ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of Conversation Analysis (CA), another major paradigm for analysing talk-in-interaction. Unlike Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), CA argues that interaction is best studied at the micro-level, that is, by analysing the smallest details of talk without paying too much attention to the institutional context in which the interaction takes place. CA in its ‘pure’ version adheres to the principle that analysts should not use information that has not been made relevant by the speakers themselves. CA research has focused on how routine institutionalized speaking practices enable and constrain programme participants in their tasks and objectives. The chapter focuses on another BBC Newsnight interview involving the same presenter, Jeremy Paxman. This is a video-linked interchange with George Galloway just after his election victory in May 2005 over Labour’s Oona King in the London borough of Bethnal Green and Bow.
