Project management

• Prof. Dr. Stephan Habscheid, University of Siegen
• Dr. Erika Linz, University of Bonn

Project working group

• Marit Besthorn, M.A.
• Dr. Christine Gebhard
• Dr. Jan Gerwinski
• Mareike Hesse, M.A.
• Dr. Eva Schlinkmann

The project examined intermission / foyer conversations in the theater on a conversation-analytical basis. The starting point of the project was the observation that such everyday linguistic practices in the transitional area between social entertainment and the constitution of an art audience have hardly been the focus of linguistically based research into institutional communication. The existing studies concentrate on the field of visual art (cf. Hausendorf / Müller 2016), while there are still no systematically elaborated studies on audience communication in the field of processual-performative art. In particular, there is a lack of work dedicated to the constitutive role of the audience for art from an empirical perspective, which is not only emphasized in art and theater theory (cf. ibid., 29, 42f.). Against this background, the project asked how the aesthetic experiences during the performance are taken up in linguistic interaction in intermission / foyer conversations in the theater and what communicative purposes are associated with this. It was based on the assumption that the foyer talk in the theater as a specific social practice at the interface of public art institution and sociability combines linguistic appropriation practices of art with conversation and "small talk".
The aim of the project was an empirical, data-driven reconstruction of the linguistic-communicative repertoire characteristic of such conversations. To this end, audio documentation was used to collect a corpus of data on intermission conversations between visitors to artistic theater productions at the "Apollo-Theater Siegen" and the "Schauspiel Köln". This corpus was used to analyze practices of linguistic follow-up communication, particularly with regard to the following constitutive aspects:

1. linguistic-interactional procedures for carrying out the specific social situation of the intermission conversation as a social event,
2. reconstructive and transcriptive procedures of linguistic reference to the aesthetic experiences during the performance and
3. linguistic-interactional methods of reflection on one's own lifeworld and social reality stimulated by the theater.

The audience's perspective on the theater, which can be reconstructed in this way and is embedded in routines of everyday communication, will be placed in relation to other forms and areas of art communication. Finally, by researching language in everyday practices, the project aims to make a contribution to a praxeologically based conception of language play / culture.

Theater Conversation. Linguistic appropriation practices during theater intermissions

Based on conversation and discourse analysis, the project examines how the aesthetic experiences during theater performances are taken up in intermission talks and what type of communicative purposes are associated with these practices. The starting point is the heuristic assumption that aesthetic methods of interfering with routines of communicative experience, as they are available to the theater, can stimulate the audience to discursively reflect on perception habits in everyday communication and the structures of meaning related to them. The project assumes that the traditional characteristics of individual art forms are based on the specific structure and materiality of the communicative arrangements, in which they aesthetically negotiate and/or question the perceptive routines and thereby the established communicative practices of the audience. Under the conditions of a performance of interaction in front of an audience, the theater commands varied media resources for the aesthetic negotiation of communication that can become anchor points for subsequent conversations. Against this background, the study aims to empirically reconstruct the informal communication practices of reflecting communication and media that are motivated by the theater (including the reflection on the theater itself).

For the empirical study, a corpus of data will be established by means of audio documentation that will document the authentic intermission conversations of visitors during theater productions in the Appollo Theater Siegen and the Schauspiel Köln. At the center of the project based on an already conducted pilot study will be

• methods and forms of secondary linguistic reference (reformulations, paraphrases, quotations, interpretations, commentaries, explications, everyday aesthetic transformations etc.). These are to be analyzed in their formal structures and with regard to their communicative functions of negotiating, stabilizing or questioning communicatively established structures of social order;
• interactional processes of linguistically reflecting on the theater, particularly elucidations and evaluations, also with regard to the construction of social identities and positions as well as the management of consensus and dissent in the informal communication about art;
• interactional processes for the production of a specific social situation, the intermission talk (e.g. its setting with regard to time and its framing as an evening pleasure and social event).

The empirical findings are finally to be compared to research on other areas of art communication and set into relation to theories on the social role of theater and art.

The project investigated communicative practices of the audience on a conversation-analytical basis using intermission / foyer conversations in the theater. For this purpose, a data corpus with audio recordings of 43 intermission conversations in two theaters with a total duration of approx. 12.5 hours was collected, in which a total of 111 test persons participated, each in groups of 2 to 4 speakers. 37 of the conversations were transcribed in full using the GAT2 transcription system commonly used in conversational linguistics (as a minimal or basic transcript). On the basis of the audio documents and transcripts, the linguistic-communicative repertoire of intermission conversations in the theater was determined in a conversation-analytical reconstruction. The analyses confirm the assumption that the foyer conversation in the theater as a social situation at the interface of public art institution and social entertainment combines communication about art with conversation and "small talk". The main results can be grouped into four thematic areas:

