Staff profile

Research

Virginia (she, her, lei, idda) is a qualitative researcher and linguist specialised in Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics, with a joint-PhD in Linguistics and Human and Social Sciences at KU Leuven (Belgium) and Université de Neuchâtel (Switzerland). In her PhD thesis "Collaborative grammar: the temporality and emergence of clause combination in Italian talk-in-interaction", she explored how collaborative clause combining relates to the sequential and temporal organization of turns in Italian talk-in-interaction. She looked at how the grammar of complex syntactical patterns emerges in multiperson interactions (in mundane and institutional settings, e.g., dinner parties and business meetings), through the practices of co-constructing and other-extending each others' turns. To describe these practices, she used the umbrella turn Collaborative Turns. She paid particular attention to the interplay of grammar and embodiment, especially the role of the participants' gaze.

In her MA thesis "Come faccio a capire me stesso?": questioni metodologiche sull'analisi della conversazione con schizofrenici (How can I understand myself? Methodological issues concerning conversation analysis and people with schizophrenia)" at Università di Torino (Italy) in 2017, she collected a corpus of semi-spontaneous interactions with people affected by schizophrenia (in a nursing home for mental health treatment in Piemonte, Italy) and analysed the data deploying Conversation Analysis, revealing some methodological issues in the conceptualisation of psychotic speech as deviant from the norms of every-day interaction.

Between 2023-2024, she worked for the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at Oxford University as a specialist in data management and transcription (within the Conversation Analysis framework), broadening her knowledge of and pursuing qualitative research applied to healthcare interactions within the health behaviours Research Group.

Virginia joined the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences in October 2024 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate working on the funded, award-winning project ‘Moving Social Work’. Working in partnership with Disability Rights UK, Moving Social Work is a co-produced programme of research that aims to embed physical activity advocacy with and for disabled people into the education, training, and routine practice of social work. As part of this, Moving Social Work advances physical activity research on implementation science and knowledge translation, co-production, intersectionality, and multiagency working and integrated care. One of the aims of this project, on which Virginia takes the lead with a Conversation Analysis approach, is to help social workers navigate conversations around physical activity with disabled people.

Since November 2024, Virginia is also a Fellow of Durham Research Methods Centre (DRMC) and of the Institute for Medical Humanities (IMH)

Find her here:

• Twitter: @cal_virgi
• Bluesky: @calvirgi.bsky.social
• Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/virginiacalabria/en
• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Virginia-Calabria
• AcademiaEdu: https://durham.academia.edu/DrVirginiaCalabria

Research interests

• Interactional Linguistics 
• Conversation Analysis
• Ethnomethodology
• Multimodality and Embodied Interactions
• Qualitative Research Methods
• Data collection, transcription, translation
• Applied Linguistics and Pragmatics
• Clinical and Medical Linguistics

Publications

• Ma, X., Calabria, V., Ma, W. & Zhang, S. (under review). Incorporating embodied conduct in the therapeutic interaction with autistic children as a way to effectively accomplish tasks. Health Communication.
• Calabria, V. & Sciubba, E. (under review). ↑EH CAZZO (.) ADESSO BA:STA. Risorse linguistiche ed embodied per gestire la rabbia in una riunione di lavoro. La comunicazione parlata – Spoken Communication. Atti del Convegno GSCP 2023, Roma 08-10 agosto 2023. Roma: Aracne.
• Calabria, V. (forthcoming). Other-extensions in Italian. A case of and for Collaborative Grammar. In Steensig, J., Jørgensen, M., Lindström, J. K., Mikkelsen, N., Suomalainen, K. & Sørensen, S. S. (Eds.). From Action to Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
• Calabria V. & De Stefani E. (2024). E anche-prefaced Other-expansions in Multi-person Interaction: On the Interrelationship of Syntax and Mutual Gaze. In Selting, M. & Barth-Weingarten, D. (Eds.). New Perspectives in Interactional Linguistic Research. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 162-186.
• Calabria V. & Savic., K. (2024). Aspetti multimodali nella costruzione di Turni Collaborativi: pratiche e risorse per manifestare un posizionamento epistemico condiviso. In Cirillo, L. & Nodari, R. (a cura di). Contesti, pratiche e risorse della comunicazione multimodale. Milano: Officinaventuno, 27-44.
• Sciubba, E. & Calabria, V. (2023). “You can’t curse”. Topicalizing and sanctioning swearing in interaction: A multimodal account. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée 117, 9-43.
• Calabria, V. (2023). Collaborative reported speech: co-constructing and other-extending quotes in Italian talk-in-interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 214, 1-17.
• Calabria, V. & Sciubba, E. (2022). “Adesso m’incazzo!”: swearwords as resources for managing negative emotions in interaction. mediAzioni, rivista online di studi interdisciplinari su lingue e culture 33, D4-28.
• Calabria, V. & De Stefani, E. (2020). Per una grammatica situata: aspetti temporali e multimodali dell’incrementazione sintattica. Studi Italiani di Linguistica Teorica ed Applicata 49 (3), 571-601.

Outreach and community commitment

Virginia is also interested in transcription and translation (for Italian, English, and French), research outreach, mental health, community making, and support for ECRs and others. She likes exploring how alternative ways of disseminating research can make our work more accessible to everyone (see for example Linguistweets: research in 6 tweets for Abralin - Brazilian Linguistics Association https://tinyurl.com/Linguistweets)

She is committed to academic citizenship and matters concerning inclusivity and diversity. She is particularly devoted to making academia a fairer place, by giving voice to and empowering people in situations of power unbalance, underrepresented or underresourced. She is the founder of the online ECR community CORE-ILCA (https://coreilca.wordpress.com/) and co-founder of the blog for ECRs Becoming a researcher (https://howtobecomearesearcher.wordpress.com/). She is also part of the UK-based ECQHRN (Early Career Qualitative Health Researchers Network) and of ISCA (The International Society for Conversation Analysis) Publications Committee (https://www.conversationanalysis.org/about-isca/committees/).