Profile

Biography

Paul Drew (BA Exeter, PhD Lancaster) is a conversation analyst whose research focuses on the basic communicative processes and practices of ordinary interaction, especially those associated with social action, repair/self-correction, and turn design. He works also on more specialised interactions in such settings as criminal courts, social welfare agencies, and medical practice -most recently in neurology (epilepsy, dementia), neonatology, and telephone psychological therapy. He has conducted applied and consultancy research (aimed at improving the effectiveness of communication) in some of these settings. He has taught extensively internationally, including CA research training workshops in Europe, China and the US. He is an honorary member of the China Pragmatics Association, and an honorary Visiting Professor at the University of Huddersfield. He has an honorary degree from the University of Helsinki.

Departmental roles

• Coordinator for International Development & Visitors

Research

Research

My current research divides fairly evenly between the basic practices of ordinary (social) interaction, and the communicative practices in medicine, usually in doctor-patient interaction. I’m working in broadly four principal areas, two each in basic research and in medical interactions. These are:

My current research divides fairly evenly between the basic practices of ordinary (social) interaction, and the communicative practices in medical interactions, usually doctor-patient interactions. I’m working in broadly four principal areas, two each in basic research and in medical interactions. These are:

Repair and self-correction: Whilst much is known about the mechanisms and practices of repair and self-correction, rather less is understood about what speakers do or achieve through correcting themselves. I’m working on the normative implications of self-correction – focusing on how speakers quite systematically correct themselves in such a way as to change (correct) to a normatively appropriate construction or form for implementing a certain action.

Drew, P. et al, (2013) Self-repair and action construction. In Hayashi, M., Raymond, G. and Sidnell, J. (Eds.), Conversational Repair and Human Understanding. Cambridge University Press: 71-94.

Recruitment of assistance (with Kobin Kendrick): The recruitment of assistance constitutes a basic organisational problem for participants in social interaction. One of the most ubiquitous and abiding features of our social lives, indeed of human sociality itself, is that we need, seek, receive or are offered assistance by others, in small things (e.g., help in opening a tight-fitting lid) as well as in larger matters. As was acknowledged by Adam Smith, anticipating Erving Goffman (Man continually standing in need of the assistance of others, must fall upon some means to procure their help, Adam Smith, 1763), minor acts of assistance are essential in enabling us to manage the tasks of our ordinary, daily social lives; without such assistance we might struggle to manage certain tasks at all. Kobin and I are exploring the methods through which recruitments of assistance are managed. 

Kendrick, K. & Drew, P. (2016) Recruitment: offers, requests, and the organization of assistance in interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 49: 1-19.

Drew, P. & Kendrick, K. (2017) Searching for trouble: recruiting assistance through embodied action. Social Interaction: Video-based Studies of Human Sociality, 1

Telephone delivery of low-intensity (CBT) therapy for patients with anxiety and depression: This is an NIHR-funded study, ‘Enhancing the quality of psychological interventions delivered by telephone’ (EQUITy), a 5-year programme of multi-disciplinary research, led and coordinated by Penny Bee and Peter Bowers at the University of Manchester, which aims to improve the way that psychological interventions are delivered over the telephone. My role has been to analyse – with Annie Irvine (King’s College London) - the interaction between patients and practitioners in telephone-mediated therapy sessions, in a number of centres around the country.

Irvine, A., Drew, P. et al. (2020) Patient choice in the delivery of the NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services. Sociology of Health & Illness. DOI:  0.1111/1467-9566.13182 

Drew, P, Irvine, A. et al. (2021) Telephone delivery of psychological therapies: Balancing protocol with patient-centred care. Social Science & Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113818 

Conversations between doctors and parents in neonatal intensive care: In collaboration with neonatologists and medical researchers at UCL’s EGA Institute for Women's Health, I am studying decision making in neonatal intensive care, in conversations between neonatal doctors and the parents of very sick (often very premature) babies. The decisions largely concern treatment, including the possibility of redirecting care from full intensive care to palliative care. Using conversation analysis, our findings are beginning to suggest that certain linguistic formats used by doctors to explain a baby’s current state of were more likely than others to result in alignment between doctors and parents. The most recent development of this project is a planned study of interpreted conversations (English-Urdu/Mirpuri) in perinatal care, to be conducted with neonatologists at hospitals in Bradford and Leeds.

