Determine the interactional business Again, using an unmotivated approach, re-read the transcript that we used in Step 1 (transcript is reproduced here) and try to determine what sort of interactional business may be taking place (e.g. what is taking place in the interaction, what topics…
Identify recurrent patterns Having now gained a feel for the overarching structure and some sense of the interactional business (see Step 3), the next step is to determine whether or not there are any recurrent patterns in the data. Take another look…
Pose research questions Now, we indicated (see Conversation Analysis) earlier that, whilst CA resists premature theorizing, the interplay between repeated listening to audio recordings and examination of transcriptions leads to the generation of research questions. So, having identified that Jim appears to be only taking…
Answer the research questions In the same way that the research questions originate from an examination of the conversational data (see Step 5: Ask Questions), so the evidence required to answer these questions must also be drawn from the same conversational data. This is an essential…
Who speaks most? In our ongoing analysis of the example transcript, recall that the first research question that we posed (see Step 5: Ask Questions) following an examination of the conversation data was: Who speaks most? Discussion We have already…
What is the function of minimal turns? Recall that, from an examination of our example transcript for recurrent patterns in the data (see Step 4), we noted that Jim appeared to be using a disproportionate number of minimal turns. Consequently, this led us to pose…
A respondent role? In the extract we are examining, there are no instances of Jim initiating talk – all his utterances are simple acknowledgement tokens. He demonstrates his orientation to Tom’s extended talk, signaling his ongoing recipiency through the production of the continuers…
We have noted that conversation analysis is an inductive methodology that uses real world observations to make generalizations about some particular phenomenon. Indeed, a primary objective of inductive methodologies is the generation of theory through generalization. However, the scope of investigation will vary from study to…
