How far is extra-textual material necessary to ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and contemporary language-oriented social constructivism? That question emerged as the theme of the first international conference of the Discourse Analysis Research Group. It provoked varied and sometimes incompatible responses from those present, including some of the most illustrious scholars currently engaged in the study of naturally occurring talk. This collection of responses highlights disagreements and stimulates debate.
Brian Skyrms, author of the successful Evolution of the Social Contract (which won the prestigious Lakatos Award) has written a sequel. The book is a study of ideas of cooperation and collective action. The point of departure is a prototypical story found in Rousseau's A Discourse on Inequality. Rousseau contrasts the pay-off of hunting hare where the risk of non-cooperation is small but the reward is equally small, against the pay-off of hunting the stag where maximum cooperation is required but where the reward is so much greater. Thus, rational agents are pulled in one direction by considerations of risk and in another by considerations of mutual benefit. Written with Skyrms's characteristic clarity and verve, this intriguing book will be eagerly sought out by students and professionals in philosophy, political science, economics, sociology and evolutionary biology.
Talk is a central activity in social life. But how is ordinary talk organized? How do people coordinate their talk in interaction? And what is the role of talk in wider social processes? Conversation Analysis has developed over the past forty years as a key method for studying social interaction and language use. Its unique perspective and systematic methods make it attractive to an interdisciplinary audience. In this second edition of their highly acclaimed introduction, Ian Hutchby and Robin Wooffitt offer a wide-ranging and accessible overview of key issues in the field. The second edition has been substantially revised to incorporate recent developments, including an entirely new final chapter exploring the contribution of Conversation Analysis to key issues in social science. The book provides a grounding in the theory and methods of Conversation Analysis, and demonstrates its procedures by analyzing a variety of concrete examples. Written in a lively and engaging style, Conversation Analysis has become indispensable reading for students and researchers in sociology, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, social psychology, communication studies and anthropology.
This volume contains a collection of original studies in conversation analysis (C.A.) arranged and presented both to introduce the discipline to the newcomer and to reveal some of the expanding range of discoveries which conversation analysts are making in the course of their distinctive enquiries into the order and organisation of natural language. Though sociological in its orientation. C.A. and the papers here represented are of direct methodological and substantive interest to linguists, philosophers, discourse and speech analysts and social anthropologists. Indeed the strict adherence to the methodological principle that analysis can and must be shown to be grounded in data represents a challenge to all those disciplines which set out to use their materials as mere hand-maidens to support preconstructed models, theories and hypotheses. In this series of papers which includes previously unpublished works of the late Harvey Sacks and the last completed joint researches of Sacks, Jefferson and Schegloff ordinary talk is shown as consisting of a variety of previously unnoticed socially organised practices which conversationalists engage in to generate the organisation which talk has. The methods and the analytic mentality of conversation analysts are, and are here shown to be, designed to make conversationalist's methods, structure and modes of orientation available for empirical study. The search for order and organisation reveals it everywhere. Laughter is shown to be concertedly organised and negotiated in the finest detail. The machinery of delicate repair systems is revealed. Conversational completions are shown to be the product of elaborate negotiating machineries. Conversationalists are revealed as subtly orienting-to and invoking the visual contexts of their interaction within the framework of the turn-taking organisation of conversation. This volume also contains examples of conversation analytic work into the talk produced in organisational settings such as courts and Doctor/Patient interviews. Such analyses reveal the contribution that the discipline might make towards the exploration of the kind of social phenomena traditionally researched by sociologists, social psychologists and social anthropologists.
Talk and Social Structure is an up-to-date and provocative survey of current developments combining the complementary fields of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. The book provides a distinctive debate that relates these innovative areas to important issues in the social sciences. Including contributions from many of the world leaders in these fields, the book offers both new theoretical depth and an extensive range of empirical studies that focus on the reflexive relation of everyday talk and social structure. Contributors include Emanuel A. Schegloff, John Heritage, Thomas P. Wilson, Hugh Mehan, Douglas W. Maynard, George Psathas, Paul ten Have, Robert Hopper, Hanneke Houtkoop-Steenstra, Graham Button, and David Greatbatch, with a thematic chapter from the editors. Through the use of many examples, they demonstrate that studies of talk are important in their own right, while also having fundamental theoretical significance for social analysis.
