Introduction 

In this course we will consider the way in which talk and interaction are organized in focused social encounters. We will begin by reviewing some basic findings concerning the organization of talk. This includes a consideration of turn-taking in conversation and the basic features of sequences of conversational action. We will finish off this introduction by discussing data collection, ethnographic fieldwork and the complexities of recording naturally occurring interaction. During this part of the course students will be expected to come to class prepared to discuss the readings and apply them to exercises set in class. 

In February we move from an analysis of talk to the problem of social interaction more generally. Each week is organized around a central issue or analytic concept. In February we also move to a seminar format. We will divide into groups of 2 or 3 and each group will be responsible for leading the seminar for one week. For your seminar, I would like you to prepare a handout which summarizes as succinctly as possible the main points of each article. In your handout you should also cite or reproduce the evidence the authors use to make their claims. In your presentation, however, you should avoid summarizing the readings (assume that everybody has read them). Rather you should try to apply the readings to some data you have collected. If you have not yet collected the data for your project you could use some (fairly) naturally occurring talk from TV. Jerry Springer, Court TV and other "talk-prominent" shows are potential sources of data here. You might also use audio or video data collected for another course (i.e. Ant 141 etc.). 

  
Grading 

Your grade will be based on the following: 

Participation in class discussion             10% 
Three one page response papers           3x5%= 15% 
One seminar                                         25% 
One final project                                   50% 
 

Participation 

I expect you to keep up with the readings in this course. Because there are no tests, you should make an effort to demonstrate your understanding of the readings on a week by week basis in class discussion. 
 

Three one or two page response papers 

For three of the weeks you are required to write a very short response to the readings. This could include a commentary on parts that you found particularly interesting, problematic or confusing. You could also make comparisons to other data you have encountered or other cultural contexts with which you are familiar. 

 
Seminar 

As I have noted above, for the seminar I expect you to engage with the readings. This means preparing a handout for all the people in the class (make 16 copies). Here you should give a concise outline of the readings. Do not present this in class however. Use the readings to construct a seminar presentation which draws on some data you have collected. For this you will need to provide a detailed transcription of the data that you are using. Be sure to let me know what equipment you will need for your presentation. It is also important that you edit and prepare the data that you present. Don’t play a half hour of audio or video tape to talk about thirty seconds!!. For this you can draw on the data that you have collected for you project if you want. 
 

Final project 

This is also a group project. For this you will be able to use one of four UCLA camcorders. We only have these for a limited time so please collect you data early. You should think carefully about what you are going to do for the project. For this project, I would prefer if you collected data which is pretty much naturally occurring. Don’t invite people over to record them. It is better to seek out a friend or family member who is not in the class and record them in a naturally occurring situation. Dinners tend to make very good data. Study sessions, house meetings, family picnics also work well. All of these events involve a lot of talk and, more importantly, talk that is not organized by an independent set of rules. For this project I would prefer if you did not use data drawn from highly structured events such as a classroom, courtroom, doctor’s interview, or a job interview etc.. In these cases talk is at least partially organized by a conscious set of rules. We will discuss these issues in more detail in the class. For the project however I want you to try and collect data which is not shaped by a conscious set of independent rules. 

We will discuss some of the technicalities of collecting data in class. Here I want to note a few very important points: 

1. The camera should not move while you are recording. At least 15 minutes before you think the interaction will start, set up your camera on its tripod and turn it on. You should place the camera so you will capture as much as possible of the relevant action. Record as much as is possible. This could mean changing tapes at some point. Don’t turn off the camera early. 

2. Try to minimize your own involvement in the interaction. Be subtle and unobtrusive. You will be busy enough managing the recording, you will not be able to participate fully in the activity being recorded. This might be facilitated if the people you are recording do not know you. If they do know you they may want to draw you into the interaction. So if your group is going to make a recording of one of the group members’ family, it might be best to send someone else to do the recording (i.e. another group member). 

