Professor Robin Wooffitt
Emeritus Professor

Profile

Biography

• DPhil (York)
• BSc (Bristol)

After a DPhil in Sociology at the University of York, Robin worked as a Research Fellow, then Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey.

From 2001-2 he was a Visiting Fellow in the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh, and took up his post at York in October 2002.

Research

Overview

Robin has a long standing interest in language in interaction. He has published widely on conversation analysis, including Conversation Analysis: Principles, Practices and Applications (2008 2^nd, edition with Ian Hutchby), Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis: A Comparative and Critical Introduction (2005), The Language of Youth Subcultures (1995, with Sue Widdicombe) and Bridging the Gap between Conversation Analysis and Poetics: Studies in Talk-In-Interaction and Literature Twenty-Five Years after Jefferson (2022, co-edited with Ray Person and John Rae).

Throughout his career, Robin has been interested in the relationship between language, interaction and extraordinary experiences and psychological states, and has published on reports of anomalous phenomena (Telling Tales of the Unexpected: The Organisation of Factual Discourse 1992), psychic practitioners (The Language of Mediums and Psychics, 2006), introspection in ESP experiments (Looking In and Speaking Out (2011, with Nicola Holt) and onsite investigations of spiritual phenomena (Making Sense of the Paranormal: The Interactional Construction of Unexplained Experiences (2011, with Rachael Ironside).  He is currently writing a book on the relationship between telepathy and speech errors (probably out late 2025/early 2026).

Publications

Selected publications

Books

• Wooffitt, R. and Holt, N. (2011) Looking In and Speaking Out: Introspection, Communication, Consciousness. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic, pp. 240. ISBN 9781845402273

•  Hutchby, I. and Wooffitt, R. (2008) Conversation Analysis: Principles, Practices and Applications.  Second edition Oxford: Polity Press, pp.260. ISBN: Hb: 978-0-7456-3865-2

• Wooffitt, R.  (2006) The Language of Mediums and Psychics: the Social Organisation of Everyday Miracles. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp. 230. ISBN: 0-7546-4202-X

• Hutchby, I. and Wooffitt, R. (1998) Conversation Analysis: Principles, Practices and Applications.  Oxford: Polity Press, reprinted 1999, 2001, 2003, pp. 273. ISBN: Pb: 0-7456-1541-2; Hb: 0-7456-1548-1

• Wooffitt, R.,  Fraser, N., Gilbert, G.N. and McGlashan, S. (1997) Humans, Computers and Wizards: Conversation Analysis and Human (Simulated) Computer Interaction.  London: Routledge, pp. 207. ISBN: Hb: 0-415-06948-3

• Widdicombe, S. and Wooffitt, R. (1995) The Language of Youth Subcultures: Social Identity in Action. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, pp. 250. ISBN: Pb: 0-7450-1419-4
• Wooffitt, R. (1992) Telling Tales of the Unexpected: the Organisation of Factual Discourse. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, pp. 217. ISBN: Pb: 0-7450-1052-0; Hb: 0-7450-1051-2
PDF available for download here.: wooffitt-tellingtales (PDF , 626kb)

Journal Special Editions

• Murray, C. and Wooffitt, R. (eds.) (2010) Anomalous Experiences and Qualitative Research. Special Issue, Qualitative Research in Psychology 7(1).
• Ashmore, M., Wooffitt, R. and Harding, S.,  (eds.) (1994) Humans and Others: The Concept Of “Agency” And Its Attribution.  Special Issue of American Behavioral Scientist vol. 37, 6: 733-856.

Full publications list

Journal articles

• Ohashi, Y., Wooffitt, R., Jackson, C. and Nixon, Y. 'Discourse, culture and extraordinary experiences: observations from a comparative, qualitative analysis of Japanese and UK English accounts of paranormal phenomena’ forthcoming, Western Journal of Communication.
• Wooffitt, R., Jackson, C, Reed, D. Ohashi, Y. and Hughes, I. ‘Self-identity, authenticity and the Other: The spirits and audience management in stage mediumship’ forthcoming, Language and Communication.
• Wooffitt, R. (forthcoming) Commentary of Zeitlyn’s  ‘Divinatory logics: diagnoses and predictions mediating outcomes’. Journal of Anthropology.
• Wooffitt, R. and Holt, N. (2011) 'Introspective discourse and the poetics of subjective experience’ Research on Language and Social Interaction, 44(2), 135–156.
• Wooffitt, R. and Holt, N. (2010) 'Silence and its organisation in the pragmatics of introspection' Discourse Studies, 12(03),m 379-406
• Wooffitt, R., Holt, N. and Allistone, S. (2010) 'Introspection as institutional practice: reflections on the attempt to capture conscious experience in a parapsychology experiment' in C. Murray and R. Wooffitt (Eds.) Anomalous Experiences and Qualitative Research. Special Issue, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 5-20.
• Wooffitt, R. and Murray, C. (2010) Introduction' in  C. Murray and R. Wooffitt (Eds.)
  Anomalous Experiences and Qualitative Research. Special Issue,  Qualitative Research in Psychology. 7(1): 1-4.
• Wooffitt, R. (2010) 'Towards a sociological parapsychology' in M. Smith (ed.) Anomalous Experiences: Essays from Parapsychological and Psychological Perspectives. North Carolina and London: McFarland, 72-91.
• Wooffitt, R. and Holt N. (2008) 'Reporting on Consciousness: communication in mentation narratives' Proceedings of the 51st Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association New York: The Parapsychological Association, 288-303.
• Wooffitt, R., and Allistone, S. (2008) 'Participation, procedure and accountability: reported speech markers in a parapsychology experiment' Discourse Studies 10: 407-427.
• Wooffitt, R (2008)  'Observations on trouble management in psychic practitioner - sitter
  interaction' European Journal of Parapsychology 23(1): 60-89.
• Wooffitt, R. and Gilbert, H. (2008) ' Discourse, rhetoric and the accomplishment of mediumship in stage demonstrations' Mortality  13(3): 222-240.
• Wooffitt, R. (2008) 'Conversation analysis and discourse analysis' in N. Gilbert (ed,) Researching Social Life (3rd edition) London: Sage, 440-461.
• Wooffitt, R. (2007) 'Epistemic authority and neutrality in the discourse of psychic practitioners: towards a naturalistic parapsychology'  Journal of Parapsychology  71: 69-101.
• Wooffitt, R. (2007) ‘Communication and laboratory experience in parapsychology experiments: demand characteristics and the social organization of interaction.’  British Journal of Social Psychology.  46(3) 477-498.
• Allistone, S. and Wooffitt, R. (2007) ‘Negotiating consciousness: parapsychology and the social organisation of reports of mental states’ in A. Hepburn and S. Wiggins (eds.)  Discursive Research in Practice: New Approaches to Psychology and Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 70-87.
• Wooffitt, R., and Allistone, S. (2005) ‘Towards a discursive parapsychology: language and the laboratory study of anomalous communication.’ Theory and Psychology 15:3, 325-355.
• Wooffitt, R. (2003) ‘Conversation analysis and parapsychology: experimenter-subject interaction in ganzfeld experiments.’ Journal of Parapsychology. 67: 299-324.