Encyclopedia of Sociology

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

Such grounding would stand in contrast to the
epidemiological uses of categorization that under-
pin standard social scientific research. Sacks’s col-
league, anthropologist Michael Moerman (1974,
pp. 67–68), once noted that social scientists ‘‘have
an apparent inability to distinguish between warm

... human bodies and one kind of identification
device which some of those bodies sometimes
use.’’ Further, since Sacks was primarily concerned
with categorization as a thoroughly practical, pro-
cedural activity for members he was not much
interested in the content of categories, with draw-
ing the cultural grids that preoccupied cognitive
anthropologists and many social psychologists. In-
stead, Sacks believed that by starting with the close
study of actual events—such as members’ observ-
able use of categories in situ—and showing that
they happened in an endogenously, socially organ-
ized manner, a much sounder basis for studying
and understanding social life could be established.

It should be evident, then, that the appellation
conversation analysis does not really capture the
enterprise’s commitment to addressing the most
basic problem for the social sciences: the underly-
ing character and structure of social action. As the
title of one of Sacks’s first publications, ‘‘An Initial
Investigation of the Usability of Conversational
Data for Doing Sociology,’’ makes clear, the use of
recorded conversational materials was more of an
opportunistic research strategy than a commit-
ment to studying talk per se (Sacks 1972). Tape
recordings of conversations constituted a record
of the details of actual, singular events that could
be replayed and studied extensively, and would
permit other researchers direct access to exactly
these same details. Still, for these identical rea-
sons, it is conversation’s organization—its detect-
able, orderly properties—that has remained the
concrete object of study for the enterprise.

During years since the ‘‘initial investigations,’’
conversation analysis has given rise to a substantial
research literature. Pursuing the lines of analysis
first identified in the early studies while simultane-
ously opening up many new avenues of inquiry,
researchers working in this tradition have pro-
duced findings that are, in the words of one con-
temporary practitioner, ‘‘strikingly cumulative and
interlocking’’ (Heritage 1987, p. 256). Important
collections of papers include those of Sudnow
(1972), Schenkein (1978), Atkinson and Heritage
(1984), Button and Lee (1987), and ten Have and

Psathas (1995). Sacks’s lectures have now been

edited and published in complete form (Sacks

1992). Special issues of Sociological Inquiry, Social

Psychology Quarterly, Human Studies, Social Prob-

lems, Research on Language and Social Interaction,

Text, and the Western Journal of Speech Communica-

tion have also been devoted to ethnomethodological

and conversation-analytic topics.

Three major domains in conversation’s or-

ganization identified in this literature are the or-

ganization of sequences, of turn taking, and of

repair. These organizations can be described as

systems of naturally organized activity, systems

known and used by members as courses of practi-

cal action and practical reasoning, and designed to

resolve generic problems of coordination that con-

front any conversationalist (and perhaps members

of all social species). A sketch of some research

findings with respect to these organizations should

serve to illustrate how they function in this fash-

ion, as well as the interlocking nature of their

domains.

Consider first the organization of sequences.

Begin with the fact that even the most cursory

inspection of conversational materials reveals that

talk-in-interaction has a serial arrangement to it.

For example, in a conversation between two par-

ties, party A will talk first, then party B, then A,

then B, and so forth. Accordingly, in two-party

conversations, turns at talk constitute a series of

alternately produced utterances: ABABAB. But

overlaying this serial arrangement of utterances

are distinctly characterizable conversational se-

quences, where turns at talk do not simply happen

to occur one after the other but rather ‘‘belong

together’’ as a socio-organizational unit, and where

there is thus a methodic relationship between the

various turns or parts.

This methodic, structurally linked relation-

ship between sequence parts is central to how

sequences work in resolving coordination prob-

lems in conversation. This point can be demon-

strated by briefly focusing on one of the earliest

studies of sequence organization by Schegloff

(1968), an investigation into how the initiation of

conversational interactions is coordinated. Schegloff

directed attention to a frequently occurring initial

exchange, which was called a ‘‘summons–answer

sequence.’’ This sequence is composed, he discov-

ered, of closely linked parts. The production of the