ABSTRACT
Searle asserts, "all meaning and understanding goes on against a background which is not itself meant or understood, but which forms the boundary conditions on meaning and understanding, whether in conversations or in isolated utterances". The problem with a narrow focus on conversational features is addressed by Hester and Francis who divide ethnomethodology from the problematic offspring they call the "institutional talk program". Yet the authors can hear in the concern of conversation analysis to demonstrate relevance and procedural consequentiality the imperative of explicating the practical accomplishment of every-day social work descriptors of action as abuse, violence, oppression, sexism, racism, etc. Social workers operate as practical phenomenologists in that they appreciate that client accounts are unreliable indicators of what actually happened, and accordingly they bracket such accounts by treating them as claims which are unfolding, putative, tentative, and awaiting assessment.
