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Conversation analysis

Human Language and Interaction; Dr. Marisa Casillas

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Kinship project RA position now open!

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Conversation in base arenas is fundamental

Fundamental setting for language use

Only form that is common to all language communities
No special skills needed
No special technology needed
Skill acquired via daily activities without special training

Language as cognitive object vs. language as social action

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Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson (1974)

Foundational paper for CA (started within sociology, now primarily used elsewhere)

Lays out a set of observations to be accounted for re: the orderliness of conversation

Set out a basic conceptual framework (“simplest systematics”) that accounts for both macro and micro structures of conversation

Abstract (“context free”)
Particulars (“context sensitive”)
“locally managed, party- administered, interactionally controlled.”

Sets the stage for future investigations

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CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

Elliott Hoey

Today’s lecture mostly brought to you by Dr. Elliott Hoey

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Tutorial example
Doing CA is like...
Centrality of sequential organization
Sequence and preference organization

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Tutorial example: Donny and Marcia

01 1+ rings

02 Marcia: Hello?

03 Donny: 'lo Marcia,=

04 Marcia: Yea⎡:h ⎤

05 Donny: =⎣('t's) D⎦onny.

06 Marcia: Hi Donny.

07 Donny: Guess what.hh

08 Marcia: What.

09 Donny: ˙hh My ca:r is sta::lled.

10 (0.2)

11 Donny: ('n) I'm up here in the Glen?

12 Marcia: Oh::.

13 Donny: .hhh A:nd.hh (0.2) I don' know if it's po:ssible, but 14 .hhh see I haveta open up the ba:nk.hh

15 (0.3)

16 Donny: a:t uh: (·) in Brentwood?hh=

17 Marcia: =Yeah:- en I know you want- (·) en I whoa- (·) en I

18 would, but- except I've gotta leave in aybout five

19 min(h)utes.⎡(hheh)

20 Donny: ⎣Okay then I gotta call somebody else.right

21 away.

22 (·)

23 Donny: Okay?=

24 Marcia: =Okay ⎡Don ⎤

25 Donny: ⎣Thanks⎦ a lot.=Bye-.

26 Marcia: Bye:.

I think to get a sense of the kind of work we do, we can jump right into some data. This is a phone call from Donny to Marcia.

Do they know one another?

Yes because of identification of Marcia, and of self-identification. Donny’s rushed and breathlessness is hearable as already being rather urgent. You get the greetings at the same time as the identifications, and they’re rather rushed through.
This is the domain of person reference: how people refer to others, one another, and themselves, is partially how we constitute and reconstitute the relationships we have with one another.
Another way that we, with retrospective access to the call and our ability to see it with a bird’s eye view, is that Donny is clearly calling for help. That is to say, in his decision to make this call, he thought to himself “I need help and there’s a subset of people that I know who I could reasonably call on for help” and this would include family, friends, neighbors, maybe people who go to your church, and so on. And so by virtue of making the request, Donny shows himself to stand in a particular kind of relationship with Marcia, one that we can in the very least categorize as ‘someone you can call in an emergency’

Guess what? > What?

This is a pre-announcement. It forestalls any how are yous that ordinarily occupy this part of the call. In this way he noticeably forgoes asking Marcia how she’s doing, and he doesn’t allow her to ask him how he’s doing either. In effect, it displaces that and in its place it prioritizes the announcement he’s about to make. So simply by virtue of its positioning here at the start of the call, we know that Donny is about to say something that we will hear as being rather important.
In response to his pre-announcement he gets a go ahead in the form of what? With this Marcia displays that she’s understood this as a pre-announcement. That is to say, had she produced it as a question with rising intonation, then that would be hearable as initiating repair. Guess what. What?? And so she aligns with Donny in his project of announcing something.

What is going on?

Donny is calling for help: my car is stalled . And I’m up here in the glen . I don’t know if it’s possible but . See I have to open up the bank . At uh in Brentwood.
What does he want? Is there a request? 🡪 So, how do we know that there’s a request being made
My car is stalled > (0.2) > and I’m up here in the Glen

He’s informing her of something that he knows about that she doesn’t know about. It’s ‘news to her’
It’s current and it’s still ongoing. The car is at this very moment as I speak to you stalled.
The fact that this is an announcement means that it’s news. My car is stalled, and we’re supposed to infer that it’s now stalled whereas it wasn’t before. Or that it is now stalled but that it shouldn’t be.
It’s a formulation of a lack, absence, failiure, etc. This is how we know it’s a complaint that makes relevant an offer of help. It could also be a complaint of the sort that makes relevant commiseration, for example My car is a piece of shit
Telling someone something that’s news to them makes relevant some kind of receipt of the news, for example an oh, but that’s not what happens. There is instead silence, which is hearable as Marcia not jumping in to say
In continuing with his turn, he is seen as appending to his previous turn. And this turns that silence into a silence that occurred within his own turn, in which he has now specified where he is. We don’t know exactly where The Glen is relative to Marcia, but Marcia treats that as news, responding to it now with Oh::, but conspicuously saying no more than that

