Abstract
Reading Charles Goodwin’s magnum opus was fully engrossing. From the first chapter to the last, the details drew me in as a reader. Furthermore, the illustrations and photographs accompanying the transcribed conversation and gestural data provided a lens through which one could easily imagine being present within the interactions described. In this review, I want to make two main points. One relates to the way that Goodwin’s work helps us reconceptualize the study of what humans do together. The second point stems from the first and offers Goodwin’s work as a means for redesigning undergraduate and graduate curricula.
Over the years, I have most appreciated research that is directed toward how people get things done together. Within the field of communication studies, Shotter’s concept of “joint-action” comes to mind, yet we could point to Goffman’s and Garfinkel’s focus on everyday actions in sociology, or applied work conducted by researchers at Xerox Park, like John Seely Brown (founding editor of the series in which the current book appears) and Lucy Suchman, who focus on situated actions.
Goodwin begins his volume by differentiating his use of the term co-operative from cooperation, noting that just because utterances are collaboratively built does not mean that individual speakers are working toward the same ends. This is similar to his reason for not using the term “joint action.” Although interlocutors may not be working toward similar goals, they nevertheless can build something by interacting, even though such outcome may not be the intention of any one individual (see p. 6). In order to identify co-operation, researchers conduct sequential analyses, examining the way people perform an operation with one another’s utterances. Importantly, Goodwin says this is done “in material ways.” Bringing in the material as part and parcel of interaction analysis represents the cutting edge of current work and is also being explored by researchers, such as Francois Cooren, in organizational and interpersonal realms. Goodwin’s text provides elegant examples of how two or more speakers use each other’s words as resources to transform single or individual utterances and clearly illustrates how interactants create something together that is not achievable in isolation. One such example involves a team of archeologists examining dirt samples through the use of a Munsell chart, differentiating the color to determine the type of structure that was previously located on an historic site.
I believe Goodwin’s work could transform social psychology and other fields. Goodwin asserts, What is being focused on are not psychological states that make human cooperation possible, but instead public social practices that human beings pervasively use to construct in concert with each other the actions that make possible, and sustain, their activities and communities. (p. 7)
Furthermore, he contrasts his project with that of biological anthropologists—who he claims do share similar concerns. He asserts that co-operative action is a project about transformation, adaptation, and change. A significant part of the definition of co-operation is that we operate materially on others and change what occurred before in material ways. This approach forces us to recognize that we each contribute something to the outcome of interactions, but unlike Duranti’s (2015) recent work on speech acts, it avoids the necessity of delving into individual intentions. Refocusing the study of the ways people get things done should prompt the shedding of research that starts and stops at the level of individuals and minds.
Of note, Goodwin’s claims do not begin with a speech community as Hymes (1974) offered as a starting place for sociolinguists decades ago. Rather than a community who shares at least one way of speaking, Goodwin says that this process [of co-operative action] also requires the constitution of communities who have mastered the conventions required to render particular symbols intelligible. The forms of co-operative action that sit at the heart of symbols, thus, also create a host of specific communities and cultures differentiated from others who do not share their conventions. (p. 11)
Norms come into play in order for participants to recognize what they make together; if interactants do not share the meaning of symbols, then what they make together may be unintelligible. Perhaps this outcome is illustrated best by the inclusion of Marjorie Harness Goodwin’s (1995) data from hopscotch players, who conduct play that includes disagreements about the way they are doing it. Rules for going on in any realm may be similarly contested.
In sum, if we take this work seriously when we study human action, we would be well-served by taking a close look at all of the features that make co-operative action possible, including prosody and other vocalizations, movement and embodied action, as well as the language used.
As a foundational text for graduate education, Co-Operative Action could radically alter the distinctions that have created very separate disciplines such as social psychology, anthropology, sociology, and communication. In fact, by taking the premises herein as a starting place, we could actually rethink undergraduate education as well. We live in a time when administrators (such as myself) are reconsidering disciplinary divides. This text offers a possible unifying solution. Goodwin’s premise of co-operative action suggests that foundationally we could teach students to recognize and achieve co-operative action. If successful, faculty using this text could provide students with a knowledge and skill-based “outcome” that is recognizably important in most professional and daily realms beyond the academy. Indeed, Goodwin’s bases of co-operative action actually lend themselves to the type of learning outcomes approach now being mandated by regional higher education accrediting bodies. This project extends beyond language to describe how we produce meaning with one another through many other communicative actions, such as prosody and gesture to show emotion. Goodwin asks us to consider the case of Chil and his ability to communicate, despite his aphasia. By reconceptualizing abilities, this example moves us away from the focus on what one is unable to do by focusing on disabilities. Overall, this extended example illustrates how greatly expanded one individual’s communicative repertoire is when considered in light of the participation of others during any given interaction. Consequently, shifting from the minor and relegated realm of nonverbal communication to a focus on co-operative action could become the standard basis of the study of communication practices within social sciences graduate education.
Having an audio-visual component to the book would greatly enhance the ability of any instructor who wished to use this text in a course. However, by Goodwin’s example, it is likely that one could pursue empirical class projects with other data at hand, such as the wealth of video footage posted to social media sites or YouTube. This type of analysis seems to lend itself to involving a community of scholars to fully utilize this way of seeing and elaborating the material, embodied and linguistic resources present within any given interaction. As such, it is well-suited to a classroom environment. Clearly Goodwin was working with the data cited in the book for decades, and his insights demonstrate careful and nuanced analysis from multiple angles and in the presence of colleagues representing a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
This is a deeply personal book that integrates Charles Goodwin’s life, by including his wife and her research, as well as his parents, sister, and family friends. This is not done through autobiographic or autoethnographic description of his work, but rather by providing detailed analyses conducted over time within a variety of contexts. Goodwin provides a lesson to young scholars: Research and life need not be conducted separately; interweaving one’s work with one’s life is possible. By his example, Goodwin demonstrates the way co-operative action is played out. This is an extraordinary legacy he has left us.