TRANSITIONS AND THE SHARING OF INTERACTIONAL AFFECTIVE EVENTS

The focus of this exploratory study is the transition between two dist inct conversational organisations during a semi-structured discussion task involving a therapist and a couple. Using Ekman & Friesen's FACS, the authors analyse the sharing of interactional affective events (IA E) appearing during these transitions. They present a categorisation o f these IAEs and a structural model of the transition. Furthermore the y point out the importance of the affective coordination in the triad for the transition to proceed smoothly. They also show the link betwee n the quality of the affective events and the level of triadic allianc e.