CA and Context
John B. Stark
Greetings!
As a part of my studies for organizational behavior, I am taking a course
in qualitative methods. Our current topic is conversation analysis and I have
trouble accepting the absense of context in the analysis (although my professor
has made a noble effort to convince me that the only relavent information is
that contained within the talk). I understand that the "talk" is viewed as the
source of meaning, but after being "steeped" in the notion that environment /
situation can not help but impact any construction (a view from organizational
theory), I find it hard not to apply this concept to CA. Afterall, WHO is
speaking and WHY they are speaking seem important to understanding WHAT is said
in the "talk". "Reality is constructed and sustained primarily through talk.
Those who control talk also control reality." (Cashman, 1991).
In posing this question I am NOT trying to stir up anything like the CA/DA
debate!! I am just interested in what other views on the topic of context
might be! I appeal to the "LIST" for "ENLIGHTENMENT"! (Well, in a somewhat
different form this appeal worked for my ancestors, so I'll give it a whirl!)
Thanks - John at Mizzou
Al Futrell
> speaking and WHY they are speaking seem important to understanding WHAT is
said
> in the "talk". "Reality is constructed and sustained primarily through talk.
> Those who control talk also control reality." (Cashman, 1991).
>
point, so WHY and WHAT are irrelevant. If you want to focus on
meaning then take a course in sociolinguistics (for example) and
leave the CA to folks who like to listen to the same snippet of
conversation thirty times so that can determine whether it took half
a second or a fourth of a second for speaker #2 to complete the
second half of the adjacency pair.....
--Al Futrell, Dept of Comm, Univ of Louisville
--awfu...@homer.louisville.edu
--http://www.louisville.edu/~awfutr01
Kate Ranieri
John,
In reference to organizational behavior and content analysis of talk, I would
have to refer you to Michel Foucault and his views on discourse. I would
suspect you will find a strong ally in his writings, particularly his book
entitled The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (1972).
New York, Pantheon.
Kate Ranieri
doc candidate
Northern Illinois University
Pam Benoit
The danger with a discussion list is that the prof "who tended toward
ninnydom" is also subscribed. In my opinion, the argument is that when
context is influential conversants orient to it in the talk in CA. This
view is based very much in the assumption that claims must be in the
empirical evidence of the conversation rather than being assumed as
imporant a priori. In fact, CA would include information about winking,
thumbing noses, and appropriations of various voice characteristics in the
transcripts. I would agreee with John Dickison that Hymes' ethnography of
speaking is one way of approaching interactional data but not the only
way--not the only productive way. And I would disagree with the analogy
of beans and CA--I don't think CA is interested in how many beans but if
we must use this particular comparison it is more likely to be interested
in the practice of identifying beans---actually this analogy doesn't work
well because beans don't lend themselves to discussions of structure and
sequence. And finally a note to Al--to characterize CA as interested in
determining whether a silence is a second or a fourth of a second does it
great disservice. I think it is unfortunate that an approach that is
microanalytic is subject to these forms of criticism. I am convinced that
much of the order of talk is available in the details of the conversation.
And that CA has much to offer in terms of the sense making in
conversation. Pam Benoit, University of Missouri
John Hall
John,
As a lapsed conversation analyst, I am intrigued by your perplexity
regarding the apparent lack of concern for context in CA.
It would be useful to know what you meant by "context". Do you mean
the intentions and circumstances of the speakers, or do you mean the
non-verbal behaviours accompanying the talk, or something else ?
I think it fair to say that conversation analysts see speech itself
as an act of contextualising, ie speakers giving material form to
their intentions, concerns, etc -- though it is entirely possible that
some or all of these features may be omitted under extenuating
circumstances (in which case their absence is likely to be noticed).
Anyway it is not CA's program to document 'context' in the way
ethnographers might. CA was a structuralist offshoot of
ethnomethodology, and while EM may properly be regarded as a
qualitative methodology CA has no intention of being so. CA is
(perhaps I should say was) primarily concerned with identifying the
'machinery' of everyday conversations -- assuming that peers work
towards following rules in their conversations -- and with using the
machinery to explore other speech events (by way of contrast).
I suppose what I am saying is that it might be more profitable to
consider whether CA is worth while doing in its own terms than to
bemoan its lack of fidelity a la 'qualitative research'! Cheers.
John
Dr John Hall
Faculty of Education
Curtin University of Technology
Michael Lissack
IMHO this post illustrates much of what is wrong with academic
approaches to real life problems. For one's professor (or anyone else
claiming an "expert" status) to assert that context is unimportant is
either engaging in a "ha I got ya" exercise or is just bullheaded.
Isolating phenomenon to study them makes good sense, to turn around and
assert that the isolation is "reality" is ignorance. Sure the
information is all in the conversation if your only prupose is to study
the topic "conversation" or to better learn how to analyze conversation
but the rest of life matters. Context is everything and in fact given
enough info about context the conversation (and its analysis) may at
times be unnecessary.
--
Michael Lissack 150 West 56th St #4904 NY NY 10019
lis...@lissack.com http://lissack.com
212-245-7055 (work) 212-956-3464 (fax)
-- but the rest of life matters