Longitudinal studies on the organization of social interaction makes a contribution to what the authors name ‘classical CA’. CA (Conversation Analysis) is often criticized for its reluctance to look at meaning-making processes beyond the immediate interaction being analyzed, that is, for its extreme focus on what are called ‘micro-analytic studies’. In order to compensate for this shortcoming, the book includes ‘historical time’ in its analyses. What is meant by ‘history’, however, usually falls short of the expectations of the reader who is accustomed to the macro lens of Foucault and other scholars who focus on power disputes.
The book is aimed at Conversation Analysis enthusiasts, although scholars working with English as a foreign or second language and with language in the workplace (specifically relating to pharmacy, psychoanalysis, theater, journalism, and cancer treatment) might find it useful as well.
The chapters in the volume are powerful examples of CA's commitment to showing how, in the sequential organization of turns, participants of a given interaction give clues about how they orient to what is happening at the moment of speaking. In general, however, discussions of language change simply paraphrase what has been said by research participants, making few or no assumptions about larger social concerns. That linguistic signs make reference to past interactions is never taken as a presupposition, but rather shown with analytic detail. As a result, a lot of space is devoted to methodology and analysis, and what is actually new or socially significant becomes a short commentary at the end of the chapters. Let us examine two examples.
The chapter by Wayne A. Beach, David M. Dozier, & Kyle Gutzmer investigates how cancer is dealt with by means of multiple interactions involving the telephone. The affordances of this particular technology, however, are not fronted in the chapter. Besides, it is only at the conclusion of the chapter that the reader learns that the authors’ investigation was eventually turned into a play. This fact seems to be the authors’ greatest contribution, but it receives very little discussion in their chapter.
Spencer Hazel's chapter focuses on how authenticity is constructed in theater. He states that ‘the actions… are not context dependent on the prior action in the sequential organization of the event, but they are rather components in a composition, pre-choreographed through various trials in the rehearsals’ (263). For Hazel, then, what passes as authentic language use is negotiated in a ritual that has to be reenacted time and again, in a game of repetition and difference. Repetition is explained by its dependency on a script that tells actors what to say, and difference is accounted for by the playwright's refusal to explicitly determine how things should be said (prosody, speed, etc.). Unfortunately, however, Hazel does not extend his considerations to mundane performance.
All in all, the book tends to focus on the ‘generic characteristics’ (15) of particular interactions and is critical of methodological purity at the expense of social criticism.