The silences are passed up opportunities for Marcia to offer help as he gets through And plus silence
I don’t know if it’s possible but .hh see I have to open up the bank (0.3) at uh (.) in Brentwood

Donny can already tell that an offer of help is not forthcoming and so he with this turn extension provides an out or an excuse for Marcia. So by reference to Marcia’s presumed inability to help him, he gives her a conventional account for refusing
This is hearably a pre-request. So he moves from complaining to projecting a request.
We know it’s a request because of his orientation to her potential inability. It invokes action on her part, by reference to her agency or ability to act
Note that there’s no request!!
He suppresses the request with see I have to open up the bank (.) in Brentwood. This underscores the urgency and the need for making such a call for help. The stakes for him are high

Yeah and I know you want- and I would- but I’ve gotta leave in about five minutes

Marcia declines to offer ot help, but she does so without every saying NO
Her response displays understanding that a request was underway or was about to be done
She then articulates how she ordinarily would comply, but for circumstances that prevent her from doing it
What is this? She could have just said no and the call would have been over in four seconds. Equally, he could have just asked outright. What is the deal with padding it in this way?

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Tutorial example: Donny and Marcia

01 1+ rings

02 Marcia: Hello?

03 Donny: 'lo Marcia,=

04 Marcia: Yea⎡:h ⎤

05 Donny: =⎣('t's) D⎦onny.

06 Marcia: Hi Donny.

07 Donny: Guess what.hh

08 Marcia: What.

09 Donny: ˙hh My ca:r is sta::lled.

10 (0.2)

11 Donny: ('n) I'm up here in the Glen?

12 Marcia: Oh::.

13 Donny: .hhh A:nd.hh (0.2) I don' know if it's po:ssible, but 14 .hhh see I haveta open up the ba:nk.hh

15 (0.3)

16 Donny: a:t uh: (·) in Brentwood?hh=

17 Marcia: =Yeah:- en I know you want- (·) en I whoa- (·) en I

18 would, but- except I've gotta leave in aybout five

19 min(h)utes.⎡(hheh)

20 Donny: ⎣Okay then I gotta call somebody else.right

21 away.

22 (·)

23 Donny: Okay?=

24 Marcia: =Okay ⎡Don ⎤

25 Donny: ⎣Thanks⎦ a lot.=Bye-.

26 Marcia: Bye:.

What’s happening?

Donny calls his friend Marcia
He has an urgent problem and needs Marcia’s help
She declines to help him
The call ends

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Tutorial example: Donny and Marcia

01 1+ rings

02 Marcia: Hello?

03 Donny: 'lo Marcia,=

04 Marcia: Yea⎡:h ⎤

05 Donny: =⎣('t's) D⎦onny.

06 Marcia: Hi Donny.

07 Donny: Guess what.hh

08 Marcia: What.

09 Donny: ˙hh My ca:r is sta::lled.

10 (0.2)

11 Donny: ('n) I'm up here in the Glen?

12 Marcia: Oh::.

13 Donny: .hhh A:nd.hh (0.2) I don' know if it's po:ssible, but 14 .hhh see I haveta open up the ba:nk.hh

15 (0.3)

16 Donny: a:t uh: (·) in Brentwood?hh=

17 Marcia: =Yeah:- en I know you want- (·) en I whoa- (·) en I

18 would, but- except I've gotta leave in aybout five

19 min(h)utes.⎡(hheh)

20 Donny: ⎣Okay then I gotta call somebody else.right

21 away.

22 (·)

23 Donny: Okay?=

24 Marcia: =Okay ⎡Don ⎤

25 Donny: ⎣Thanks⎦ a lot.=Bye-.

26 Marcia: Bye:.

What’s happening?

Donny calls his friend Marcia
He has an urgent problem and needs Marcia’s help
She declines to help him
The call ends

How do we know all of this?

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Tutorial example: Donny and Marcia

01 1+ rings

02 Marcia: Hello?

03 Donny: 'lo Marcia,=

04 Marcia: Yea⎡:h ⎤

05 Donny: =⎣('t's) D⎦onny.

06 Marcia: Hi Donny.

07 Donny: Guess what.hh

08 Marcia: What.

09 Donny: ˙hh My ca:r is sta::lled.

10 (0.2)

11 Donny: ('n) I'm up here in the Glen?

12 Marcia: Oh::.

13 Donny: .hhh A:nd.hh (0.2) I don' know if it's po:ssible, but 14 .hhh see I haveta open up the ba:nk.hh

15 (0.3)

16 Donny: a:t uh: (·) in Brentwood?hh=

17 Marcia: =Yeah:- en I know you want- (·) en I whoa- (·) en I

18 would, but- except I've gotta leave in aybout five

19 min(h)utes.⎡(hheh)

20 Donny: ⎣Okay then I gotta call somebody else.right

21 away.

22 (·)

23 Donny: Okay?=

24 Marcia: =Okay ⎡Don ⎤

25 Donny: ⎣Thanks⎦ a lot.=Bye-.

26 Marcia: Bye:.

Donny calls his friend Marcia

Donny can recognize Marcia’s voice (line 3) → They know one another

When you call someone you usually know who you are calling → Donny is calling for help → To Donny, Marcia is ‘someone that can help’

get a sense by going line by line and seeing what we can see. because of course this is also how the participants must deal with their own affairs and their own business – they can only proceed one turn at a time.

