Doing formulating: “Writing Aloud Voice” sequences as an interactional method

- Writing Aloud Voice (WAV) sequences consist of a quotative, a WAV clause and an unquote.
- Speakers display ongoing formulation work in and through WAV sequences.
- Students use the Writing Aloud Voice to display academic competence.

Participants in interaction take various stances toward the content of their turns. For instance, in direct reported speech sequences, the footing (Goffman, 1979) is changed as the speaker recycles one or more turns from a previous interaction. This article defines and describes Writing Aloud Voice (WAV) sequences - a specific change of footing used in hypothetical speech (Haberland, 1986) for doing formulation. This research explores a collection of video recordings of student project group meetings and was analyzed with Ethnomethodological and Conversation Analytic methods. It demonstrates that WAV sequences consist of (1) a quotative construction projecting a change of footing (2) a WAV clause produced with a prosody resembling that of reading aloud, and (3) an exiting device constituting a return to the previous footing. WAV clauses contain numerous speech perturbations, and the article shows how these are used by speakers to demonstrate the ongoing work of formulating a potential text.