METHODOLOGY

Conversation Analysis (CA)

Key figures: Harvey Sacks, John Heritage, Paul Drew

Conversation Analysis (CA) takes a microanalytic view. Inspired by ethnomethology, it is an approach that focuses on language-in-use in ordinary local (immediate vis-á-vis) communicative interactions. The primary goal for conversation analysts is, correspondingly, to reveal the regularity and orderliness in local talk-in-interaction (Drew & Heritage, 1992). Given this research goal, conversation analysis considers only the immediate context as relevant. This immediate context, however, is not considered to be a pre-existing structure i.e. ‘institutionally’, but one that is created by and within the interaction (cf. “talk-intrinsic definition of context”) (Koester, 2006). As it is in this immediate context that regularities and orders are made, they are, too, constructed in the interaction, but not a priori structures imposed on the interlocutors. The process of their construction is done through the negotiation of turn-taking between interlocutors. Such theoretical assumptions take that interlocutors’ negotiation creates regularities and orders, which creates the context, which in turn affects the negotiation between interlocutors. This suggests a reflexive process in the immediate interaction that creates the “reality” (Sacks et al., 1974).

Taking this constructionist approach towards interactions, conversation analysts take a data-led approach and to hold a neutral and objective stance in their analysis (Baxter, 2010). Presupposed social values and philosophical assumptions are regarded as distractions and irrelevant. In-context data, such as video, recording, and transcript are thus the major data types for conversation analysts. To encompass as much facts as possible, transcription is required to be done with in-depth detail, capturing verbal activities, non-verbal activities, and contextual information within the interaction. To make sure that the analysis is reflecting facts, but not the analysts’ mere interpretation, the analysis is to be strictly bound to the explicit evidences in the transcript that is formal evidence available. In other words, researchers can only address what the transcribed data tells them. In lay terms, if you don’t see it explicitly in your data, you don’t talk about it.

In short, context in CA is local, immediate and dynamic, and that studies done with a CA approach ideally takes the interlocutors’ perspective, as reflecting the facts in the interaction. These serve the objective to reveal the regularities and orders of and in interactions. In such, data is considered to be fact-reflecting, and has to be dealt with strict accordance. This aim for regularities and orders is largely shared by other methodologies, with difference in scope and perspective.

References

Baxter, J. (2010). 'Discourse-Analytic Approaches to Text and Talk', in L. Litosseliti
          (ed.) Research Methods in Linguistics. London, New York: Bloomsbury. 117-
          137.

Drew, P., Heritage, J. (1992) 'Analysing Talk at Work: An Introduction', in P. Drew, J. Heritage Talk at Work Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge:
          Cambridge University Press. 2-65.

Koester, A. (2006). Investigating Workplace Discourse. Abingdon: Routledge.

Sacks, H., Schegloff, E.A., Jefferson, G. (1974) 'A simplest systematics for the
          organization of turn-taking for conversation', Language 50 (4): 696-735.

Ethnography of Communication (EOC)

Key figures: Dell Hymes, Gerry Philipsen, Ben Rampton

Research on workplace communication often involves conducting ethnographic work in a particular workplace to elicit data from participant observation. Research using ethnography of communication is interested in patterns used in a particular speech community. Ethnographers may pay attention to the rules of speaking, which are the ways in which speakers associate particular modes of speaking, topics or message forms, with particular setting and activities” (Hymes, 1972, p.36). Hymes (1972) suggests other concepts which may be useful in investigating workplace interaction, these include speech event, speech act and ways of speaking.

Dell Hymes, the key figure in ethnography of communication, puts forward the SPEAKING model, which is a mnemonic framework developed to facilitate the ethnographer. SPEAKING model allows ethnographer to approach their target research participants by asking questions related to Setting, Participants, Ends, Act sequence, Key, Instrumentalities, Norms and Genres. Saville-Troike (2003, p.1) describes ethnography of communication as “a new synthesizing discipline which focuses on the patterning of communicative behavior as it constitutes one of the systems of culture, as it functions within the holistic context of culture, and as it relates to patterns in other component systems.” The challenge for ethnographers is to maintain objectivity and avoid biases from presumptions arisen from our own cultures.

References

Hymes, D. (1972). 'Models of the Interaction of Language and Social Life', in J. Gumperz, D. Hymes Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of
           Communication, pp. 35-71. London: Blackwell.

Saville-Troike, M. (2003). The Ethnography of Communication: An Introduction,
           London: Blackwell.

Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS)

Key figure: John Gumperz, Deborah Tannen, Deborah Schiffrin

Inspired by ethnography and CA, John Gumperz developed interactional sociolinguistics (Gumperz & Levinson, 1996). Though interactional sociolinguists, as Conversational Analysts do, aim at discovering the regularities and order in communication, the two approaches have difference layer of focus. This Gumperz (1999, as in Stubbe et al., 2003, p.358) considers interactional sociolinguistics as “an approach to discourse analysis which attempts to ‘bridge the gap’ between ‘top-down’ theoretical approaches which privilege ‘macro-societal conditions’ in accounting for communicative practices, and those, such as CA which provide a ‘bottom-up’ social constructivist account.” In other words, while sharing the feature of taking a micro-analytic approach, compared to CA’s sole focus on the immediate context, Interactional Sociolinguistics considers the greater sociocultural context. Interactional Sociolinguistics is thus not bound to the study of local immediate interactions, and could account for “socially shared” features of communication within a community.

