On developing a systematic methodology for analyzing categories in talk-in-interaction: Sequential categorization analysis

Cade Bushnell
Abstract

In this essay, I discuss one direction for developing a systematic, data-grounded analysis of categories in talk-in-interaction. This framework is developed around two main analytical foci. The first examines how the participants themselves work to publicly associate some set of normatively and morally accountable actions, rights, obligations, entitlements, attributes, etc. (i.e., category-bound predicates; see, e.g., Jayyusi 1984; Sacks 1972a, 1972b, 1979, 1992; Watson 1978) to the various turn- and sequence-generated categories built up by their actions-in-talk, and to explicit categorial formulations (i.e., labels, metonyms, descriptions, etc.) and their indexers. The second is concerned with how the participants recognizably and relevantly accomplish the sequential organization and turn by turn management of their categorization work. The notions of rhetorical (see Edwards 1991, 1997, 1998), conditional (Schegloff 1968, 1972), and retro-relevance (see Schegloff 2007a on ‘retro-sequences’), along with response priority (Bilmes 1993, 1995; see also Bilmes 1988) are introduced as sequential analytical tools for developing a systematic, data-based analysis of these practices.

Keywords:
Quick links
A browser-friendly version of this article is not yet available. View PDF
Antaki, C., and S. Widdicombe
(1998) Identity as an achievement and as a tool. In C. Antaki, and S.M. Widdicombe (eds.), Identities in Talk. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 1-14.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Bilmes, J
(1988) The concept of preference in conversation analysis. Language in Society 17: 161-181. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1993) Ethnomethodology, culture and implicature: Toward an empirical pragmatics. Pragmatics 3: 387-409.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1995) Negotiation and compromise. In A. Firth (ed.), The Discourse of Negotiation: Studies of Language in the Workplace. Oxford: Pergamon Press Oxford, pp. 61-81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bushnell, C
(2011) Interactionally constructing practice, community, shared resources, and identity: An ethnomethodological analysis of interactions at conversation analytic data sessions in Japan. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Honolulu, Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
(2014) Warai no tsuikyu: Ryugakusei mukeno rakugokai niokeru warai o fukumu sogokoi nitsuite. [In the pursuit of laughter: Laughter-in-interaction at a rakugo performance for foreign students]. Tsukuba Daigaku Ryugakusei Senta Nihongo Kyoiku Ronshu 29: 19-41.Google Scholar
Carlin, A.P
(2010) Reading “A tutorial on membership categorization” by Emanuel Schegloff. Journal of Pragmatics 42.1: 257-261. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carroll, D
(2004) Restarts in novice turn beginnings: Disfluencies or interactional achievements? In R. Gardner, and J. Wagner (eds.), Second Language Conversations. London: Continuum, pp. 201-220.Google Scholar
Day, D
(1998) Being ascribed, and resisting, membership of an ethnic group. In C. Antaki, and S.M. Widdicombe (eds.), Identities in Talk. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 151-170.Google Scholar
Edwards, D
(1998) The relevant thing about her: Social identity categories in use. In C. Antaki, and S. Widdicombe (eds.), Identities in talk. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 15-33.Google Scholar
(1997) Discourse and Cognition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1991) Categories are for talking: On the cognitive and discursive bases of categorization. Theory & Psychology 1.4: 515-542. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Francis, D., and C. Hart
(1997) Narrative intelligibility and membership categorization in a television commercial. In S. Hester, and P. Eglin (eds.), Culture in Action: Studies in Membership Categorization Analysis, Studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Washington, DC: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis & University Press of America, pp. 123-151.Google Scholar
Gafaranga, J
(2000) Medium repair vs. other-language repair: Telling the medium of a bilingual conversation. International Journal of Bilingualism 4.3: 327-350. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garfinkel, H
(1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, C
(1980) Restarts, pauses, and the achievement of a state of mutual gaze at turn-beginning. Sociological Inquiry 50.3-4: 272-302. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2007) Interactive footing. In E. Holt, and R. Clift (eds.), Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 16-46.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Have, P. ten
(2007) Doing Conversation Analysis (Second Edition.). Boston: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hayashi, M
(2004) Projection and grammar: Notes on the `action-projecting’ use of the distal demonstrative are in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics 36.8: 1337-1374. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Heritage, J
(1984) A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In J.M. Atkinson, and J. Heritage (eds.), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 299-345.  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2012) The epistemic engine: Sequence organization and territories of knowledge. Research on Language & Social Interaction 45.1: 30-52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, J., and G. Raymond
(2005) The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in talk-in-interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly 68: 15-38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hester, S., and P. Eglin
