The Basic Structures and Patterns of Human Talk
How conversation analysis conceptualizes human interaction.
This work in progress is an attempt to visualize the key concepts of ethnomethodological conversation analysis and how those concepts model naturally occurring human talk. The structuring and segmentation aim to facilitate a basic understanding of the granularity of the concepts (the macro and micro structures of talk) and how they relate to each other. The brief characterizations accompanying each node of the map serve to provide an initial understanding or a quick refresher.
Tip: For a more detailed discussion click on the title of each concept box to navigate to the respective article in the EMCA Wiki. Please be aware that currently not all concepts are covered by articles in the Wiki.
shapes the Talk
course of the
Talk
informs the
Talk
Interactions in constrained
"institutional" contexts
Activity
Some coordinated undertaking providing coherence to an interaction
Participants in a conversation are often engaged in a (social) activity, potentially aimed at achieving a specific outcome or goal. In this context, 'activity' can refer to anything from playing a board game or eating breakfast to making an emergency call or standing in court. Depending on the nature of the activity, some or all of it may be accomplished solely through talk.
Conversational Project
Some covert goal or course of action
Besides easily recognizable „activities“ (see concept), there are less overt conversational „projects“ or courses of action that one or more participants may be pursuing. Some of these pursuits never fully surface. If in the preamble leading up to them, it already becomes clear, that they will be rejected, they may be silently abandoned. Typical examples are extending an invitation or asking for a favor. Some other projects may be tried repeatedly and successfully blocked or evaded by the other party, for example provoking certain statements in a news interview. Participants are generally attentive to such covert pursuits and will orient to them once they become apparent.
Talk-in-Interaction
Naturally occuring talk between two or more participants
Natural human conversation unfolds in real time, turn by turn, as a collaborative effort by the participants. Split-second phenomena can significantly influence the progression of the conversation. These moment-to-moment dynamics are highly contextual and mostly oblique to the participants.
Overall Structural Organization
Macro structures of a single occasion of talk
Examining the 'overall structural organization' of a conversation usually involves examining interactional units that extend beyond a single coherent sequence of utterances. Typical examples include the opening and closing parts of a conversation, as well as the conversation as a whole. This 'supra-sequential' perspective provides insights into how these larger segments structure and inform the progression of the conversation. For instance, an opening typically begins with a greeting sequence and ends with a transition to the first topic. Another focus point of this macro view are coherences of smaller elements that are not “local” to their respective sequences. 'How are you?', for example, does different things depending on whether it is part of the opening or the main part of a conversation.
Institutional Talk
Talk shaped by particular conventions and expectations
Some interactions occur in an “institutional” context, where they are more rigidly shaped than ordinary or „casual“ conversations. An extreme example is a court hearing, where deviations from the established rules of interaction can be formally punishable. Other examples include news interviews, medical visitations and customer service calls. These situations share the characteristic features of „institutional talk“: Participants orient towards a specific task, goal or function associated with the institution. In addition, there are specific constraints on what contributions are acceptable, shaped by the participants’ roles (e.g. patient and doctor). Also, the conduct and contributions of the participants may be interpreted differently compared to ordinary talk (e.g. adversarial questions in a news interview).
Sequence
variants and expansions of
the base Adjacency Pair
validates the
Intersubjectivity
for the
Next Turn Proof Procedure
Sequence Organization
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Some concise information
Sequence
A sequence of turns by alternating speakers
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Preference Organization
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Intersubjectivity
Shared understanding of the participants
Some concise information
Adjacency Pair
Two-part exchange (initial first and replying second part)
Some concise information
Next Turn Proof Procedure
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Recipient Design
Sequence Organization
to prevent
Trouble
Conversational Trouble
Turn Design
Trouble
Epistemics
The distribution and the rights to knowledge
How knowledgeable participants are relative to each other (regarding the current topic of conversation) plays a major role in shaping their turns at talk and the sequential progression of the conversation. For example, when giving a diagnosis, a doctor will present the same information differently to a patient than to another medical expert. Sharing exciting news will fizzle abruptly, if it turns out that the others are already aware of it. Additionally, participants actively monitor and defend their ‘domains of knowledge’, such as personal experiences, social affiliations and areas of expertise.
Recipient Design
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(Conversational) Trouble
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See Schegloff 2007 & Sacks 1974
Repair (in same turn or subsequent turns)
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production of
the current Turn
Turn for TRPs
Action Formation
produce the
intended Action
early start of
Turn Design
Turn-Taking
and during the Turn
one or more TCUs
potential TRP
or more Actions
ascribe Actions to the TCUs in production
Action Formation
The particular way a recognizable action is 'expressed'
TODO Schegloff 2007, p. xiv, p. 263
Turn Design
Speakers can employ a wealth of resources to construct their turn-at-talk
Speakers have a wide range of resources at their disposal to produce a nuanced situated turn-at-talk. These resources include choice of words, grammatical structures, prosody (such as intonation), timing (such as brief pauses), laughter, aspiration, gaze, gestures, and body orientation. What a speaker does with these resources in a specific turn is primarily shaped by three aspects: The preceding turn, the intended recipient(s), and the social action(s) that the speaker aims to accomplish.
Projection
Predicting the course of the current turn and what is needed next
While listening, participants continuously monitor the current turn-at-talk in its production and project what action, by whom, and when becomes (possibly) relevant.
Turn
A single occasion to contribute to an interaction
Some concise information
Turn-Taking
The organization of who speaks next and when
The organization of turn-taking enables frequent and fluent speaker changes with minimized gaps and overlap. The next speaker can either be selected by the current speaker, self-select, or the current speaker may continue speaking.
TRP (Transition Relevance Place)
A point where a change of speaker is relevant or possible
Some concise information
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Action
Talk is (social) action: What is done?
Saying words is not merely exchanging information. Making a request, offering help, or rejecting an invitation are all (social) actions achieved through language. So the question is, what is being done by a particular turn at talk? Although multiple actions can be realized by even a single TCU, the "primary action" is usually seen as what the response must deal with in order to count as an adequate next turn.
TCU (Turn Constructional Unit)
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Some concise information
Action Ascription
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Some concise information