Do they know one another?

Yes because of identification of Marcia, and of self-identification. Donny’s rushed and breathlessness is hearable as already being rather urgent. You get the greetings at the same time as the identifications, and they’re rather rushed through.
This is the domain of person reference: how people refer to others, one another, and themselves, is partially how we constitute and reconstitute the relationships we have with one another.
Another way that we, with retrospective access to the call and our ability to see it with a bird’s eye view, is that Donny is clearly calling for help. That is to say, in his decision to make this call, he thought to himself “I need help and there’s a subset of people that I know who I could reasonably call on for help” and this would include family, friends, neighbors, maybe people who go to your church, and so on. And so by virtue of making the request, Donny shows himself to stand in a particular kind of relationship with Marcia, one that we can in the very least categorize as ‘someone you can call in an emergency’

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Tutorial example: Donny and Marcia

01 1+ rings

02 Marcia: Hello?

03 Donny: 'lo Marcia,=

04 Marcia: Yea⎡:h ⎤

05 Donny: =⎣('t's) D⎦onny.

06 Marcia: Hi Donny.

07 Donny: Guess what.hh

08 Marcia: What.

09 Donny: ˙hh My ca:r is sta::lled.

10 (0.2)

11 Donny: ('n) I'm up here in the Glen?

12 Marcia: Oh::.

13 Donny: .hhh A:nd.hh (0.2) I don' know if it's po:ssible, but 14 .hhh see I haveta open up the ba:nk.hh

15 (0.3)

16 Donny: a:t uh: (·) in Brentwood?hh=

17 Marcia: =Yeah:- en I know you want- (·) en I whoa- (·) en I

18 would, but- except I've gotta leave in aybout five

19 min(h)utes.⎡(hheh)

20 Donny: ⎣Okay then I gotta call somebody else.right

21 away.

22 (·)

23 Donny: Okay?=

24 Marcia: =Okay ⎡Don ⎤

25 Donny: ⎣Thanks⎦ a lot.=Bye-.

26 Marcia: Bye:.

He has an urgent problem and needs her help.

No ‘how are you’ exchange, but immediately a Guess what → ‘Pre-announcement’ displaces niceties that you see in ordinary calls between friends → Donny has an announcement → Something is urgent and needs to be said now

Guess what? > What?

This is a pre-announcement. It forestalls any how are yous that ordinarily occupy this part of the call. In this way he noticeably forgoes asking Marcia how she’s doing, and he doesn’t allow her to ask him how he’s doing either.
In effect, it displaces that and in its place it prioritizes the announcement he’s about to make. So simply by virtue of its positioning here at the start of the call, we know that Donny is about to say something that we will hear as being rather important.
In response to his pre-announcement he gets a go ahead in the form of what? With this Marcia displays that she’s understood this as a pre-announcement. That is to say, had she produced it as a question with rising intonation, then that would be hearable as initiating repair. Guess what. What?? And so she aligns with Donny in his project of announcing something.

What is going on?

Donny is calling for help: my car is stalled . And I’m up here in the glen . I don’t know if it’s possible but . See I have to open up the bank . At uh in Brentwood.
What does he want? Is there a request? 🡪 So, how do we know that there’s a request being made
My car is stalled > (0.2) > and I’m up here in the Glen

He’s informing her of something that he knows about that she doesn’t know about. It’s ‘news to her’
It’s current and it’s still ongoing. The car is at this very moment as I speak to you stalled.
The fact that this is an announcement means that it’s news. My car is stalled, and we’re supposed to infer that it’s now stalled whereas it wasn’t before. Or that it is now stalled but that it shouldn’t be.
It’s a formulation of a lack, absence, failiure, etc. This is how we know it’s a complaint that makes relevant an offer of help. It could also be a complaint of the sort that makes relevant commiseration, for example My car is a piece of shit
Telling someone something that’s news to them makes relevant some kind of receipt of the news, for example an oh, but that’s not what happens. There is instead silence, which is hearable as Marcia not jumping in to say
In continuing with his turn, he is seen as appending to his previous turn. And this turns that silence into a silence that occurred within his own turn, in which he has now specified where he is. We don’t know exactly where The Glen is relative to Marcia, but Marcia treats that as news, responding to it now with Oh::, but conspicuously saying no more than that

The silences are passed up opportunities for Marcia to offer help as he gets through And plus silence
I don’t know if it’s possible but .hh see I have to open up the bank (0.3) at uh (.) in Brentwood

Donny can already tell that an offer of help is not forthcoming and so he with this turn extension provides an out or an excuse for Marcia. So by reference to Marcia’s presumed inability to help him, he gives her a conventional account for refusing
This is hearably a pre-request. So he moves from complaining to projecting a request.
We know it’s a request because of his orientation to her potential inability. It invokes action on her part, by reference to her agency or ability to act
Note that there’s no request!!
He suppresses the request with see I have to open up the bank (.) in Brentwood. This underscores the urgency and the need for making such a call for help. The stakes for him are high

Yeah and I know you want- and I would- but I’ve gotta leave in about five minutes

Marcia declines to offer ot help, but she does so without every saying NO
Her response displays understanding that a request was underway or was about to be done
She then articulates how she ordinarily would comply, but for circumstances that prevent her from doing it
What is this? She could have just said no and the call would have been over in four seconds. Equally, he could have just asked outright. What is the deal with padding it in this way?