(1997) Culture in action: Studies in membership categorisation analysis. Washington, DC: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis & University Press of America.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Hosoda, Y
(2000) Other-repair in Japanese conversation between nonnative and native speakers. Issues in Applied Linguistics 11.1: 39-63.Google Scholar
(2006) Repair and relevance of differential language expertise in second language conversations. Applied Linguistics 27.1: 25-50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Housley, W., and R. Fitzgerald
(2002) The reconsidered model of membership categorisation. Qualitative Research 2: 59-74. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Housely, W., and R. Fitzgeral
(2009) Membership categorization, culture and norms in action. Discourse and Society 20: 345-362. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hutchby, I., and R. Wooffitt
(2008) Conversation Analysis (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Polity.Google Scholar
Jayyusi, L
(1984) Categorization and the Moral Order. Boston: Routledge and K. Paul.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G
(1972) Side sequences. In D.N. Sudnow (ed.), Studies in Social Interaction. New York, NY: Free Press, pp. 294-333.Google Scholar
(1974) Error correction as an interactional resource. Language in Society 3.2: 181-199. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1983) On exposed and embedded correction in conversation. In J.R.E. Lee, and G. Button (eds.), Talk and Social Organization. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 86-100.Google Scholar
(1986) Notes on “latency” in overlap onset. Human Studies 9.2/3: 153-183. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1989) Notes on a possible metric which provides for a “standard maximum” silence of approximately one second in conversation. In D. Roger, and P. Bull (eds.), Conversation: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
(2004) Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G.H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 13-31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kamio, A
(1997) Territory of Information. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Kasper, G
(2006) Beyond repair: Conversation analysis as an approach to SLA. AILA Review 19: 83-99. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Lepper, G
(2000) Categories in Text and Talk: A Practical Introduction to Categorization Analysis. London: Sage.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mori, J
(2004) Negotiating sequential boundaries and learning opportunities: A case from a Japanese language classroom. The Modern Language Journal 88.4: 536-550. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, H.T
(2008) Sequence organization as local and longitudinal achievement. Text & Talk 28.4: 501-528. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, H. t., and G. Kasper
(eds.) (2009) Talk-in-interaction: Multilingual perspectives. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center.Google Scholar
Ochs, E
(1993) Constructing social identity: A language socialization perspective. Research on Language & Social Interaction 26.3: 287. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1996) Linguistic resources for socializing humanity. In J. Gumperz, and S. Levinson (eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 407-438.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Omori, M
(2008) Constitution of interculturality in an English conversational exchange program. Paper presented at the 18th International Congress of Linguistics, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.
Onuki, T., and H. Matsuki
(2003) Hankoukoudou no kousei to seiin kategoriika jissen: Iwayuru ‘Ashikaga jiken’ ni okeru seishin kantei wo megutte. [The practice of membership categorization in constituting criminal action: A look at the psychological evaluation in the so-called “Ashikaga” case] Japanese Journal of Sociological Criminology 28: 68-81.Google Scholar
Paoletti, I
(1998) Handling ‘incoherence’ according to the speaker’s on-sight categorization. In C. Antaki, and S. Widdicombe (eds.), Identities in Talk. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 171-190.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Park, J
(2007) Co-construction of nonnative speaker identity in cross-cultural interaction. Applied Linguistics 28.3: 339-360. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Psathas, G
(1999) Studying the organization in action: Membership categorization and interaction analysis. Human Studies 22.2: 139-162. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raymond, G., and J. Heritage
(2006) The epistemics of social relations: Owning grandchildren. Language in Society 35.5: 677-705. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Richards, K
(2006) ‘Being the teacher’: Identity and classroom conversation. Applied Linguistics 27.1: 51-77. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, H
(1972a) An initial investigation of the usability of conversational data for doing sociology. In D. Sudnow (ed.), Studies in Social Interaction. New York: Free Press, pp. 31-74.Google Scholar
(1972b) On the analysability of stories by children. In J.J. Gumperz, and D.H. Hymes (eds.), Directions in Sociolinguistics; the Ethnography of Communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, pp. 325-345.  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1975) Everyone has to lie. In M. Sanchez, and B.G. Blount (eds.), Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use. New York: Academic Press, pp. 57-79.Google Scholar
(1979) Hotrodder: A revolutionary category. In G. Psathas (ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology. New York: Irvington Publishers, pp. 7-14.Google Scholar
