ABSTRACT
The third chapter introduces the method of sequential analysis applied in this book and explicates how the sequential methods of conversation analysis and objective hermeneutics can be fruitfully combined. The chapter argues that objective hermeneutics provides practical methodological advice as to how a sequential analysis is to proceed step-by-step in order to discover interesting phenomena, whereas conversation analysis starts from “noticings,” while providing little methodological advice on how to make them. Despite these practical differences, both methods are based on the premise that interactions proceed sequentially and are self-regulated by participants, a premise that can be traced to ethnomethodology. Both methods can complement each other because conversation analysis focuses on the organization of turn-taking as an emergent phenomenon, and objective hermeneutics focuses on the sequential constitution of meanings, while an investigation of planning in meetings requires both foci.
