Abstract
The inauguration of Conversation Analysis (CA) in the 1960s as a method rather than a field of research in and by itself has sparked interdisciplinary interest in language and social interaction, resulting in a plethora of linguistic and non-linguistic literature. Classic introductions written by CA’s most prominent instigators, Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson, have been commented and elaborated on extensively ever since, for example by Atkinson and Heritage (1984), Hutchby and Wooffitt (2008) and Wooffitt (2005). Further, scholars interested in CA can also choose from a wide range of practical guides and workbooks such as Ten Have’s well-received Doing Conversation Analysis (1999/2007).
The author of the reviewed volume, well aware of the merits of said predecessors, consciously refrains from writing another ‘hands-on’ introduction, as he doubts that these ‘can be improved upon’ (p. 20). Accordingly, he dispenses with exercise sections and other structuring elements such as boxes, overviews and graphics, thus fostering a rather minimalistic and unvaried layout. Instead, he aims at conveying ‘the flavor of the approach’ (p. 1) to (advanced) students and interested scholars of linguistics, sociology and anthropology. In this regard, Sidnell’s introduction finds its niche. In presenting the historic origins, methods and key notions of CA, he manages to put into words the spirit of conversation analysts by focusing first and foremost on the thorough discussion of a remarkable number of examples. Further backed up with quotes from Sacks et al., he puts special emphasis on illustrating vividly what kinds of questions make practitioners tick and proceed the way they do.
He does so in 13 chapters, which exhibit a classic structure, dealing with central aspects such as turn-taking, turn construction and sequences, repair mechanisms, openings and closings as well as more peripheral ones such as action and understanding, topic and context. The straightforward index of appropriate length allows readers to look up key notions and names. All chapters are written in an accessible style and come in manageable sizes, with short summaries pinpointing the most important insights. Although the chapters are even further subdivided, it is unfortunate that this is not mirrored in the extremely skeletal table of contents, which is therefore only partly suitable for inexperienced newcomers to CA. The same holds true for the reduced informative value of the chapter headings, which seldom consist of more than one word.
The best example for this minor flaw can be seen in the first chapter, ‘Talk’, which is meant as an introductory chapter to CA. Going in medias res with the first examples to be analysed, Sidnell illustrates right at the outset the interconnectedness of topics to be dealt with in chapters to come. After a very brief overview of major influences which laid the ground for CA, with Goffman’s work on interaction order and Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology leading the way, readers are presented with links to other approaches to human behaviour, such as sociology, anthropology and (Freudian) psychoanalysis. Despite the fact that key terms like turn, interaction or conversation are, at this point, either avoided completely or used in a non-reflective way, Sidnell nevertheless succeeds in exposing the gist of CA, that is, ‘close observation of the world’ (p. 17), in contrast to other approaches.
Subsequent chapters portray typical methodological principles in dealing with aspects of data acquisition and transcription techniques (Chapter 2), and tackle by now classic notions such as turn, turn-taking, turn construction unit (TCU) and transition-relevance place (TRP) (Chapter 3). In Chapter 4, ‘Action and Understanding’, which centres on adjacency pairs, conditional relevance and the next turn proof procedure, Austin’s (1975) and Searle’s (1969) theory of indirect speech acts is palpably present, though never explicitly mentioned. With Chapter 5 focusing mainly on preferred and dispreferred second pair parts and distinguishing different types of preference meticulously, the follow-up chapter is dedicated to ‘Sequence’, looking beyond first and second pair parts to more complex types of exchanges. Sidnell shows how these can be constructed by means of pre-, insert- and post-expansion. Chapter 7 introduces common repair mechanisms used to straighten out various understanding problems, thus distinguishing between self- or other-initiated kinds of self- or other-repair. While Chapter 8 explores the inner make-up of TCUs, Chapter 9 investigates ‘Stories’, which are exceptional insofar as they require ‘an extended turn-at-talk’ (p. 174).
Chapter 10 turns to ‘Openings and Closings’, asking for ways of beginning and ending an occasion of talk, focusing, however, on the limited context of telephone conversations. Chapter 11 sees a slight shift of perspective with the author abandoning purely structural considerations in favour of questions surrounding the topical organization of talk, including topic generating sequences and topic shift. Last but not least, Chapter 12 touches on ‘Context’ as a crucial factor in the creation of meaning, and differentiates between ‘types of interaction’ on the one hand and ‘aspects of the social world’ on the other, conceding, however, that they ‘are not entirely disjunct’ (p. 245f.). Finally, Chapter 13 offers a summary of the resources that Sidnell has developed throughout the book.
The centrepiece of each chapter is in the discussions of countless examples of authentic conversations, ranging from only a few lines to half a page or longer and borrowed from all kinds of settings, among them telephone calls, therapy sessions, reality TV shows, children’s discourse and trial situations. Thus guaranteeing topical diversity, the above-mentioned structural weaknesses, which might otherwise turn away students, can be counterbalanced. Due to the interrelatedness of underlying conversational mechanisms, the author is able to recycle some of his examples. In particular, novices, usually unversed in transcription conventions, profit considerably from this fact, as they recognize the content of examples, which they have made sense of before, immediately. To conclude, this introduction is a rich source of authentic examples and will serve interested students and scholars very well.