Conversation Analysis

Conversation analysis (commonly abbreviated as CA) is the study of talk in interaction. CA generally attempts to describe the orderliness, structure and sequential patterns of interaction, whether this is institutional (in the school, doctor's surgery, courts or elsewhere) or casual conversation. Thus, use of the term “conversation” to label this disciplinary movement is misleading if read in a colloquial sense, as many have. In light of this, one of CA’s principal practitioners, Emanuel Schegloff, has more recently identified “talk-in-interaction” as CA’s topic. Perhaps for this same reason, others (e.g., Jonathan Potter) who use CA methods identify themselves as discourse analysts (DA), though that term was first used to identify researchers using methods different from CA (e.g., Levinson, 1983), and still identifies a group of scholars larger than those who use only CA methods.

Inspired by ethnomethodology, it was developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s principally by the sociologist Harvey Sacks and, among others, his close associates Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson. Sacks died early in his career, but his work was championed by others in his field, and CA has now become an established force in sociology, anthropology, linguistics, speech-communication and psychology. It is particularly influential in interactional sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and discursive psychology, as well as being a coherent discipline in its own right. Recently CA techniques of sequential analysis have been employed by phoneticians to explore the fine phonetic detail of speech.

Turn-taking Organization
The nature by which a conversation is done in and through turns. Turn-taking is one of the fundamental organizations of conversation. According to CA, the turn-taking system consists of two components: the turn constructional component and the turn allocational component. The turn-taking organization is described in Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 696-735.

While CA does not explicitly claim that turn-taking is universal, as research is conducted on more languages, it is possible that if there were any basis for a claim to universality in language, turn-taking is a good candidate. The turn-taking model for conversation was arrived at inductively through empirical investigation of field recordings of conversation and fitted to such observationally arrived at fact as overwhelmingly, participants in conversation talk one at a time. This can be illustrated by the game ping-pong, where the people conversing are players and their turns are represented as they hit the ball.

Turn Constructional Component
The turn constructional component describes basic units out of which turns are fashioned. These basic units are known as turn constructional units or TCUs. Unit types include: lexical, clausal, phrasal, and sentential. These are grammatically and pragmatically complete units, meaning that in a particular context they accomplish recognizable social actions.

Note that not all unit types may exist in all languages. Further, it is possible that there are units in other languages, such as particles in Asian languages, that may not exist in English.

Turn Allocational Component
The turn allocational component describes how turns are allocated among participants in a conversation. The three ordered options are: Current Speaker selects Next Speaker; Next Speaker Self-selects as Next; or Current Speaker Continues.

Sequence Organisation
This concerns how actions are ordered in conversation.

Adjacency pairs
Talk tends to occur in responsive pairs; however, the pairs may be split over a sequence of turns.

Pre-sequences
A pair of turns understood as a preliminary to the main course of action. For example, "guess what"-"what" (as a preliminary to an announcement of some sort) or "what are you doing"-"nothing" (as a preliminary to an invitation or a request).

Preference organisation
There are structural (i.e. practice-underwritten) preferences for some types of actions (within sequences of action) in conversation over other actions.

Repair
Repair organization describes how parties in conversation deal with problems in speaking, hearing, or understanding. Repair is classified by who initiates repair (self or other) and by who resolves the problem (self or other) as well as by how it unfolds within a turn or a sequence of turns.

Action Formation
This concerns the description of the practices by which turns at talk are composed and positioned so as to realize one or another actions.

Contrasts to Other Theories
In contrast to the research inspired by Noam Chomsky, Conversation Analysis only studies naturally-occurring talk. In contrast to the theory developed by John Gumperz, CA maintains it is possible to analyze talk-in-interaction by examining its recordings alone (audio for telephone, video for copresent interaction). In CA there is no belief that the researcher needs to consult with the talk participants or members of their speech community.

Subject index of conversation analysis literature
The following is a list of important phenomena identified in the conversation analysis literature, followed by a brief definition and citations to articles that examine the named phenomenon either empirically or theoretically. Articles in which the term for the phenomenon is coined or which present the canonical treatment of the phenomenon are in bold, those that are otherwise centrally concerned with the phenomenon are in italics, and the rest are articles that otherwise aim to make a significant contribution to an understanding of the phenomenon.


 * TURN-TAKING : A process by which interactants allocate the right or obligation to participate in an interactional activity. (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974)
 * REPAIR : The mechanisms through which certain "troubles" in interaction are dealt with. (Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks 1977)
 * PREFERENCE ORGANIZATION : The ways through which different types of social actions ('preferred' vs. 'dispreferred') are carried out sequentially. (Pomerantz 1979, Pomerantz 1984)