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Tutorial example: Donny and Marcia

01 1+ rings

02 Marcia: Hello?

03 Donny: 'lo Marcia,=

04 Marcia: Yea⎡:h ⎤

05 Donny: =⎣('t's) D⎦onny.

06 Marcia: Hi Donny.

07 Donny: Guess what.hh

08 Marcia: What.

09 Donny: ˙hh My ca:r is sta::lled.

10 (0.2)

11 Donny: ('n) I'm up here in the Glen?

12 Marcia: Oh::.

13 Donny: .hhh A:nd.hh (0.2) I don' know if it's po:ssible, but 14 .hhh see I haveta open up the ba:nk.hh

15 (0.3)

16 Donny: a:t uh: (·) in Brentwood?hh=

17 Marcia: =Yeah:- en I know you want- (·) en I whoa- (·) en I

18 would, but- except I've gotta leave in aybout five

19 min(h)utes.⎡(hheh)

20 Donny: ⎣Okay then I gotta call somebody else.right

21 away.

22 (·)

23 Donny: Okay?=

24 Marcia: =Okay ⎡Don ⎤

25 Donny: ⎣Thanks⎦ a lot.=Bye-.

26 Marcia: Bye:.

He has an urgent problem and needs her help.

No ‘how are you’ exchange, but immediately a Guess what → ‘Pre-announcement’ displaces niceties that you see in ordinary calls between friends → Donny has an announcement → Something is urgent and needs to be said now

No explicit request for help, but ‘news’ about his car, a formulation of a failure → Hearable as a problem, for which Marcia is positioned as ‘someone who can help’

Donny is calling for help: my car is stalled . And I’m up here in the glen . I don’t know if it’s possible but . See I have to open up the bank . At uh in Brentwood.
What does he want? Is there a request? 🡪 So, how do we know that there’s a request being made
My car is stalled > (0.2) > and I’m up here in the Glen

He’s informing her of something that he knows about that she doesn’t know about. It’s ‘news to her’
It’s current and it’s still ongoing. The car is at this very moment as I speak to you stalled.
The fact that this is an announcement means that it’s news. My car is stalled, and we’re supposed to infer that it’s now stalled whereas it wasn’t before. Or that it is now stalled but that it shouldn’t be.
It’s a formulation of a lack, absence, failiure, etc. This is how we know it’s a complaint that makes relevant an offer of help. It could also be a complaint of the sort that makes relevant commiseration, for example My car is a piece of shit

Telling someone something that’s news to them makes relevant some kind of receipt of the news, for example an oh, but that’s not what happens. There is instead silence, which is hearable as Marcia not jumping in to say
In continuing with his turn, he is seen as appending to his previous turn. And this turns that silence into a silence that occurred within his own turn, in which he has now specified where he is. We don’t know exactly where The Glen is relative to Marcia, but Marcia treats that as news, responding to it now with Oh::, but conspicuously saying no more than that

The silences are passed up opportunities for Marcia to offer help as he gets through And plus silence
I don’t know if it’s possible but .hh see I have to open up the bank (0.3) at uh (.) in Brentwood

Donny can already tell that an offer of help is not forthcoming and so he with this turn extension provides an out or an excuse for Marcia. So by reference to Marcia’s presumed inability to help him, he gives her a conventional account for refusing
This is hearably a pre-request. So he moves from complaining to projecting a request.
We know it’s a request because of his orientation to her potential inability. It invokes action on her part, by reference to her agency or ability to act
Note that there’s no request!!
He suppresses the request with see I have to open up the bank (.) in Brentwood. This underscores the urgency and the need for making such a call for help. The stakes for him are high

Yeah and I know you want- and I would- but I’ve gotta leave in about five minutes

Marcia declines to offer ot help, but she does so without every saying NO
Her response displays understanding that a request was underway or was about to be done
She then articulates how she ordinarily would comply, but for circumstances that prevent her from doing it
What is this? She could have just said no and the call would have been over in four seconds. Equally, he could have just asked outright. What is the deal with padding it in this way?

13 of 49

Tutorial example: Donny and Marcia

01 1+ rings

02 Marcia: Hello?

03 Donny: 'lo Marcia,=

04 Marcia: Yea⎡:h ⎤

05 Donny: =⎣('t's) D⎦onny.

06 Marcia: Hi Donny.

07 Donny: Guess what.hh

08 Marcia: What.

09 Donny: ˙hh My ca:r is sta::lled.

10 (0.2)

11 Donny: ('n) I'm up here in the Glen?

12 Marcia: Oh::.

13 Donny: .hhh A:nd.hh (0.2) I don' know if it's po:ssible, but 14 .hhh see I haveta open up the ba:nk.hh

15 (0.3)

16 Donny: a:t uh: (·) in Brentwood?hh=

17 Marcia: =Yeah:- en I know you want- (·) en I whoa- (·) en I

18 would, but- except I've gotta leave in aybout five

19 min(h)utes.⎡(hheh)

20 Donny: ⎣Okay then I gotta call somebody else.right

21 away.