3. Make a separate audio record. This is very important. The camera will be placed so as to capture up all the physical action. As such, the placement of the camera may not allow you to pick up the audio. Place a tape recorder (not a microcassette recorder!!!) in a spot where it will pick up the talk. Use a microphone. 

Once you have collected the data, the first thing to do is to make copies of the audio and the video and give the originals to me. This is important for two reasons. First, it is insurance for you. If your tape is damaged we can make another copy from the original. Second, I will use the tape in evaluating your project. Please also give me copies of the signed consent forms. 
  SCHEDULE OF TOPICS AND READINGS

JANUARY 12/14 

Introduction: Talk as situated activity 

It is common to think of language as purely reflective of a world outside it. Linguists, philosophers and lay people often give voice to this folk view of language. This week we will discuss the way in which talk is of the world rather than just a reflection or representation of it. We will discuss language and talk as a mode of action, as way of doing. 

1. Goodwin, M.H. (1990) ‘Talk as social action." chapter 1 of He-Said, She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp 1-10. 

2. Heritage, John and Max Atkinson (1984) "Introduction." In The Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Atkinson and Heritage eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp 1-15. 

3. Sacks, H. (1984) "Notes on Methodology." In The Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Atkinson and Heritage eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp 21-28. 

JANUARY 19/21 

The shape of a turn and its response -- part I 

This week we will review some the basic findings of Conversation Analysis (CA) using excerpts from Levinson’s excellent overview as a springboard. We begin by reviewing the mechanics of turn-taking in conversation. We will discuss two important questions with regard to the Sacks et. al (1974) model. First, what kind of context did the authors have in mind when they spoke of "conversation." What are the underlying assumptions regarding human nature/culture. What contexts do or do not fit this model? Secondly, does the model have cross-cultural applicability. You will be asked to apply the model to a transcript of Guyanese Creole. We then move to a discussion of action and sequencing in conversation concluding with a consideration of the notion of preference. 

1. Levinson, S (1983) "Conversational Structure." Chapter 6 of Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp 296-344 

JANUARY 26/28 

The shape of a turn and its response -- part II 

We pick up the discussion of action and sequencing in conversation here. Having outlined some general properties of talk as social action, we now look at the way in which a turn is formatted. The two readings look at this question of alternative formatting of a turn from rather different perspectives. 

1. Goodwin, M.H. (1990) "Research on directives," and "‘Man don’t come down in here where I am’ Directive use in a boy’s task activity." chapters 4 & 5 of He-Said, She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 65-109. 

2. Goodwin, C (1979) "The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation." In G. Psathas ed. Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology. New York: Irvington Publishers. pp. 97-121. 
 

FEB 2/4 

Fieldwork and transcription 

In preparation for your data collection we will discuss fieldwork this week. We will begin by considering some of the technicalities of recording naturally occurring data and the move to consider the social, interactional and ethical complexities of this kind of research. We conclude with consideration of the value of ethnographic research. What kinds of things can we do with ethnographic information? Why is it important? We will also review some of the technicalities of transcription through an in-class exercise. 

1. Goodwin, M.H. (1990) "Fieldwork," and "The Maple Street children’s groups and the their neighborhood." chapters 2 & 3 of He-Said, She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 18-53. 

2. Goodwin, C. (1993) "Recording human interaction in natural settings." Pragmatics 3(2): 181- 209 

3. Duranti, A. (1997) "Ethnographic methods," "Transcription: from writing to digitized images," "Appendix: practical tips on recording interaction," chapters 4&5 and Appendix of Linguistic Anthropology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

 
FEBRUARY 9/11 - (seminars begin) 

Activities 

This week we begin the seminars by looking at the notion of activity. It has been suggested that human social relationships, behavior, identity and thinking are organized through specific kinds of activity. 

1. Duranti, A. (1997) "Units of Participation," chapters 8 of Linguistic Anthropology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

2. Goodwin, C and M.H. Goodwin, (1992) "Context Activity and Participation," In P. Auer and A di Luzio eds. The Contextualization of Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 

3. Duranti (1997) "Polyphonic discourse: Overlapping in Samoan Ceremonial Greetings." Text 17(3): 349-381. 

 
FEBRUARY 18 (class cancelled 16) 

Participation 

Being a participant to talk means a lot more than being "present." This weeks readings look at the way in which participation in an event of speaking is always part of complex set of negotiations with one’s interlocutors. 