1. Complementary to critical positions that focus one-sidedly on the aspect of social distinction for such social forms, the project's analyses also bring linguistic-communicative characteristics into focus that, in the tradition of bourgeois sociability, emphasize the typically highly cooperative character of such conversations and relate them to the institutional task field of audience communication in the theater: Divergences in terms of knowledge and perspective are bridged in a face-saving manner, thus enabling socially potentially delicate art communication. The points of application for educational knowledge are not left to chance, but are rather subject to interactional topic control, on which rhetorically skillful participants attempt to exert influence through practices of self-initiated and externally initiated micro-participation, while at the same time serving the requirements of relationship management.
2. At the level of interaction organization, such practices are made possible or facilitated by features of small talk and conversation that point to their comparatively informal character: local sensitivity (e.g. references to the recording situation); the design of the pause as a pause (e.g. time management; forms of 'homiletic discourse'); empraxic embedding of speaking (e.g. walking; eating and drinking); parallel use of technical media (e.g. smartphone); abrupt changes of context and topic (e.g. from art to joke communication) and relief from constraints; abrupt termination.
3. References to the aesthetic experiences during the perception of art are made in theater intermission conversations - in contrast to the importance of description in communication about the visual arts - essentially via retrospective, reconstructive linguistic procedures. Such reconstructions, which are also developed successively in interaction, occur embedded in evaluative, explanatory, argumentative, community-building, entertaining or conversation-preserving frameworks and are always accompanied by an interpretation or reinterpretation of the content to which they refer.
4. As in mass media audience communication and in other areas of art communication, the participants attribute a central role to evaluation in the intermission discussions in the theater (foyer), which is reflected in the typical conversation starters about evaluations, among other things. With regard to the sequential structure of the evaluation interactions, the preference for agreement highlighted in the literature on the basis of private everyday conversations can also be observed to some extent; however, other situation- and context-dependent characteristics can also be found, for example, in that - in accordance with the informal character of the interaction organization - a first evaluation is not reacted to at all or with a further first evaluation by another speaker.

It is equally characteristic of reconstructions and evaluations that the focused reference objects and levels can change fluently from the aesthetic representation to the action level of the characters to the everyday world and social reality without linguistic marking. The topicality of the theatrical theory thesis that the theater functions as a place of reflection on one's own lifeworld and social conditions is thus supported for the first time from an empirical perspective through an analysis of the audience's everyday follow-up communication.

• Habscheid, Stephan: "'How nice is it to bite into a cheese and at the same time tear up operas' (G. Kreisler)? Intermission conversations in the theater, empirically considered." Ceremonial opening of the "Mittwochsakademie" of the University of Siegen in the summer semester 2014, April 23, 2014, Medien- und Kulturhaus Lÿz, Siegen.
• Habscheid, Stephan: "Do linguistics and literary studies still have something to say to each other today? An answer from a linguistic perspective - using the example of a conversational linguistics research project on intermission conversations in the theater." Plenary lecture. Humboldt-Kolleg on "Diversity and Interculturality in International German Studies", May 27, 2014, Tongji University, Shanghai.
• Habscheid, Stephan: "Theater in conversation. Linguistic art appropriation practices in the theater intermission." 4th annual conference of the network "Diskurs interdisziplinär" on the topic "Diskurs semiotisch", December 5, 2014, Institut für deutsche Sprache (IDS), Mannheim.
• Habscheid, Stephan: "Acting in practice. Backgrounds and substrata of situated linguistic constitution of meaning." 51st Annual Conference of the Institute for the German Language on "Linguistic and communicative practices", March 10, 2015, Institute for the German Language (IDS), Mannheim.
• Linz, Erika: "Mediality of linguistic practices in the theater". XIII Congress of the International Association for German Studies (IVG), August 25, 2015, Tongji University Shanghai, China.
• Schlinkmann, Eva: "Einzelfall versus Muster - Eine gesprächsanalytische Untersuchung von Pausengesprächen im Theater." Linguistics conference for doctoral students, October 3, 2015, Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen.
• Hrncal, Christine: "Evaluative interactions in theater intermission conversations." (Moderation of a data session). 57th meeting of the Arbeitskreis Angewandte Gesprächsforschung (AAG) on "Conversation research for practice", November 13 and 14, 2015, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germersheim.
• Hrncal, Christine/Erika Linz/Eva Schlinkmann: "Foyer conversation in the theater. On 'skillfully coping' with a traditionally educational language situation." Conference "Everyday Practices of the Audience", March 01, 2016, Apollo-Theater, Siegen.
• Habscheid, Stephan: Reconstructing 'Action': Presuppositions and Practices. 13th AWIA Symposium "Action Description", September 30, 2016, Ghent University.
• Habscheid, Stephan: "Conversation and Small Talk - Communicative Formats of Recreation and Exuberance." Forum Siegen, winter semester 2015/16, framing theme "Große Pause - Muße in der Arbeitsgesellschaft", January 26, 2017, Medien- und Kulturhaus Lÿz, Siegen.
• Gerwinski, Jan/Linz, Erika: "What are 'natural' data in linguistic conversation research?" 60th meeting of the working group Applied Conversation Research, May 5, 2017, PH Karlsruhe.

