First Position Noticings Ascribed as Directives: The Interplay of Action Ascription and Deontic Stance in L2 English-Medium University Classrooms

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2026-06-04

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Demirezen, Sema Betül
Topal, Pınar

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The present study describes an interactional phenomenon wherein an utterance formulated explicitly as a noticing (i.e., a remark on something perceivable within the ongoing environment or activity) without any directive form functions interactionally and sequentially as a directive, evidenced by recipients orienting to and subsequently responding to the noticing as an instruction or call for remedial action, by looking at 20 hours of L2 English-medium university classes that involve active student involvement, such as design studios, laboratories and other similar learning environments. In many disciplines, such settings of clinical training involve a multitude of instructional demands to “get others do things” that are realized in fundamentally embodied practices in interaction (Stevanovic and Per.kyl., 2012). Consequently, instructors make the disciplinary know-how “instructably witnessable”, “teachably visible,” and “situatedly tutorial” in such settings with (Garfinkel, 2002, p.101, as cited in Nguyen, 2017) a “greater likelihood of directive formulations” (Craven and Potter 2010, p.439). In line with this, the present study provides a micro-analytical investigation into how instructors’ noticings are ascribed as directives by the students in activities that involve students presenting their works or here-and-now actions to instructors’ feedback. The analysis demonstrates how the participants draw on an interplay of both bottom-up (e.g., turn-design) and top-down (e.g., personal statuses and rights) resources ascribe these first position noticings as directives, as such considerations have the potential to “move the issue of action ascription forward” (Heritage, 2022, p.298). Such student-led, multiparty instructional environments offer crystallized examples of how participants negotiate their epistemic and deontic stances in real time, and contest or affirm role legitimacy through ordinary interaction.In the short extract below, Physical Education students are engaged in a diaphragmatic breathing activity,lying on the ground, each with their head resting on the abdomen of another student. The segment beginswith the TA’s first position, stand-alone noticing, which mobilizes S5 to change her bodily practice.Formally, the TA’s first position turn is non-imperative, lacking direct address or explicit evaluative markers. Yet, the student immediately nods and smiles in response, followed by a noticeable shift in breathing: both chest and abdomen movements temporarily stop, and diaphragmatic breathing alone resumes (Line 2). This sequence suggests that the noticing is ascribed a directive force through both its positioning and design, and the institutional roles and deontic stances of TA and the students. By responding preemptively and nonverbally, the student treats the noticing not merely as commentary but as a meaningful call for behavioral alignment.Across multiple instances analyzed, students responded to first-position noticings as directives throughimmediate bodily adjustments, verbal acknowledgments, or future-oriented commitments. Such responsesindicate that the instructional relevance of the noticing is not merely inferred but acted upon, positioningthe noticing as a resource for managing task performance. While prior research has shown that noticingsmay guide attention or serve as precursors to reflection (Rauniomaa et al., 2018; Waring, 2022), this studyadvances the literature by showing how first-position noticings may be routinely treated as action-ascriptiveand deontically consequential, eliciting responses ranging from immediate adjustments to future-orientedcommitments in instructional settings. It contributes to conversation analytic work on institutionalinteraction by foregrounding how deontic stance and participant roles shape the first positioned noticingsascribed as directives, thereby advancing our understanding of how pedagogical authority is exercised andnegotiated in university classes.ReferencesCraven, A., & Potter, J. (2010). Directives: Entitlement and contingency in action. Discourse Studies,12(4), 419–442. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445610370126Garfinkel, H. (2002). Ethnomethodology’s programs: Working out Durkheim’s aphorism. Rowman & Littlefield.Heritage, J. (2022). The multiple accountabilities of action. In A. Deppermann & M. Haugh (Eds.), Action ascription in interaction (pp. 297–329). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108676460.013Nguyen, H. T. (2017). Toward a conversation analytic framework for tracking interactional competence development from school to work. In S. Pekarek Doehler, E. Gonz.lez-Mart.nez, & J. Wagner(Eds.), Interactional competences in institutional settings: From school to the workplace (pp.197–225). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57103-4_8Rauniomaa, M., Lehtonen, E., & Summala, H. (2018). Noticings with instructional implications in postlicence driver training. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 28(2), 326–346.https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12199Stevanovic, M., & Per.kyl., A. (2012). Deontic authority in interaction: The right to announce, propose, and decide. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(3), 297–321.https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.699260Waring, H. Z. (2022). Stand-alone noticing as a resource for constructing the reflectable: The work of cultivating professional vision. Second Language Teacher Education, 1(1), 25–45.

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/119936

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Department of Foreign Language Education, Conference / Seminar