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Article published In: Developing shared languages: The fundamentals of mutual learning and problem solving in transdisciplinary collaboration
Edited by Marlies Whitehouse, Henrik Rahm and Séverine Wozniak
[AILA Review 34:1] 2021
► pp. 57–78

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‘Knowing that’, ‘knowing why’ and ‘knowing how’

Aligning perspectives and assembling epistemes for a transdisciplinary analysis of questioning sequences in executive coaching. A research journey

 | University of Klagenfurt
 | University of Klagenfurt
Published online: 9 September 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.20008.gra
Abstract
Our contribution maps the journey towards setting up a transdisciplinary, interprofessional collaboration between coaching practitioners and coaching researchers from the fields of Applied Linguistics and Applied Psychology. The goal of such a project is to build a community of interest around a common cause, i.e., a practically relevant, language-based coaching problem (in our case, questioning practices in executive coaching), and to collaboratively solve the problem on the basis of assembling and integrating the various epistemes. The purpose of our contribution in the form of a travel report is twofold: firstly, to theoretically and conceptually discuss the challenges and affordances of aligning perspectives and assembling epistemes for such a transdisciplinary research project; Secondly, to present the available epistemic bases and offer first empirical results from our applied linguistic research and our cooperation with Applied Psychology that served as the basis for conceptualising the project Questioning Sequences in Coaching (Graf, E.-M., Spranz-Fogasy, T., & Künzli, H. (2020). Questioning sequences in coaching. DACH-research project funded by the FWF, DFG and SNF.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). We end this travel report by critically assessing the transdisciplinary character of the current project and by envisioning another kind of cooperation between coaching practice and coaching research as the future destination of our research journey.
Article outline
  • 1.Analysing questioning sequences in coaching: Going on a transdisciplinary journey
  • 2.Setting off: The primary travel companions ‘executive coaching’ and ‘Applied Linguistics’
    • 2.1Executive coaching
    • 2.2“Applied Linguistics of the Professions”
    • 2.3Transdisciplinarity in researching questioning sequences in executive coaching
  • 3.Travelling together: Assembling knowledge and aligning perspectives for the common cause ‘questioning sequences in coaching’
    • 3.1Perspectives on questions
      • ‘Knowing that’ – The coaching practitioners’ perspective
      • ‘Knowing why’: The applied psychologists’ perspective
      • ‘Knowing how’: The applied linguists’ perspective
    • 3.2Moving on: Aligning ‘knowing that’, ‘knowing why’ and ‘knowing how’ as regards questions in coaching to design a transdisciplinary research project
  • 4.Final thoughts: Travelling on
  • Notes
  • References
References (46)
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Cited by (3)

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Graf, Eva-Maria, Frédérick Dionne, Melanie Fleischhacker, Hansjörg Künzli & Thomas Spranz-Fogasy
2025. Expansion, reduction, or both?. Nota Bene 2:1 ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Fleischhacker, Melanie & Eva-Maria Graf
2024. New ways of investigating coaching: linguistic research on executive, business and workplace coaching – a systematic scoping review. Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice 17:1 ► pp. 90 ff. DOI logo
Graf, Eva-Maria & Frédérick Dionne
2021. Coaching research in 2020 – About destinations, journeys and travelers (Part II). International Coaching Psychology Review 16:2 ► pp. 6 ff. DOI logo

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