Social Construction Of Talk-in-interaction: Theoretical And Methodological Research Of Ethnomethodology-Conversation Analysis

Conversation is a primordial activity in social life. It is the important medium andmeans through which social members indulge in social activities、establish and maintaindirect social relationships、affirm or deny individual’s social identities and transmit、renew and modify individual’s cultural symbols. Through interactive conversation,social members share meanings、reach mutual understanding and continuity of behaviorso as to realize social harmony. Therefore, social scientists including anthropologists、sociologists、linguists and psychologists all treat the study of face-to-face interaction asan important strategic field for the understanding of human being’s social behavior. Theissues like the organizational sequence in participants’ interactions、the methods the twosides employ to reach mutual understanding and the functions that interactions have forconstructing social structure on bigger scales have all become kernel research topics.Founded in the1960s by the three sociologists of Sacks、Schegloff and Jefferson,Conversation Analysis(CA) is dedicated to finding out the underlying rules、proceduresand conventions beneath orderly and naturally-occurring interactions and theinterrelationships in between interactions and bigger social structures. CA believes thatinteraction is not to reflect social reality passively, but to construct social reality activelyand language itself is kind of social reality which is directly involved in social affairsand social structure. This microscopic perspective represents the standard approach inthe “qualitative revolution” in modern sociological research and in a certain degreerevolutionizes sociological way of thinking.CA has flourished in research achievement within half a century’s development. Itsmulti-disciplinary feature sets great standard for researchers to interpret theconnotations of its theorizing and methodology. At home, the introductions andcomment to CA are mainly carried out in the field of linguistics and few are thediscussions on the sociological foundations of CA and the interrelationship in betweenconversation and social structures. The present thesis is to do an academic summary andstandard introduction to the theoretical foundations、basic theoretical constructions、 applications and methodology of CA so as to avoid misinterpretation and set solid basisfor further academic work. According to this research target, the research adopts themethod of documentary interpretation supplemented by logic argumentation and casedescription so as to systematically analyze the development trend of CA、elaborate itstheoretical foundations and key findings、summarize its methodology and analyze itsapplications. The major research technologies include content analysis、interview、consultation and so on.First and foremost, the present research attempts to elaborate on the origin of CA ondiscipline and theory, which includes the concrete analysis of the inspiration andinfluences from the philosophical foundation of CA—constructiontivism and ordinarylanguage philosophy、the elaboration of the sociological foundation of CA including theinteractive order theory of Goffman and the interrelationship in between Garfinkel’sethnomethodology and CA and the turn-by-turn illustration of the multi-disciplinaryinfluences on CA, especially on Sacks himself including those from ethnography、linguistics and so on. The origin and development of CA and the representatives andtheir contributions at each stage are systematically analyzed in order to summarize thecomprehensive research and development trend of CA. Besides, the theoreticalbackground and theoretical construction of CA as a system of sociological theory areanalyzed and elaborated. CA adheres to the following theoretical principles:1.interactive constituents are context-bound and context-renewed;2.order is everywherein interaction;3.CA adopts the bottom-up method;4.CA pays attention to the study ofdeviant cases. The concrete research achievement is manifested in the two fields of“pure CA” and “applied CA”. The former includes the findings of the microscopicfeatures of interaction like adjacency pair、turn-taking、preference structure、repairstructure, etc and the relationship between these internal features of interaction and thecorresponding social action. It also includes the macroscopic features of interactionrepresented by the research on telephone conversation、 story-telling and theircorresponding social action. The latter refers to the pioneering work of CA oninstitutional talk and their social action including the exploration on the interactivefeatures of both formal and informal institutional interactions and their relationship withthe corresponding institutional context. Besides, other applications of CA including human-machine interaction、political speech and language teaching are also mentionedand introduced. Furthermore, the concrete research methodology of CA is summarized.CA practitioners prefer the technological means of recordings and videos in the hope ofvisualizing ordinary life practice and truly depicting them, which is called “back tothings themselves.” The research procedures of CA include:1.recording and collectingdata;2. partially or fully transcribing the data;3. analyzing the chosen script;4.makingresearch report. This perspective and method allows the research to become a scientificprocedure of being bottom-up rather than being “transcendental”、 highlyoperational、reliable and worthy of being tested and retested. Last, the contributions、shortcomings and future trend of CA are analyzed and commented. As a qualitativemethod, EM—CA in a certain degree transcends the traditional dilemma of dualism insociology and from the perspective of empirio—monism, it combines the binaryconcepts of individual and society、social structure and human interaction、macroscopictheory and microscopic action and sociological knowledge and commonsense reasoning,which enriches our knowledge of society and realizes the innovation of thinking mode.Therefore, despite the the facts that EM—CA has met with countless criticism since itsfounding, the standard theorizing has not been formed, the research topics are stilllimited and the methodology still needs to be regulated, it begins the innovation ofthinking mode in modern sociology. The uniqueness、richness and deep—foundednessof its theory starts new chapters for the mental revolution of post—modern sociologyand the multi-disciplinary feature shown in EM—CA in its development embodies itspotentiality as a research methodology。...