OrientationObservationIn-depth interviewsDocument analysis and semiologyConversation and discourse analysisSecondary Data
SurveysExperimentsEthicsResearch outcomes
Conclusion
6.2.4 Why undertake close analysis of conversational sequences?
Conversational analysts argue that conversations are orderly processes for participating members (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973;Sacks, 1984). (Note: participants are often referred to as members by conversational analysts, reflecting ethnomethodological usage.) This orderliness is seen as the product of the systematic deployment of interactional 'devices' or 'systems' (such as those specified in CASE STUDY: Examples of conversation analysis patterns). This they claim aids an understanding of interaction in specific circumstances. Paul ten Have (undated) sums up this sequential analysis of conversation analysis as follows:
Conversation Analysis is a disciplined way of studying the local organization of interactional episodes, its unique methodological practice has enabled its practitioners to produce a mass of insights into the detailed procedural foundations of everyday life. It has developed some very practical solutions to some rather thorny methodological problems. As such it is methodologically 'impure', but it works.
One might suppose that having identified organisational structures that this does not need to be done again. However,Heritage (1998, p. 168) is clear that:
Overall structural organisation, in short, is not a framework—fixed once and for all—to fit data into. Rather it is something that we're looking for and looking at to the extent that the parties orient to it in organising their talk.
What may not be so clear to the student of conversation analysis is what redoing this for a particular conversation tells us. If, at this stage, you are thinking this is a lot of effort to describe a conversation and are unsure how it helps you interpret or explain the social world, you are not alone. However, this probably reflects a desire on your part to develop a (latent) generalisable theoretical understanding of the social world rather than a concern with close analysis of specific interactive engagements.
Conversation analysis studies tend to have little theory, no literature review from which hypotheses are generated, no methodology section and little or no context. The exclusive focus on an analysis of empirical conversation fragments can be confusing for the reader unused to this style of sociological reporting.
