DA 9.18.13

Discourse Analysis

9.18.13

 

Conversation Analysis – Gail Jefferson

 

I thought the opening of this article was interesting – that she’d rather transcribe than any other part of the work.  I can’t say the same, myself.  Though, I do think transcribing is the beginning of the analysis, in that I am becoming familiar with the data and thinking about it as I transcribe.    On page 21, Jefferson talks about the views of Labov, who says that people’s dialect shouldn’t be included in the transcription because it is viewed as somewhat defective.  I agree with Labov in that dialect is sometimes viewed as deficient (especially if it is southern), but I do not agree that it shouldn’t be put into the transcription.  If we are trying to capture how the interaction ‘sounded’ than dialect is a big part of that.  I think if would be important to include.  

 

Conversation Analysis – Chapters 1-3 – Hutchby & Wooffitt

            I thought the first chapter did a great job of defining conversation analysis.   Will summarize using bullet points here.

Conversation Analysis

-          “enables us to view the social world and to analyse social interaction” (p. 11)

-          “is the study of talk” (p.11)

-          “is the systematic analysis of the talk produced in everyday situations of human interaction: talk in interaction” (p.11)

-          “is situated as far as possible in the ordinary unfolding of people’s lives” (p.12)

-          “the objective of CA is to uncover the often tacit reasoning procedures and sociolinguistic competencies underlying the production and interpretation of talk in organized sequences of interaction.’ (p.12)

We talked some about “next turn proof” in our DP class this summer – but, I liked the examples and definition on page 13.  Next turn proof is how the researcher can tell how an individual within an interaction  understands what was just said.   It “ensures that analyses explicate the orderly  properties of talk as oriented to accomplishments of participants, rather than being based merely on the assumptions of the analyst.” (p.13).

Page 20 offers a summary of key insights which serve as the methodological basis for CA…

-          Talk in interaction is systematically organized and deeply ordered.

-          The production of talk in interaction is methodic

-          The analysis of talk in interaction should be based on naturally occurring data

-          Analysis should not initially be constrained by prior theoretical assumptions

I am glad the authenticity of the ‘raw data’ was addressed – that CA attends to the fact that the data was not collected as part of a “research” study, but that it came about as part of a naturally occurring event.  On page 23, Sacks talks about how the reader has as much information as the “researcher” in deciding upon the accuracy of the analysis.

I have started to think about Garfinkel’s “breaching experiments” at really interesting times.  The other day, I got on the elevator, and instinctively moved to the corner furthest from the other person on the elevator.  But, what if I had stood close to the other person – that would have violated the norm of “how we behave in an elevator”.   Riding the Marta train last week, I thought about how little interaction there is among people.  No one speaks or makes eye contact.  There are established ways of being when you are on the Marta train… 

The discussion of membership categories (p.35-37) was interesting.    Categories are not ‘neutral’ descriptions (p.36).   “Categories, then, do not merely provide us with convenient labels which allow us to refer to persons; they also provide a set of inferential resources by which we come to understand and interpret the behavior of persons so designated” (p.36).  The example and explanation on p. 37 was a good one to think through with these ideas about membership categories.   The examples on 38 and 39 were also great – the operator doesn’t question the authenticity of the person with the medical connections,  but does question the individual with no stated credentials who calls in about a rape.

I have also been thinking about this idea of preferred response and how I sometimes ask questions of my students in REED 430 class.  I will say something like; “Was that helpful?” after we do an activity or I summarize the reading etc., but there is little likelihood that one of them will say, “No, lady, not helpful.”  I would like to stop doing that, because, really…what does it accomplish? (tongue in cheek…).

I thought a lot about my Reading Recovery teachers when I read the section on the organization of turn taking.  One of the things about the RR training that is initially disturbing to the participants is that the rules of talk are altered.  People do talk over one another, and interrupt, and talk at the same time…as they watch and discuss the child working with the teacher behind the glass. The reason this happens is because we are trying to get to the unfiltered responses of the teachers – we want them to talk about what they are seeing and noticing and build upon the ideas of others in the group.  And, we want them to be almost immediately reacting to what they see.  Some teachers don’t ever really get comfortable with the free for all that happens behind the glass.  The fact that people were disturbed shows how closely they do abide by the rules and how it is unsettling to them when the rules are changed.   This idea is better stated on page 54 – “A great deal of work on apparent violations of the rule – set demonstrates how those apparent violations are actually robust illustrations of how closely members do orient to the rules.”

The idea of repair made me think of self-correction in reading.  When kids spontaneously identify and attend to an error in what they have read.  They correct what was initially said, most often because of some information (visual, structural, or meaning based) that tells them that what was read before was incorrect.  

Chapter 3 talked a lot about how the transcript is not the data, but a convenient “referential tool”.   Returning to the “listening” of the data was stressed.

 

Eating Your Words: Discursive Psychology and the Reconstruction of Eating Practices – Wiggins, Potter, and Wildsmith

 

I reread this article (from our DP class) just before my STATS class the other day.   I rehighlighted the bullets on page 6 – about the assumptions with much research…

-          Physiological states are accessible through quantifiable, external measures

-          Each measurement is taken to be an accurate representation of an internal state

-          Participant responses are treaded as being related to, and therefore predictors of actual eating behavior.

In Stats, we were talking about ‘constructs’ and instruments that ‘measure’ these constructs.   It was taken for granted that these surveys or instruments could represent internal states.  It surprised me that there was no argument, no discussion of this information…it is just assumed that it is possible to get at the internal in these ways.

What I like about DP and CA is that the assumptions like this one go away…the raw data is examined and responded to as it occurs…it doesn’t claim to reflect internal states.

I like the idea of ‘eating in situ’ being examined – that looking at it as it happens gets to the experience, and not to what people say about the experience.  The same is true for teaching – looking at the interactions as they happen, and not peoples’ reflections upon or beliefs about what happened.