Galina
Bolden

Galina Bolden is interested in examining how members of different cultural and language communities pursue mutual understanding and construct interpersonal relationships in and through social interaction. She uses the methodology of Conversation Analysis (CA) to conduct research on talk in Russian and English, as well as bilingual Russian-English conversations.

Galina Bolden’s scholarship addresses the question of how cultures are enacted in everyday interaction. Using the methodology of Conversation Analysis to examine diverse corpora of recordings of naturally occurring interactions in English and in Russian, Bolden explores communicative practices through which participants enact their cultural identities and negotiate interpersonal relationships. Her research explicates:
•    how participants in social interaction negotiate meaning across and within English- and Russian-language speaking communities;
•    how interpersonal relationships are enacted in culturally sensitive ways; and
•    how participants negotiate meaning in medical and mental health contexts.

Bolden’s scholarship also explores methodological and theoretical issues involved in conducting interactional research into languages other than English. Her book, co-authored with Alexa Hepburn, Transcribing for Social Research (Sage, 2017), is the first book-length exposition of the conversation analytic transcription system. In addition to engaging with classic conversation analytic transcription issues (such as capturing timing and prosodic details of talk), the book offers a comprehensive discussion of transcribing data in languages other than English, representing aspects of visible conduct, and capturing speakers’ emotive displays.