Toward an expansive interactional analysis

In this chapter, we explore how we can develop a disciplined and close analysis of interactional data from poststructuralist theoretical orientations. After reviewing the poststructuralist constructs in detail, we outline the challenges for data collection and analysis. We then conduct a critical review of emerging studies in applied linguistics influenced by these perspectives. Schools such as New Sociolinguistics (Bucholtz, 2017), Multimodal Conversation Analysis (Mondada, 2014), mobility (Pennycook, 2016), and Third Wave New Literacies (Kell, 2017) encourage such an analytical orientation. We articulate their exemplary practices, while also unveiling the inconsistencies or limitations in accounting for meaning-making practices in expansive spatiotemporal scales. After that, we conduct a sample analysis of data gathered from international STEM scholars to demonstrate how such questions can be resolved. We also use this example to clarify the additional forms of data or fieldwork required to do justice to the notion of communication as an assemblage configured from expansive space and time locations.