22 (·)

23 Donny: Okay?=

24 Marcia: =Okay ⎡Don ⎤

25 Donny: ⎣Thanks⎦ a lot.=Bye-.

26 Marcia: Bye:.

Marcia declines to offer help

No response to formulation of failure → Hearable as not jumping in to help at first opportunity

No response to informing about car, but an oh response to I’m up here in the Glen? → Marcia treats second part as news, and does no more than that

Telling someone something that’s news to them makes relevant some kind of receipt of the news, for example an oh, but that’s not what happens. There is instead silence, which is hearable as Marcia not jumping in to say
In continuing with his turn, he is seen as appending to his previous turn. And this turns that silence into a silence that occurred within his own turn, in which he has now specified where he is. We don’t know exactly where The Glen is relative to Marcia, but Marcia treats that as news, responding to it now with Oh::, but conspicuously saying no more than that

The silences are passed up opportunities for Marcia to offer help as he gets through And plus silence

I don’t know if it’s possible but .hh see I have to open up the bank (0.3) at uh (.) in Brentwood

Donny can already tell that an offer of help is not forthcoming and so he with this turn extension provides an out or an excuse for Marcia. So by reference to Marcia’s presumed inability to help him, he gives her a conventional account for refusing
This is hearably a pre-request. So he moves from complaining to projecting a request.
We know it’s a request because of his orientation to her potential inability. It invokes action on her part, by reference to her agency or ability to act
Note that there’s no request!!
He suppresses the request with see I have to open up the bank (.) in Brentwood. This underscores the urgency and the need for making such a call for help. The stakes for him are high

Yeah and I know you want- and I would- but I’ve gotta leave in about five minutes

Marcia declines to offer ot help, but she does so without every saying NO
Her response displays understanding that a request was underway or was about to be done
She then articulates how she ordinarily would comply, but for circumstances that prevent her from doing it
What is this? She could have just said no and the call would have been over in four seconds. Equally, he could have just asked outright. What is the deal with padding it in this way?

14 of 49

Tutorial example: Donny and Marcia

01 1+ rings

02 Marcia: Hello?

03 Donny: 'lo Marcia,=

04 Marcia: Yea⎡:h ⎤

05 Donny: =⎣('t's) D⎦onny.

06 Marcia: Hi Donny.

07 Donny: Guess what.hh

08 Marcia: What.

09 Donny: ˙hh My ca:r is sta::lled.

10 (0.2)

11 Donny: ('n) I'm up here in the Glen?

12 Marcia: Oh::.

13 Donny: .hhh A:nd.hh (0.2) I don' know if it's po:ssible, but 14 .hhh see I haveta open up the ba:nk.hh

15 (0.3)

16 Donny: a:t uh: (·) in Brentwood?hh=

17 Marcia: =Yeah:- en I know you want- (·) en I whoa- (·) en I

18 would, but- except I've gotta leave in aybout five

19 min(h)utes.⎡(hheh)

20 Donny: ⎣Okay then I gotta call somebody else.right

21 away.

22 (·)

23 Donny: Okay?=

24 Marcia: =Okay ⎡Don ⎤

25 Donny: ⎣Thanks⎦ a lot.=Bye-.

26 Marcia: Bye:.

No actual request ever appears, but we know that one is there

Though no rejection was given by Marcia, Donny nevertheless gives her an ‘out’ → Orientation to her inability to help means that ‘helping’ was on the table

Actual request is suppressed/never articulated (but... see...)

I don’t know if it’s possible but .hh see I have to open up the bank (0.3) at uh (.) in Brentwood

Donny can already tell that an offer of help is not forthcoming and so he with this turn extension provides an out or an excuse for Marcia. So by reference to Marcia’s presumed inability to help him, he gives her a conventional account for refusing
This is hearably a pre-request. So he moves from complaining to projecting a request.
We know it’s a request because of his orientation to her potential inability. It invokes action on her part, by reference to her agency or ability to act
Note that there’s no request!!
He suppresses the request with see I have to open up the bank (.) in Brentwood. This underscores the urgency and the need for making such a call for help. The stakes for him are high

Yeah and I know you want- and I would- but I’ve gotta leave in about five minutes

Marcia declines to offer ot help, but she does so without every saying NO
Her response displays understanding that a request was underway or was about to be done
She then articulates how she ordinarily would comply, but for circumstances that prevent her from doing it
What is this? She could have just said no and the call would have been over in four seconds. Equally, he could have just asked outright. What is the deal with padding it in this way?

