This article examines references interactants make in the course of mediation sessions with the purpose of understanding how these references serve as indicators of the mediation session being on-task or off-task and a type of interactional resources mediators use to manage conflict. An existing collection of transcripts from audio recordings of mediation sessions at a mediation center in the western United States serves as a source of interactional data. The study identified references that are employed to create an institutionally preferred form of the interactivity, namely, references to interactional products (e.g., a plan and an agreement), people outside of the immediate situation (references to children, agents of an organization such as judges, counselors, and lawyers, clients, and abstract people), and external matters related to the agenda of the meeting (e.g., references to custody and visitation matters and the process disputants have to go through to resolve their dispute). The analysis shows that these references perform a number of functions such as setting a task before the disputants, keeping the discussion focused on task or showing that the conversation is off-track. It indicates that there are differences in mediators’ and disputants’ usage of references, for example, in terms of the use of linguistic tokens, frequency, and what they refer to. The article also demonstrates that it is important to consider references in the context and in combination with other references, as, when taken in isolation, they are not necessarily a sufficient indicator of the discussion being on-task. Finally, the article discusses what the findings mean in terms of conflict, communication design, and institutional talk.

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visitation conflict communication institutional talk references linguistic tokens frequency interactional resources custody

Alena L. Vasilyeva,.The Role of References in Custody Mediation. 33 (),.

Alena L. Vasilyeva,"The Role of References in Custody Mediation" 33

Alena L. Vasilyeva,"The Role of References in Custody Mediation"