Conversation Analysis
Language Analysis
Conversation Analysis (CA) is a method for studying talk-in-interaction, focusing on the sequential organisation of naturally occurring conversation. It was developed by Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson in the 1960s–70s, emerging from ethnomethodology (Harold Garfinkel) and the microsociology of Erving Goffman.
Core Principles
- Naturally occurring data — CA works only with recordings of real interaction, never with invented examples or intuition-based data
- Sequential organisation — meaning is understood through its position in a sequence; what an utterance does depends on what came before and what comes after
- Emic perspective — the analyst examines how participants themselves orient to the organisation of talk, not how an external theory categorises it
- Order at all points — no detail of talk is random. Pauses, overlaps, word choice, and intonation are all potentially meaningful
- Unmotivated looking — the analyst begins without a hypothesis, letting patterns emerge from the data
Core Structures
CA has identified several fundamental organisations of conversation:
| Structure | Key reference | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Turn-taking | Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson (1974) | The system governing who speaks when; locally managed through transition-relevance places |
| Adjacency Pairs | Schegloff & Sacks (1973) | Two-part sequences where the first turn constrains the second |
| Preference organisation | Pomerantz (1984) | Preferred responses are structurally unmarked; dispreferred responses are marked with delay, hedging, accounts |
| Repair | Schegloff, Jefferson & Sacks (1977) | Mechanisms for dealing with problems of hearing, speaking, and understanding |
| Sequence organisation | Schegloff (2007) | How sequences are opened, expanded, and closed |
| Topic Management | Button & Casey (1984) | How topics are introduced, developed, shifted, and closed |
CA vs Discourse Analysis
CA and Discourse Analysis both study language beyond the sentence, but differ fundamentally:
| Conversation Analysis | Discourse Analysis | |
|---|---|---|
| Data | Naturally occurring talk only | Spoken and written texts |
| Approach | Bottom-up, data-driven | May be top-down, theory-driven |
| Categories | Emerge from participant orientation | May be analyst-imposed |
| Focus | Sequential organisation | Broader textual/social patterns |
| Transcription | Detailed (Jeffersonian system) | Varies |
CA and Language Teaching
CA has contributed to ELT in several ways:
- Interaction analysis — studying classroom talk reveals how teachers manage turns, repair, and sequence organisation differently from everyday conversation
- Materials design — CA research shows that textbook dialogues rarely reflect how real conversation is organised; authentic patterns of Turn-taking, Repair, and topic shift can inform more naturalistic materials
- Speaking assessment — CA-informed analysis of paired speaking tests examines how candidates co-construct interaction, not just individual performance
- Interactional competence — the concept that L2 speakers need to manage the machinery of conversation, not just produce accurate sentences
- Teacher talk analysis — CA tools reveal patterns in teacher questioning, feedback, and turn allocation that can inform professional development