• Schlinkmann, Eva (2021): Communicative Reconstruction in the Theater Intermission. A genre analysis of intermission conversations in the theater. Stuttgart: Metzler (= LiLi: Studies in Literary Studies and Linguistics 2).
• Hrncal, Christine (2020): Evaluation interactions in the theater intermission. A conversation-analytical study of intermission conversations in the theater foyer. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter (= Empirical Linguistics 11).
• Gerwinski, Jan/Stephan Habscheid/Erika Linz (eds.) (2018): Theater in conversation. Linguistic Audience Practices in the Theater Intermission. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
• Habscheid, Stephan/Christine Hrncal/Raphaela Knipp/Erika Linz (eds.) (2017): Constructions of the audience. Issue 04, Vol. 47, December 2017 of the "Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik" (LiLi).
• Habscheid, Stephan (2016): Acting in practice. Backgrounds and substrata of situated linguistic meaning constitution. In: Deppermann, Arnulf/Helmuth Feilke/Angelika Linke (eds.): Sprachliche und kommunikative Praktiken. (= Yearbook of the Institute for the German Language 2015). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 127-151.
• Habscheid, Stephan/Christine Hrncal/Raphaela Knipp/Erika Linz (eds.) (2016): "Everyday Practices of the Audience." Thematic section of the Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik (LiLi) vol. 46 (2016) issue 4 (December).
• Habscheid, Stephan/Christine Hrncal/Raphaela Knipp/Erika Linz (eds.) (2016): Introduction: everyday practices of the audience. In: Habscheid/Hrncal/Knipp/Linz (eds.), 463-468.
• Linz, Erika/Christine Hrncal/Eva Schlinkmann (2016): Foyer conversations in the theater. Interactional appropriation practices of the audience. In: Habscheid/Hrncal/Knipp/Linz (eds.), 523-546.
• Linz, Erika (2016): Mediality of linguistic practices in theater. In: Zhu, Jianhua/Jin Zhao/Michael Szurawitzki (eds.): Akten des XIII. Internationalen Germanistenkongresses Shanghai 2015: Germanistik zwischen Tradition und Innovation. Frankfurt a.M./New York: Peter Lang, 173-177.
• Hrncal, Christine/Jan Gerwinski (2015): Evaluation transformations in follow-up communication in theater. In: Habscheid, Stephan (ed.): "Bewerten im Wandel." Topic section of the Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik (LiLi) vol. 45 (2015) issue 3 (March), 46-65.
• Habscheid, Stephan (2014): Do linguistics and literary studies still have something to say to each other today? An answer from a linguistic perspective - using the example of a conversational linguistics research project on intermission conversations in the theater. In: Hans-R. Fluck/Jianhua Zhu (eds.): Diversity and Interculturality in International German Studies. Festgabe for Siegfried Grosse on his 90th birthday. Contributions of the Humboldt-Kolleg Shanghai (25.05. - 28.05.2014). Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 73-85.

Press release from the University of Siegen

What intermission conversations reveal. Scientists at the University of Siegen are researching audience communication in the Apollo Theater in a new project. "Crazy Blood" provides a topic of conversation Published on idw-Informationsdienst Wissenschaft.

• During the break. In: Frankfurter Rundschau from 22.10.2014, p. 30.
• Intermission talks. Scientists research audience communication in the Apollo Theater. In: Siegener Zeitung from 24.10.2014, p. 21.
• Crazy blood with eavesdropping in the foyer. In: Westfalenpost from 24.10.2014, p. 11.
• What intermission conversations reveal about the theater. Scientists at the University of Siegen are researching audience communication in the Apollo Theater in a new project. "Crazy Blood" provides a topic of conversation. Published on "Schattenblick."
• How looks and gestures can speak. Linguistics is now examining the communicative whole of language practice: Will there soon be a "practice turn"? In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 25, 2015, p. N3.
• What is an audience? Scientific conference at the Apollo Theater. In: Siegener Zeitung, March 2, 2016, p. 20.
• Small talk needs to be learned. You can break the silence with seemingly trivial chitchat. In: Siegener Zeitung, February 02, 2017, p. 7.

Total length of all audio recordings

30:55:14 hrs (43 conversations with several recordings each)

Of which inventoried

42 conversations with several recordings each

Total transcribed (basic transcript or minimal transcript)

34/43 conversations

Overview