Sociological Analysis of a Naturally Occuring Conversation Between Two People

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Recommended: The importance of conversation analysis

In this assignment, I will be conducting a Sociological analysis of a piece of naturally occurring interaction between two people. I will complete this by doing a transcription the piece of interaction using the work of Harvey Sacks and his work on conversation analysis. For this the piece of interaction I have used is that off a radio station. This involves George Galloway hosting his programme on Talk Sport and having a debate with a male who phones into the show. For this piece of interaction I will highlight many key theories that are covered in conversation analysis, such as turn taking, arguing, teasing and clashes of characters within the discourse. I will develop these aspects within this assignment and implementing this into the chosen discourse interaction. Conversation analysis was developed as a systematic study of discourse. This was established by the American pioneers in this sector, Harvey Sacks, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. This was further labeled as the 'systematic analysis of the talk produced in everyday situations of human interaction: talk-in-interaction' (Hutchby and Wooffitt, 1998: 13). The study of conversational analysis is an approach to understand how individuals create and understand conversations, looking into investigating the elements of turn-taking, overlapping, pauses within a piece of discourse. The early development of conversational analysis has been deep rooted within sociology, as Harvey Sacks was mainly concerned with creating a way that 'sociology could become a naturalistic, observational science” (Hutchby and Wooffitt, 1998: 25).' The critical analysist's within Conversational analysis are concerned with any discourse, being informal or formal. The most important aspect of... ... middle of paper ... ...emely useful method and can understand the accolades received and it's wide spread use. References Scheufele, Dietram A. 1999. "Framing as a Theory of Media Effects." Journal of Communication 49 (4): 103-22. Hutchby, I. Woofit, R. (2008). Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press Liddicoat, A.J. (2007). An Introduction to Conversation Analysis. London: Continuum International Publishings. Atkinson, J. Maxwell and Heritage, John (eds) (1984). Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drew, P. (1984). Speakers' reportings in invitation sequences. In J.M. Atkinson & J.C. Heritage (eds). Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 129-151). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Jefferson, Gail (1987) Talk and social organization (pp. 86-100) Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

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