How Mediation Works : Resolving Conflict Through Talk

An original study of the language of mediation, which uses excerpts from real mediation sessions to illustrate how mediation works and how mediators can best help disputants make claims, present evidence and propose solutions. It will interest researchers and students of sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, and the sociology of law.

Using conversation analysis to study the interaction between mediators and disputants, this study shows how mediation is used to resolve conflict in small claims and divorce mediation sessions. Angela Garcia explores the techniques mediators use to help disputants tell their stories, make and respond to complaints and accusations, and come up with ideas for resolving the dispute. By analyzing these techniques in their interactional context, she shows how they impact the experience and responses of disputants, and demonstrates that mediator techniques can empower disputants, maximize disputant autonomy, and display mediator''s neutrality while in some cases, the organization of talk in mediation may work against these goals. This book is the first to use conversation analysis to study how mediation works and how mediators can best help disputants. This book is no. 34 in the Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics series. In some copies, it has mistakenly been printed as no. 33.