This leads to the constitution of contextualization cues, one of the key concepts used in Interactional Sociolinguistics. Contextualization cues, as defined by Gumperz (1996), are “verbal and non-verbal metalinguistic signs, [which may be prosodic or/and paralinguistic, that by which interlocutors use to indicate the meaning of their utterances and] to retrieve the context-bound presuppositions in terms of which component messages are interpreted.” (p.379) In other words, contextualization cues are employed by speakers to indicate certain meaning and are to be interpreted by hearers. Since the process of producing and interpreting contextualization cues is automatic, there are no superficially observable traces of them that the researcher could rely on (Gumperz & Levinson, 1996). In such, contextualization cues have to be analyzed through indirect means i.e. researchers have to infer from the data, with regard to the cultural context, what are the contextualization cues in the interaction.

Having such need for inference, interactional sociolinguists approach their data differently compared to conversation analysts. While conversation analysts are bound by what can be explicitly seen in their data, interactional sociolinguists are to read from and beyond the data, drawing on their knowledge of the cultural context. However, as it relies on the analytical tools of conversational analysis, transcription in interactional sociolinguistics requires a similar level of detail. The analysis is also based on the structure of the interaction (see examples in Gumperz & Levinson, 1996, p.381-401).

Drawing from the above, interactional sociolinguistics extends the notion of context from that immediately emerges from the local interaction to that is derived from established sociocultural presuppositions. In such, regularities exist “from individual speech acts to sets of turns and responses, to entire social encounters.” (Gumperz & Levinson, 1996, p. 379) These regularities are to be discovered by the researcher through inference, rather than merely through reading the transcripts. This begins an approach of obtaining a participant perspective through the consideration of evidence beyond mere linguistic data.

References

Gordon, C. (2011). 'Gumperz and Interactional Sociolinguistics', in R. Wodak, B. Johnstone, P. Kerswill The SAGE Handbook of Sociolinguistics, pp. 67-85.
           London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Gumperz, J.J., & Levinson, S.C. (1996). Rethinking linguistic relativity. New York:
           Cambridge University Press.

Stubbe, M., Lane, C., Hilder, J., Vine, E., Vine, B., Marra, M., Holmes, J. &
           Weatherall, A. (2003). 'Multiple Discourse Analyses of a                
           Workplace Interaction', Discourse Studies, 5(3): 351-388.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

Key Figures: Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, Teun A. van Dijk

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), contrary to Conversation Analysis, takes a macro-analytical view. Compared to EOC and IS, CDA does not seek to take an insider view, but to identity social problem from the outside. It has a Marxist root, which gives its primary concern in social and ideological struggle in macro-social communication. CDA aims at not just identifying social problems, but critically investigating communicative activities, and explaining the power at play behind these problems. This presupposes the view that communication is always done to serve dominating ends and thus participants are always on unequal grounds. Acknowledging cases of power and dominance in society are often not merely linguistic, CDA examines social problems at the level above and beyond mere language use, and is concerned with the ideological assumptions and the driving force behind these social issues (van Dijk, 2015). The research in CDA is expected to interpret and explain the power abuse in society. This differs from the objective for EOC and IS. It is “discourse study with an attitude.” (van Dijk, 2015, 466) Having the researchers’ attitude towards social problems at its core, CDA departs from the “value-free” science that the other methodologies incline towards.

The notion of context of CDA is the widest among the five methodologies introduced in this section. Its study of power, dominance, and inequality is not confined to a certain community, but concerns that between communities. This gives CDA a macro-level perspective on the one hand. On the other hand, critical discourse analysts rely on micro-level resources such as language use, discourse, verbal interaction, and communication as data. The micro-level is regarded as a product of the macrosocial structure and, at the same time, a factor that reinforces the structure. The macro-level is regarded as the factor affording power in micro-level interactions, and the organization sustained by the interactions. In other words, the micro-level and the macro-level are reflexively correlated to each other.

In operation, CDA is not itself a formalized analytical practice. It is the critical perspective that is at core of this approach. Among the topics of interest in CDA, the study on professional and institutional power is most related to our interest in workplace and professional communication. This includes, for instance, bureaucratic discourse (Sarangi and Slembrouck 1996), corporate and organizational discourse (Grant et al. 2004), and educational discourse (Rogers 2003). While perceiving that power and dominance arise from text and talk, CDA draws upon linguistic data for evidencing social problems in concern. The categories for analysis, however, are drawn from social theory and philosophy, but not those that the interlocutors themselves orient to (Koester, 2006). In other words, the categories are assumed, but not known from observing the specific interactions. This positions CDA research in giving a researcher perspective (top-down perspective), in contrary to the other methodologies that, at core, aims at giving a participant perspective.

CDA is thus an approach that aims at revealing and explaining power inequality and domination in society. It does so by examining the linkage between micro-level linguistic interactions and macro-level socio-political structures that affords and sustains the abuse of power. This, in turn, gives CDA researches a top-down orientation.

References

Grand, D., Hardy, C., Oswick, C., Putnam, L. (eds.) (2004) The Sage Handbook
           of Organizational Discourse. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Koester, A. (2006). Investigating Workplace Discourse. Abingdon: Routledge.

Rogers, R. (ed.) (2003) An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in
           Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Sarangi, S. and Slembrouck, S. (1996) Language, Bureaucracy, and Social
           Control. London and New York: Longman.

van Dijk, T.A. (2015) “Critical Discourse Analysis” In D. Tannen, H.E. Hamilton, D.
           Schiffrin (ed.) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. The Atrium: Blackwell.
           466-485.