jalpp (print) issn 2040–3658 jalpp (online) issn 2040–3666 jalpp vol 14.2 2017 @2020 119–126 ©2020, equinox publishing https://doi.org/10.1558/jalpp.40427 Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice Editorial Inscribed objects in professional practices: An introduction Dennis Day and Kristian Mortensen In 2010, the Journal of Applied Linguistics refocused its scope by adding and Professional Practice to its title. Tis special issue is intended to contribute to this change of emphasis via two general aims: frst, to accentuate that much ethnomethodological and conversation analytical (EMCA) research has concerned professional practices; and second, to tilt our gaze from talk and language to inscribed objects and their ofen unnoticed but crucial relevance for professional practices. Te papers presented in this issue pursue empirical accounts of inscribed objects – such as documents, post-it notes, drawings, blueprints – that demonstrate their role in the refexive constitution of these practices as professionally oriented. We use the rather cumbersome term ‘inscribed objects’ (Latour and Woolgar 1986; Goodwin 1994, 1995) to capture more than other potentially useful terms such as ‘text’ or ‘document’. In our view, the former is ofen used reductively to refer only to linguistic inscription, whereas we consider inscription to denote all forms of semiotic annotations (e.g. Goodwin 2003). A further consequence of this extended notion of text is an implicit abstraction from material particulars: it does not matter where something is inscribed; what is important is what the inscription ‘says’. Te term ‘document’ does not restrict us in this way, in that we accept readily that documents might include texts, drawings, traces of manufacturing and so forth. Further, documents are clearly material objects, be they of the paper sort or electronic. However, documents are but one variety of inscribed Contact author Dennis Day: University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark. Email: dennis.day@sdu.dk