ABSTRACT

Conversation analysis (henceforth, CA) is a methodology that originated from a group of American scholars working principally in sociology, namely Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson (see also the early works of Anita Pomerantz and Gene Lerner). Contrary to the name, CA does more than investigate conversations. CA’s object of study is talk and interaction,1 and conversations are one of many foci that are examined (e.g. membership categories; see Schegloff 2007a). Broadly speaking, conversation analysts also describe and analyse social actions through talk-in-interaction (e.g. institutional practices; see Antaki 2011), and are equally concerned with understanding talk in its own right (cf. Schegloff 2007b). Although CA originated from sociology, the methodology is now adopted in studies that belong to a number of different disciplines, including English studies.