15 of 49

Tutorial example: Donny and Marcia

01 1+ rings

02 Marcia: Hello?

03 Donny: 'lo Marcia,=

04 Marcia: Yea⎡:h ⎤

05 Donny: =⎣('t's) D⎦onny.

06 Marcia: Hi Donny.

07 Donny: Guess what.hh

08 Marcia: What.

09 Donny: ˙hh My ca:r is sta::lled.

10 (0.2)

11 Donny: ('n) I'm up here in the Glen?

12 Marcia: Oh::.

13 Donny: .hhh A:nd.hh (0.2) I don' know if it's po:ssible, but 14 .hhh see I haveta open up the ba:nk.hh

15 (0.3)

16 Donny: a:t uh: (·) in Brentwood?hh=

17 Marcia: =Yeah:- en I know you want- (·) en I whoa- (·) en I

18 would, but- except I've gotta leave in aybout five

19 min(h)utes.⎡(hheh)

20 Donny: ⎣Okay then I gotta call somebody else.right

21 away.

22 (·)

23 Donny: Okay?=

24 Marcia: =Okay ⎡Don ⎤

25 Donny: ⎣Thanks⎦ a lot.=Bye-.

26 Marcia: Bye:.

No rejection appears either, but we know that that’s what’s happening

No No or other rejection component is given

I know you want left unfinished

Marcia takes ‘out’ by communicating that it isn’t possible to help

Yeah and I know you want- and I would- but I’ve gotta leave in about five minutes

Marcia declines to offer ot help, but she does so without every saying NO
Her response displays understanding that a request was underway or was about to be done
She then articulates how she ordinarily would comply, but for circumstances that prevent her from doing it
What is this? She could have just said no and the call would have been over in four seconds. Equally, he could have just asked outright. What is the deal with padding it in this way?

so this is the sort of thing that we can do with CA. we have the tools, which have been built up over the last 50 years of researching extracts just like this, and we’ve discovered a whole lot about how conversations are organized and how people do the things that they do

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What kind of thing is conversation analysis?

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CA as naturalistic inquiry

Direct observation of the natural world

Recordings of actual episodes of social interactions
Not interviews, experiments, memory, elicitation, etc.

Theories emerge inductively
Description in fine detail of antecedents and consequences of events

What kind of thing is conversation analysis?

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CA as naturalistic inquiry

Analysis of collections of specimens �→ comparison across similar events

Analysis of single cases �→ explanation of unique events

What kind of thing is conversation analysis?

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CA as driving instruction

Interest in the mundane and everyday
Focus on tacit and procedural knowledge
Ex: Driving

Explication of what someone knows when they ‘know how to drive’
Articulation in fine detail of methods and procedures available to ‘a driver’
Everything not written in a manual

What kind of thing is conversation analysis?

Another way to think about CA in terms of its interests and approach is to conceive of it as driving intstruction. It’s not that we’re out there telling people how to have conversations, but that we’re interested in the very everyday mundane tacit knowledge that goes into driving.

What isn’t included in an instruction manual? There are things that you can’t learn just from reading them, but then of course you can reconstitute them in the form of a manual, but it will always be hopelessly and endlessly incomplete. There are infinite contingencies, but these contingencies are not unstructured and unorganized. If you know how to drive, you know a set of procedures that allows you to drive a car, no matter what the car or what kind of road, you can still reasonably claim that you know how to drive. Of course there will be diffs from one driving community to the next, but the point remains that you have procedural competencies in driving.

To bring it back to Donny and Marcia: Donny and Marcia both knew that a request and complaint was going on. That was simply plain to them; they didn’t have to think about it at all. Donny called and started to give a complain tthat would then become a pre-request, and then Marcia would decline to help him. That’s simply what happened. Hwoever, in CA we are interested in how that works. If we were to ask Donny and Marcia, ‘how do you do a request’, they wouldn’t be able to answer you.

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CA as sports refereeing

Close inspection

Of who did what, how, in what order
Of sequences of action
Of the collaborative production of the event

Replaying, slowing down video 🡪 noticing of ordinarily unnoticed features

What kind of thing is conversation analysis?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWcnQuElxRs&feature=youtu.be&t=153

Change blindness video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNF9QNEQLA

We can also think of it in terms of sports refereeing. We look very closely at what happened in some event, with an eye particularly for who did what, when, in what order, in what manner. That is to say we’re interested in sequences of collaborative action; what each person did such that the entire episode of interaction came off the way that it did.

One particular part of this is that we replay the video over and over again, often in slow motion. This is what lets us identify features of the itneracito that would ordinarily go unnoticed. So this involves marking the precise moments of overlap and the duration of silences and so on, as you learned in the transcription modules that I had asked you to do.

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Conversation Analysis today

The world’s dominant approach to the study of interactional language use
Relatively marginal within sociology. Strong presence in (socio)linguistics, communication, and social psychology, with influence in education, medicine, and anthropology too
Focus is not just conversation, but any aspect of social interaction

Gesture, bodily movement
Institutional, public, workplace, and domestic settings
Objects, materiality, environments
Linguistic cues used to help organize behavior
Stationary, mobile, technologically-mediated, remote

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why ordinary conversation?

The dominant form of language usage
The means by which children become competent social members and speakers of some language(s)
The arena in which relationships are managed
The environment through which culture is enacted
The channel by which social institutions are produced

First, CA gives conversation pride of place. For us conversation is primary. It is the dominany form of language use the world over and also throughout history. This is in a way recognized by linguists, who readily admit that if a language is no longer being used in conversation then it is moribund and will be dead in one generation. Without conversation you do not have a language to speak of.