(1992) Lectures on Conversation. (Vols. 1–2). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sacks, H., E.A. Schegloff, and G. Jefferson
(1974) A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50.4: 696-735. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E.A
(1968) Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist 70.6: 1075-1095. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1972) Notes on a conversational practice: Formulating place. In D. Sudnow (ed.), Studies in social interaction. New York: The Free Press, pp. 75-119.Google Scholar
(1979) The relevance of repair to syntax-for-conversation. In T. Givón (ed.), Discourse and Syntax. New York: Academic Press, pp. 261-286. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1980) Preliminaries to preliminaries: “Can I ask you a question?” Sociological Inquiry 50.3-4: 104-152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1987) Recycled turn beginnings: A precise repair mechanism in conversation’s turn-taking organisation. In Talk and Social Organisation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 70-85.Google Scholar
(1990) On the organization of sequences as a source of “coherence” in talk-in-interaction. In B. Doval (ed.), Conversational organization and its development. NJ: Ablex, pp. 51-77.Google Scholar
(1991) Conversation analysis and socially shared cognition. In L.B. Resnick, J.M. Levine, and S.D. Teasley (eds.), Perspectives on socially shared cognition. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, pp. 150-171. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1992) Repair after next turn: The last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in conversation. American Journal of Sociology 97.5: 1295-1345. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1996) Turn organization: One intersection of grammar and interaction. In Interaction and grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 52-133. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1997) Third turn repair. In G. Guy, C. Feagin, D. Schiffrin, and J. Baugh (eds.), Towards a Social Science of Language 2. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 261-286. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2000a) Overlapping talk and the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language in Society 29.1: 1-63. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2000b) When “others” initiate repair. Applied Linguistics 21.2: 205-243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2006) Interaction: The infrastructure for social institutions, the natural ecological niche for language, and the arena in which culture is enacted. In N. Enfield, and S. Levinson (eds.), Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition and Interaction. Oxford: Berg, pp. 70-96.Google Scholar
(2007a) Sequence Organization in Interaction: Volume 1: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2007b) A tutorial on membership categorization. Journal of Pragmatics 39.3: 462-482. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2007c) Categories in action: Person-reference and membership categorization. Discourse Studies 9: 433-461. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E.A., and H. Sacks
(1973) Opening up closings. Semiotica 8.4: 289-327. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Seedhouse, P
(2004) The Interactional Architecture of the Language Classroom: A Conversation Analysis Perspective. Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Stokoe, E
(2009) Doing actions with identity categories: Complaints and denials in neighbor disputes. Text & Talk 29.1: 75-97. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2012) Moving forward with membership categorization analysis: Methods for systematic analysis. Discourse Studies 14.3: 277-303. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, S
(2008) The cultural productions of the ESL student at Tradewinds High: Contingency, multidirectionality, and identity in L2 socialization. Applied Linguistics 29.4: 619-644. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tanaka, H
(1999a) Grammar and social interaction in Japanese and Anglo-American English: The display of context, social identity and social relation. Human Studies 22.2: 363-395. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1999b) Turn-taking in Japanese Conversation: A Study in Grammar and Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2000) The particle ne as a turn-management device in Japanese conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 32.8: 1135-1176. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Watson, R
(1978) Categorisation, authorisation and blame-negotiation in conversation. Sociology 12: 105-113. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1994) Catégories, séquentialité et ordre social: Un nouveau regard sur l’oeuvre de Sacks. In B. Fradin, L. Quére, and J. Widmer (eds.), L’Enquête Sur Les Catégories. Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, pp. 151-184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1997) Some general reflections on ‘categorization’ and ‘sequence’ in the analysis of conversation. In S. Hester, and P. Eglin (eds.), Culture in action: Studies in membership categorization analysis. Washington, DC: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis & University Press of America, pp. 49-76.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Wong, J
(2000) Delayed next turn repair initiation in native/non-native speaker English conversation. Applied Linguistics 21.2: 244-267. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, D.H
(1998) Identity, context and interaction. In Identities in talk. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 87-106.Google Scholar