About CARDS
CARDS (Conversation Analysis Reading and Data Sessions) is a community of researchers based in Linguistics.
They are interested in Conversation Analysis -- an interdisciplinary methodology that aims to understand how people talk to each other in mundane and institutional settings.
CARDS is the home of PhD, Early Career, and established researchers at Ulster University, and was founded to provide these researchers with opportunities to share and gain feedback on their research from their peers.
We meet once a week to analyse data from our individual research projects or to read and discuss literature on talk and social interaction.
CARDS also organises workshops and events aimed to facilitate the study and understanding of talk, both for the general public and for other researchers interested in the study of social interaction (see events page for further details).
Who are CARDS?
Dr Catrin S. Rhys
Senior Lecturer in linguistics and Head of School in the School of Communication and Media
Catrin’s research uses conversation analysis to examine language and social interaction in a range of different institutional and everyday settings; everything from managing conversation with aphasia to football interviewing.
Her current research focuses on the language of complaints handling in the NHS and aims to address how the language used affects the experience of the complaints process.
Dr Adrian Kerrison
Lecturer in communication and language at Ulster University
Adrian’s research explores how crowds manage to speak “as one” through the use of shared conversational structures. He is particularly interested in how sports fans cheer together, and is forever inching towards making pro wrestling a genuine academic topic.
His PhD dissertation on practical considerations in cheering was honoured as Dissertation of the Year for 2019 by the Language and Social Interaction division of the US National Communication Association.
Natalie Flint
Doctoral Researcher
Natalie’s research explores the sequential organisation of resistance in family interactions, and how members orient to epistemic authority, deontic authority and categories in these family interactions.
In previous research, she has investigated (dis)affiliation and remedial accounts in initial interactions.
Natalie completed her undergraduate degree in English Language and Linguistics at York St John University (2016) and was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Medal, and English Language and Linguistics Programme and Research Prizes. Following this, she gained a Master’s by Research in Linguistics, also at York St John.
In September 2017, she joined Ulster University to work on a full-time PhD. She is also one of the co-ordinators of the EMCA Remote Data Sessions which offer researchers a low-carbon footprint method of accessing the international EMCA community.
Samantha Finlay
Doctoral Researcher
Samantha earned a Bachelor’s degree in Language and Linguistics at Ulster University (2017), and was awarded the School of Communication Linguistics prize, and the Sarah Hagan Memorial Award.
She has also earned a Master’s degree in English Language and Linguistics at Ulster University (2018).
She is currently researching how participants interact during roleplaying games with a particular focus on how they manage and navigate between the dual identities of player and character during roleplay.
Samantha is the current CARDS coordinator and is in charge of organising the weekly reading and data sessions, among other duties.
Dr Jack B. Joyce
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Jack has mainly worked on how people argue, disagree, and complain about each other in different contexts.
He is currently involved in studies on arguments about Brexit between members of the public and politicians, on accusations of Mansplaining, on how resistance is manifest in talk, and on how people use technology during face-to-face interactions.
He co-founded the Remote Data Sessions, the Resistance in talk-in-interaction network, co-organises the DARGchive series, and in 2019 won the "I’m a Scientist! Get me out of here!" Competition in the British Psychological Society’s ’Society Zone’, and was awarded the "Overall Impact" award at Loughborough University.
Chen Chi
Doctoral Researcher
Chen Chi's thesis examines the L2 learning in the Chinese classroom.
About Ulster Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. This includes questions about language structure, meaning and use, as well as how children acquire language, how it is processed and how it can break down, for example after a stroke or a brain injury.
Linguistics at Ulster University brings together a team of internationally respected researchers to deliver research and teaching in these areas and collaborate with community stakeholders to share the relevance of linguistics research in everyday life. For example, through the Ulster University Centre on Multilingualism (UCoM), the team share current research on multilingual language development and social attitudes to multilingualism with families, professionals and community groups in Northern Ireland.
Linguistics can be studied in the School of Communication and Media on the BSc Hons Language and Linguistics.
At postgraduate level, it can be studied on our MSc/PGDip English Language and Linguistics or combined with the study of Teaching English as a Second or Other Language on the MSc Linguistics and TESOL. There is also a vibrant community of PhD researchers in linguistics, including many of the CARDS team.