Conversation is also the means by which children learn language and become societal members. Children of course do not read or attend language classes, but they simply grow up using conversation and through conversational interactions as a way to become people in society.

Conversation is also primary in the sense that it is the very embodiment of a relationship. Think of nearly any interpersonal relationship that you have, with family with friends with coworkers or students or whaever kind of community you happen to belong to. That relationship is constituted by talking to one another and I would argue that it does not largely exist outside of immediate social itneractions with one another and with other people. By this I mean that when you talk to someone else, you and the other person continuously and ongoingly show one another who you are to each other.

And finally, in the same way that conversations are the arena in which relationships are built, modified, enacted, and finished and so on, it is also the environment where cultures and social institutions are enacted and produced. When we talk about the social or cultural construction of this or that construct, then what we largely mean is that this construction gets done when people are talking to one another. Of course it happens elsewhere too, like in the media, but it still touches down to ordinary talk. For example, social institutions like the educational system or judicial system, these are made up in large part by people who are doing things like teachers giving lectures and students sitting in class, or judges presiding over a court trial or cops stopping someone on the road. These are all interactions and they necessarily have to use the structures of interaction in order to get done.

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All conduct is shaped by its sequential context

Sequential context is the most proximal resource that people consult in making sense of actions

Turn at talk

Context-shaped: everything leading up to it creates an environment for its interpretation

Context-renewing: it shapes what comes next and can revise how prior actions were understood

Centrality of sequential organization

The final characteristic feature of CA that we’ll consider is the centrality of sequential organization. This is perhaps the most important contribution that CA has to make and it sits at the center of every analysis and every paper. And that is that all conduct, whetever happens in interactions and in social life, is shaped by its sequential context

By this we mean to say that, when you with to invoke context, then the most important and most proximal thing to consider, the closest thing to the ground the the thing that we have the best evidence for, is sequential context. This means what happened just before and what should take place afterwards. Sequential context is the most proximal resource that people use in making sense of their social worlds. To use an example that we saw before…

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A: Why don’t you come and see me� sometime.�

What is this action?�What are they doing?

Centrality of sequential organization

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A: Why don’t you come and see me� some[time.�B: [I would like to.

A: Why don’t you come and see me� sometime.�B: Oh I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy� lately!

Centrality of sequential organization

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A: Why don’t you come and see me� some[time.�B: [I would like to.

A: Why don’t you come and see me� sometime.�B: Oh I’m sorry, I’ve been so

busy lately!

Treats prior action as an invitation

Treats prior action as a complaint,�accusation, solicitation of an account, etc.

Centrality of sequential organization

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A: Why don’t you come and see me� some[time.�B: [I would like to.

TURN 2. I would like to

Shows B’s analysis of A’s action; she treats it as an invitation
Reveals to A how her action was understood, and that it was understood correctly

Centrality of sequential organization

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A: Why don’t you come and see me� some[time.�B: [I would like to.�A: I would like you to.

Centrality of sequential organization

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A: Why don’t you come and see me� some[time.�B: [I would like to.�A: I would like you to.

A: Why don’t you come and see me� some[time.�B: [I would like to.�A: Yeah but why don’t you

Centrality of sequential organization

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A: Why don’t you come and see me� some[time.�B: [I would like to.�A: I would like you to.

A: Why don’t you come and see me� some[time.�B: [I would like to.�A: Yeah but why don’t you

Confirms B’s understanding of A’s prior turn

Disconfirms or corrects B’s understanding of A’s prior turn

Centrality of sequential organization

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A: Why don’t you come and see me� some[time.�B: [I would like to.�A: I would like you to.

TURN 3. I would like you to

Confirms the invitation, tells B “You understood me correctly”
There is now mutually ratified understanding of the action in Turn 1

Centrality of sequential organization

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A ‘next turn proof procedure’

A: {turn 1}

B: {turn 2}

A: {turn 3}

B: {turn 4}

Displays understanding of B’s Turn 2
Confirms/corrects B’s understanding of Turn 1
Sets context for Turn 4

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Sequence organization

Interactants perform actions; those actions are not random and disconnected from each other

Rather, actions are connected, or organized into sequences of action

Sequence - a coherent course of collaboratively produced action

Sequence organization - structural level of interaction centering on actions and how they relate to one another

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Sequence organization

A sequence minimally consists of an adjacency pair

Example: a question-answer sequence
A question creates a slot or position for the next speaker to produce an answer

Adjacency pair

A sequence of two actions
Typically adjacent to one another
Produced by different speakers
Ordered: First pair-part (FPP) and Second pair-part (SPP)
Type-related: particular FPPs make relevant a restricted range of SPPs

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1 Nan: Hel!lo:,

2 Emm: .hh HI::.

3 (.)

4 Nan: Oh: HI::: How a:re you Emmah:

5 Emm: FI:NE yer LINE'S BEEN BUSY.

6 Nan: Yea:h (.) my u.-fuhh h-.hhhh my fa:ther's wife

ca:lled me .hhh So when she ca:lls me:: .hh

I always talk fer a lo:ng ti:me cz she c'n

afford it'n I ca:n't .hhh[hhh]°huh°]

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1 Nan: Hel!lo:,

2 Emm: .hh HI::.

3 (.)