Análisis de la Conversación: fundamentos, metodología y alcances ofrece la primera introducción comprehensiva al Análisis de la Conversación (AC) en español y con datos conversacionales disponibles en línea. El libro está organizado en nueve capítulos. En los capítulos iniciales, se presenta el AC como una disciplina y método analítico para el estudio del habla y otras formas de conducta humana en la interacción social, se hace un breve recuento histórico del desarrollo de la perspectiva analítico-conversacional y se introduce a los lectores al sistema de transcripción usado en el AC. Los capítulos siguientes están dedicados a explorar cuatro dominios claves en la organización de la conversación espontánea: la toma de turnos, las secuencias de acciones, la preferencia y la enmienda, destacando la importancia de prácticas del diseño de turno en cada dominio. Seguidamente, se discute la conexión entre organizaciones y prácticas del habla en interacción y contextos sociales e identidades de los participantes en conversación. El libro concluye ofreciendo una serie de sugerencias para la investigación analítico-conversacional en español y señalando su relevancia para la indagación de la interacción en contextos legales, políticos, médicos, tecnológicos, entre otros. Cada capítulo incluye ejemplos tomados de conversaciones auténticas en distintas variedades de español, cuyos audios pueden ser consultados directamente en línea. Con el fin de revisar y profundizar lo aprendido, cada capítulo ofrece un apartado final con preguntas, actividades y lecturas adicionales. Como apéndices al libro, se ofrecen, además, un glosario de términos bidireccional español–inglés y un sumario con las convenciones de transcripción más usadas. Escrito enteramente en español, el libro ofrece una introducción actual, comprehensiva y amigable al AC y sus aplicaciones por lo que constituye una fuente de referencia ideal para estudiantes, instructores e investigadores en lingüística (hispánica), sociología y comunicaciones. Análisis de la Conversación provides the first comprehensive, Spanish-language introduction to the field of Conversation Analysis (CA), utilizing conversational data that is publicly available online. The book is organized in nine chapters. The opening chapters introduce Conversation Analysis as a unique theory and method to study language and other forms of conduct in social interaction. Readers are presented with a history of the development of this framework for analyzing interaction and introduced to the transcription system used in CA. The following chapters explore four key domains of organization within spontaneous conversation—turn-taking, preference, sequence, and repair—highlighting the importance of turn design practices in each. The authors then review the connection of these organizations and practices to social contexts and participant identities, and they conclude by suggesting a range of avenues for future research on Spanish conversation, including its relevance in specific legal, political, medical, and technological settings. Each chapter includes a variety of examples from authentic Spanish conversation, which readers can consult directly online. Each chapter is additionally accompanied by a set of questions and activities that allow readers to check and reinforce their understanding, as well as lists of additional readings for readers interested in more specific topics. Glossaries of technical vocabulary—both Spanish-English and English-Spanish—are included as appendices, along with a summary of transcription system notation. Written entirely in Spanish, this book presents a thorough and engaging introduction to Conversation Analysis and its applications. It is ideal for students, instructors, and researchers in Hispanic Studies, (Spanish) Linguistics, Sociology, and Communication Studies.
A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced “a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally” (George Simpson, American Sociological Review). In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focus on commonsense, everyday knowledge—the proverbs, morals, values, and beliefs shared among ordinary people. When first published in 1966, this systematic, theoretical treatise introduced the term social construction,effectively creating a new thought and transforming Western philosophy.
Although he published relatively little in his lifetime, Harvey Sacks's lectures and papers were influential in sociology and sociolinguistics and played a major role in the development of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. The recent publication of Sacks's "Lectures on Conversation" has provided an opportunity for a wide-ranging reassessment of his contribution.
