Interaction Analysis - Lectures
Week 1 - Introduction to Conversation Analysis
Lecture 1 Intro
Interaction
● in this course: focus on naturally (no experimental) occurring social interaction using
language
● through all kinds of media (e.g. calls but mostly face-to-face situations)
● look at structure of interaction so the building blocks
● what we do in interaction (using language): what we are achieving by talking
○ e.g. presenting yourself, obtaining information, persuading clients
● language not only reflection of what people feel or intent but look at talk for its action
potential
● analyzing interaction (e.g. in linguistics, sociology): multidisciplinary field of study
● plays crucial role in business settings (e.g. job interviews, sales, meetings, customer
service, negotiations)
The conversational racetrack
● see conversation as having a beginning and an end
● racetrack with all kinds of turns and curves where accidents can happen
● some parts of race may go well while others do not
● metaphor of how participants collaboratively manage a conversation
Racetrack of a customer service call
1. Opening: something participants establish to have a proper conversation
2. Problem description: from customer related to product
3. Candidate solutions: providing candidate solutions to customer
➔ room for conflict here; solutions not always accepted
4. Closing: mutual closing of conversation
Meaning and local context
➔ what do utterances actually mean
➔ meaning lies in intention of the speaker BUT in how the co-participants treat
utterance
➔ meaning depends on local context of the production of utterances
◆ e.g.
➔ both parents are treating utterance from health visitor completely different: father
responding to the action in that very moment (thumb-sucking) + agreeing with health
visitors evaluation while mother is referring to something that happened before that
very action (baby already ate) + denying that baby is hungry
➔ HV’s utterance gets 2 different meanings in this interaction
➔ what next speaker is doing with previous utterance
Week 1 - Introduction to Conversation Analysis
Lecture 1 Intro
Interaction
● in this course: focus on naturally (no experimental) occurring social interaction using
language
● through all kinds of media (e.g. calls but mostly face-to-face situations)
● look at structure of interaction so the building blocks
● what we do in interaction (using language): what we are achieving by talking
○ e.g. presenting yourself, obtaining information, persuading clients
● language not only reflection of what people feel or intent but look at talk for its action
potential
● analyzing interaction (e.g. in linguistics, sociology): multidisciplinary field of study
● plays crucial role in business settings (e.g. job interviews, sales, meetings, customer
service, negotiations)
The conversational racetrack
● see conversation as having a beginning and an end
● racetrack with all kinds of turns and curves where accidents can happen
● some parts of race may go well while others do not
● metaphor of how participants collaboratively manage a conversation
Racetrack of a customer service call
1. Opening: something participants establish to have a proper conversation
2. Problem description: from customer related to product
3. Candidate solutions: providing candidate solutions to customer
➔ room for conflict here; solutions not always accepted
4. Closing: mutual closing of conversation
Meaning and local context
➔ what do utterances actually mean
➔ meaning lies in intention of the speaker BUT in how the co-participants treat
utterance
➔ meaning depends on local context of the production of utterances
◆ e.g.
➔ both parents are treating utterance from health visitor completely different: father
responding to the action in that very moment (thumb-sucking) + agreeing with health
visitors evaluation while mother is referring to something that happened before that
very action (baby already ate) + denying that baby is hungry
➔ HV’s utterance gets 2 different meanings in this interaction
➔ what next speaker is doing with previous utterance