4 Nan: Oh: HI::: How a:re you Emmah:

5 Emm: FI:NE yer LINE'S BEEN BUSY.

6 Nan: Yea:h (.) my u.-fuhh h-.hhhh my fa:ther's wife

ca:lled me .hhh So when she ca:lls me:: .hh

I always talk fer a lo:ng ti:me cz she c'n

afford it'n I ca:n't .hhh[hhh]°huh°]

FPP: Greeting

SPP: Greeting

FPP: Question

SPP: Answer

FPP: Complaint

SPP: Account

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Evidence for adjacency pairs

A produces a question (line 1), �but B does not produce an answer (line 2)

A pursues a response (line 3), �waits for an answer from B (line 4), �and pursues again (line 5)

Finally, B produces an answer (line 6)

1 A: Is there something wrong

2 (1.0)

3 A: Yes or no

4 (1.5)

5 A: Eh?

6 B: No

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Evidence for adjacency pairs

A produces a question (line 1), �but B does not produce an answer (line 2)

A pursues a response (line 3), �waits for an answer from B (line 4), �and pursues again (line 5)

Finally, B produces an answer (line 6)

1 A: Is there something wrong

2 (1.0)

3 A: Yes or no

4 (1.5)

5 A: Eh?

6 B: No

The recipient of a First Pair-Part is socially obligated to produce a Second Pair-Part

The non-production of an SPP is an accountable action – it is ‘noticeably absent’

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Expansions

Three ways of expanding an adjacency pair: before it starts (pre), between its two parts (insert), or after the second part is given (post)

Is my wallet there?

I don’t see it.

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Pre-expansions

Produced by FPP-planner, lays the groundwork for the FPP, and requires a SPP of its own. Heard as preliminary to the sequence.

Is my wallet there?

I don’t see it.

Are you at home?

Yeah what’s up?

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Insert expansions

Placed between FPP and SPP, typically initiated by the SPP planner. Can either highlight an issue with the FPP (“post-first”) or with the SPP (“pre-second”)

The little black one.

I don’t see it.

Is my wallet there?

The red one?

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Post-expansions

Produced by FPP producer at the point of possible sequence completion, as either a simple reaction to the SPP (“minimal”) or a reaction used to indicate inadequacy/irrelevance/unacceptability of the SPP and hence a response from the SPP producer (“non-minimal”)

Alright thanks.

Is my wallet there?

I don’t see it.

You don’t think so?

I don’t see it.

Is my wallet there?

I don’t think so.

Alright thanks.

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Exercise. Expanding sequences

Let’s each fabricate a little mini conversation to experiment.

FPP

Post-first/Pre-second

Pre-FPP

Second to Pre-FPP

Response to PF/PS

SPP

Minimal Post-SPP

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What happens when there’s no response?

Uptake is not always normatively required; there is room for gradience

Requests for information: “What time is it?”

Affiliative evaluation after a story: “That’s nuts.”

FPP assessments: “Nice weather out.” / Minimal post-expansion: “Great.”

Uptake/upgrade under optional circumstances can be heard as doing significant interactional work, e.g., “Nice weather out.”—“It sure is!”

Sanctionability for non-response

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For some FPPs, there’s only one relevant SPP that can come next

Yet for some other FPPs, there are two or more alternate SPPs

But these alternatives are not equivalent!

Some actions prefer other actions

invitation: acceptance > rejection�assessment: agreement > disagreement�question: answer > non-answer

Preference organization

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A: I’m such a klutz.�B: Yeah you are.

Self-deprecation

Preferred response (disagreement)

Self-deprecation

Dispreferred response (agreement)

A: I’m such a klutz.�B: No you’re not.

Preference organization

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Ordinarily, people avoid or minimize the production of dispreferred actions

Dispreferred responsive actions often feature:

Delay
Mitigation
Elaboration
Appreciation

Dispreferred responses

And conversely, preferred responses are often prompt, direct, short, and plain

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01 B: if you’d care to come over and visit �02 a little while I just made some coffee�03 A: hehh! Well that’s awfully sweet of you,�04 I don’t think I can make it this morning�05 um, I’m running an ad in the paper and-�06 and uh I have to stay in case I’m called

Dispreferred responses

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01 B: if you’d care to come over and visit �02 a little while I just made some coffee�03 A: hehh! Well that’s awfully sweet of you,�04 I don’t think I can make it this morning�05 um, I’m running an ad in the paper and-�06 and uh I have to stay in case I’m called

Laughter particle, hearable ‘smile’ quality. Mitigates blow of rejection and delays the rejection

Well projects a departure�or disagreement, delays the declination of the invitation

Compliment. Delays production of rejection and mitigates face threat of rejection

Rejection: hedge I don’t think so mitigates force of rejection; actual rejection is obscured (no actual no appears); accounts for rejection

Turn-extension with um in place of possible turn completion

Account or explanation, has its source beyond her and so the blame is to be placed elsewhere

Dispreferred responses