Shaw, C., Connabeer, K., Drew, P., Gallagher, K., Aladangady, N. & Marlow, N. (2019) Initiating end-of-life decisions with parents of infants receiving neonatal intensive care. Patient Education and Counselling. doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2020.02.013 

Research group(s)

• University of York’s Centre for Advanced Studies in Language and Communication

Publications

Recent publications (selected)

• Drew, P. (forthcoming) The micro-politics of social actions. In A. Depermann and M. Haugh (Eds.) Action Ascription. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 
• Yu, G., Wu, Y. and Drew, P. (2019) Couples bickering: Discord in Chinese conversations. Discourse Studies, 21. DOI:i10.1177/1461445619842739 
• Drew, P, Irvine, A. et al. (2021) Telephone delivery of psychological therapies: Balancing protocol with patient-centred care. Social Science & Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113818 
• Drew, P., Hakulinen, A., Heinemann, T., Niemi, J. and Rossi, G. (2021) Hendiadys in naturally occurring interactions: a cross-linguistic study of double verb constructions. Journal of Pragmatics.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.02.008 
• Beach MC, Saha S, Park J, Taylor J, Drew P, Plank E, Cooper LA, Chee B. (2021) Testimonial injustice: linguistic bias in the medical records of Black patients and women. J Gen Intern Med, DOI: 10.1007/s11606-021-06682-z
• Peng, X, Zhang, W. & Drew, P.  (2021) ‘Sharing the experience’ in enactments in storytelling. Journal of Pragmatics. DOI:10.1016/j.pragma.2021.06.020
• Irvine, A., Drew, P. et al. (2020) Are there interactional differences between telephone and face-to-face psychological therapy? A systematic review of comparative studies. Journal of Affective Disorders, Mar 15;265:120-131. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.01.057. Epub 2020 Jan 15.
• Kurhila, S., Lehtimaja, I. (2020) Correcting medical decisions: a study in nurses’ patient advocacy in (Finnish) hospital ward rounds. Sociology of Health and Illness. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13159 
• Ferraz, F. de Almeda and Drew, P. (2020) The fabric of law-in-action: ‘formulating’ the suspect’s account during police interviews in England. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law. 27, 1 (https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.38527 )
• Irvine, A., Drew, P. et al. (2020) Patient choice in the delivery of the NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services. Sociology of Health & Illness. DOI:  0.1111/1467-9566.13182 
• Jones, D., Drew, P., Wilkinson, R. and Jackson, C. (2019) Variation and Interactional non-standardization in neuropsychological tests: The case of the Addenbrooke¹s Cognitive Examination. Qualitative Health Research. DOI: 10.1.1177/1049732319873052
• Shaw, C., Connabeer, K., Drew, P., Gallagher, K., Aladangady, N. and Marlow, N. (2019) Initiating end-of-life decisions with parents of infants receiving neonatal intensive care. Patient Education and Counselling. doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2020.02.013 
• Heritage, J., Raymond, C & Drew, P. (2019) Constructing apologies: reflexive relationships between apologies and offences. Journal of Pragmatics, 141:185-200.
• Drew, P. (2018) Inferences and indirectness in interaction. Open Linguistics, 4:241-259. 
• Drew, P. (2018) Epistemics in Social Interaction, Discourse Studies. 20: 163-187.
• Bergmann, J. & Drew, P. (Eds.) (2017) Repairing the Broken Surface of Talk: Correction and Problems in Speaking, Hearing and Understanding in Conversation. (Papers by Gail Jefferson). New York, Oxford University Press.
• Drew, P. & Kendrick, K. (2017) Searching for trouble: recruiting assistance through embodied action. Social Interaction: Video-based Studies of Human Sociality, 1:
• Kendrick, K. & Drew, P. (2016) Recruitment: offers, requests, and the organization of assistance in interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 49: 1-19.
• Drew, P., Heritage, J., Lerner, G. and Pomerantz, A. (Eds.) (2015) Talking About Troubles in Conversation (papers by Gail Jefferson). New York, Oxford University Press. 
• Elsey, C., Drew, P., Jones, D., Blackburn, D., Wakefield, S., Harkness, K., Venneri, A. & Reuber, M. (2015) Towards diagnostic conversational profiles of patients presenting with dementia or functional memory disorders to memory clinics. Patient Education & Counseling, 98: 1071-1077.
• Drew, P. & Couper-Kuhlen, E. (Eds.) (2014) Requesting in Social Interaction. Amsterdam, Benjamins.
• Drew, P., Toerien, M., Irvine, A. & Sainsbury, R. (2014) Personal advisor interviews with benefits claimants in UK Jobcentres. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 47: 306-316. 
• Drew, P., Walker, T. and Ogden, R. (2013) Self-repair and action construction. In Hayashi, M., Raymond, G. and Sidnell, J. (Eds.), Conversational Repair and Human Understanding. Cambridge University Press: 71-94.
• Drew, P. and Walker, T. (2010) Requesting assistance in calls to the police. In Coulthard and A.Johnson (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics. Routledge: 95-110.
• Curl, T. and Drew, P. (2008) Contingency and action: a comparison of two forms of requesting. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41, 2008:1-25.
• Drew, P. (2006) Mis-alignments between caller and doctor in ‘out-of-hours’ telephone calls to a British GP's practice. In Heritage. J. and Maynard, D. (Eds.) Communication in Medical Care: Interaction between Primary Care Physicians and their Patients, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 416-444. 
• Drew, P. (2003) Precision and exaggeration in interaction, American Sociological Review, 68: 917-938.