Constructing and negotiating boundaries of morally acceptable alcohol use: A discursive psychology of justifying alcohol consumption (2021)
Journal Article
Melia, C., Kent, A., Meredith, J., & Lamont, A. (2021). Constructing and negotiating boundaries of morally acceptable alcohol use: A discursive psychology of justifying alcohol consumption. Addictive Behaviors Reports, 107057 - ?. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.107057

UK society has a complex relationship with alcohol; it is ever-present within social activities, yet alcohol problems are heavily stigmatised. As such, the nuance of acceptability is a key focus for understanding societal perceptions and understandin... Read More about Constructing and negotiating boundaries of morally acceptable alcohol use: A discursive psychology of justifying alcohol consumption.

Police call-takers' first substantive question projects the outcome of the call (2019)
Journal Article
Kent, A., & Antaki, C. (2019). Police call-takers' first substantive question projects the outcome of the call. Applied Linguistics, 640-661. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amz002

Police call-takers need to gather as much data as is needed, as quickly as possible, to determine whether and what action should be taken. On analysing 514 calls to a UK centre handling emergency (999) and non-emergency (101) calls, we find that th... Read More about Police call-takers' first substantive question projects the outcome of the call.

Making a difference with psychology: case study (2019)
Book Chapter
Skipper, Y., Hulme, J., Stanyard, R., & Kent, A. (2019). Making a difference with psychology: case study. In Developing your teaching: ideas, insight and action. Taylor & Francis (Routledge)

Imperative Directives: Orientations to Accountability (2016)
Journal Article
Kent, A., & Kendrick, K. (2016). Imperative Directives: Orientations to Accountability. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 272-288. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2016.1201737

Our analysis proceeds from the question that if grammar alone is insufficient to identify the action of an imperative (e.g., offering, directing, warning, begging, etc.), how can interlocutors come to recognize the specific action being performed by... Read More about Imperative Directives: Orientations to Accountability.

Making a difference with psychology: reporting on a module to develop psychological literacy in final year undergraduates (2015)
Journal Article
Kent, A., & Skipper, Y. (2015). Making a difference with psychology: reporting on a module to develop psychological literacy in final year undergraduates. Psychology Teaching Review, 35-47

Improving students' psychological literacy has become a key part of the new British Psychological Society accreditation. This is fuelling an emphasis on helping students to apply their degree knowledge critically and innovatively, both to enhance the... Read More about Making a difference with psychology: reporting on a module to develop psychological literacy in final year undergraduates.

“Please, I need help, please!”: Reflections on Involving Undergraduate Psychology Students in a Conversation Analytic Study of 999 and 101 Police Calls (2015)
Journal Article
Kent, A., Melia, C., Marok, P., & Waterman, C. (2015). “Please, I need help, please!”: Reflections on Involving Undergraduate Psychology Students in a Conversation Analytic Study of 999 and 101 Police Calls. Qualitative Methods in Psychology Bulletin,

This paper describes a summer Research Assistantship Scheme undertaken by three undergraduate students in the School of Psychology at Keele University. The research used a conversation analytic approach to explore interactions during emergency and no... Read More about “Please, I need help, please!”: Reflections on Involving Undergraduate Psychology Students in a Conversation Analytic Study of 999 and 101 Police Calls.

Offering alternatives as a way of issuing directives to children: Putting the worse option last (2015)
Journal Article
Antaki, C., & Kent, A. (2015). Offering alternatives as a way of issuing directives to children: Putting the worse option last. Journal of Pragmatics, 25 -38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.01.004

In a corpus of c. 250 h of recorded interactions between young children and adults in USA and UK households, we found that children could be directed to change their course of action by three syntactic formats that offered alternatives: an imperative... Read More about Offering alternatives as a way of issuing directives to children: Putting the worse option last.

Compliance, resistance and incipient compliance when responding to directives (2012)
Journal Article
Kent. (2012). Compliance, resistance and incipient compliance when responding to directives. Discourse Studies, 711 -730. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445612457485

How does a parent get a child to do something? And, indeed, how might the child avoid complying or seem to comply without actually having done so? This article uses conversation analysis to identify the interactionally preferred and dispreferred resp... Read More about Compliance, resistance and incipient compliance when responding to directives.