1. Goodwin, .M.H. (1996) "Byplay: Negotiating evaluation in story telling." in G. Guy et. al. eds. Towards a Social Science of Language: Papers in honor of William Labov. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 

2. Goffman, E. (1981) "Footing" In Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 
 

FEBRUARY 23/25 

Frames 

If an ethnologist from Mars were to watch human behavior, we might look something like an ant farm. The Martian ethnologist would see little swarms of people around certain focused activities with each human individual participating in that activity in a particular way (i.e. the topic of the last two weeks). The ethnologist might write up a nice report for its university on the basis of its observations. But its colleagues might ask "how are these activities sustained? What do the participants to an interaction think they are doing? How do they define and talk about their own activity? How does this awareness and talk about activity affect the way in which those activities get accomplished?" It is this set of questions that has lead me to include a section on frames in the course. By a frame I mean a kind of activity that is real for the participants to an interaction. Frames introduce an important meta-level to our analysis. 

1. Goffman, E. (1972) "Breaking Frame" (selections) In Frame Analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. New York: Harper Row. 

2. Sidnell, Jack (1997) "Gyaf: How men construct status and authority in Indo-Guyanese conversation." paper presented at CLIC (Center for Language, Interaction and Culture) UCLA, Dec. 5th, 1997. (To be distributed) 

3. Goodwin, M.H. (1996) "Shifting Frame." D. Slobin et. al. eds., Social interaction, social context, and language: Essays in honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp. Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 

MARCH 2/4 

Gesture 

Human interaction is not accomplished by words alone. Rather it is a place where a number of resources get coordinated and deployed. Gesture is a resource for conversation, but one that is not very well understood. In fact, as C. Goodwin points out in the reading for this week, researchers have not even reached definitive conclusions about how gesture should be studied. 

1. Goodwin, C. (1986) "Gestures as a resource for the organization of mutual orientation." Semiotica, 62 (1/2): 29-49. 

2. Goodwin, M.H. (1980) "Processes of mutual monitoring implicated in the production of description sequences." Sociological Inquiry 50: 303-317. 

3. Goodwin and Goodwin (1987) "Concurrent operations on talk: Notes on the interactive organization of assessments." IPrA Papers in Pragmatics 1 (1): 1-54. 

 
MARCH 9/11 

Body orientations 

Last week we looked at gesture. This week we broaden the topic to look at corporeality and the body in more general terms. Movement and body orientation are also resources for participants to talk-in-interaction. We find that talk and body are often finely coordinated to achieve interactional effects. 

1. Sidnell, Jack (nd) "Elicitations as a resource for the organization of social and spatial location in an Indo-Guyanese village." to appear in Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 

2.Hanks, William (1996) "Communicative practices in the corporeal field." Chapter 11 of Language and Communicative Practices. Boulder: Westview Press. 

3. Yerian, Keli (1997) "Self-Space: The Bodily Negotiation of Representation and Reality in Women’s Self-Defense Courses." presented at the 96th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.. 

 
MARCH 16/18 

Analyzing single episodes 

For this, the last week of class, we will turn our attention to single episodes of interaction and attempt to produce as an exhaustive analysis as possible of a short segment by drawing on the resources we have amassed over the course of the quarter. 

1. Goodwin, C. and M.H. Goodwin (1990) "Interstitial Argument." In A. Grimshaw ed. Conflict Talk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

2. Schegloff, E. (1987) "Analyzing Single Episodes of Interaction: An exercise in Conversation analysis." Social Psychological Quarterly, 50 (2), 101-114. 
3. Sidnell, J (1997) "Cussing up and Talking Hard: Affective displays of ‘passion’ as challenges to a gendered territoriality," presented at the 96th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.. 
 

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