Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis: An Introduction

The term 'ethnomethodological conversation analysis' is used to refer to a particular theory and method for the analysis of everyday talk that was developed in the mid-1960s by sociologist Harvey Sacks and colleagues. This method was developed to uncover what was assumed to be the unobservable ways that people make order in their social interactions through talk. Sacks (1992, 1: 28) posited that through careful observation of the language of an interaction that this hidden order could be uncovered and a principled method to analyze these observations could be developed.

As the name suggests, Sacks' ideas were influenced by work in ethnographic sociology (Mead, 1934) and ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967, 2002), an area of sociology which focuses on the methods which 'members' of some culture have for making sense and order out of the mundane, everyday social interactions in which they partake. From an ethnomethodological perspective, mundane activities within a culture (crossing the street, ending a telephone conversation) are seen as locally co-constructed achievements accomplished by the use of common sense 'methods' which are available as part of one's membership in a culture. Researchers working within an ethnomethodological framework are interested in 'the structures that constitute the activity of interest' (Heap, 1985: 267), these structures being particular turns and sequences of turns at talk.

CA has also been influenced by Goffman's (1959, 1961, 1963, 1967, 1971, 1981, 1983) dramaturgical model for understanding face-to-face interaction. Goffman also saw the importance of investigations looking at mundane, micro-level details of human interaction to understand human behavior through its public displays and others' responses to those displays.