Friday, 1st November - 11am Liz Stokoe : Seminar

Title:  How ‘conversational’ are conversational products and technologies?

Abstract:

Conversational products and technologies are in the headlines more than ever. But how ‘conversational’ are they? And what does ‘conversational’ actually mean? Many products leverage ‘conversation’, from communication training to assessment tools; from to scripted interaction to role-play, and from chatbots to voice assistants. But do they do so in ways that strengthen or do damage in their domains of use? Six decades of research in conversation analysis have identified and described the constitutive practices of human social interaction across the widest range of ordinary and institutional settings. In this talk, I will address the questions of what, when, and how conversational products could and should leverage from conversation analysis.

Bio:

Elizabeth Stokoe is Academic Director of Impact at The London School of Economics and Political Science where she is a professor in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. She conducts conversation analytic research to understand how talk works - from first dates to medical communication and from sales encounters to crisis negotiation. She has worked as an industry fellow at technology companies Typeform and at Deployed.

In addition to academic publishing, she is passionate about science communication, and has given talks at TED, Google, Microsoft, and The Royal Institution, and performed at Latitude and Cheltenham Science Festivals. Her books include Talk: The Science of Conversation (Little, Brown, 2018), Crisis Talk (Routledge, 2022, co-authored with Rein Ove Sikveland and Heidi Kevoe-Feldman), and Categories in Social Interaction (Routledge, 2025, co-authored with Kevin Whitehead and Geoffrey Raymond). Her research and biography were featured on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific.

During the Covid-19 pandemic she participated in a behavioural science sub-group of the UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and is a member of Independent SAGE behaviour group. She is a Wired Innovation Fellowand an Honorary Fellow of the British Psychological Society.