SP500 – Qualitative methods – conversation analysis

• Week 1 – Introduction

• Week 2 – Selecting your files to transcribe and using PRAAT

• Week 3 – Transcription

• Week 4 – Analysis

• Week 5 – Write up

Praat = Praat is a program for speech analysis and synthesis see http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/

Discourse and power

• 1. Foucault (1972; 1977) and discursive epistemes (knowledge discourses)– The interdependence between discourse and

power– The relation between power and knowledge –

systems of power bring forth different types of knowledge, which in turn produces effects on people who then reproduce the original power relation

Week 2 – Selecting your files to transcribe and getting used to using PRAAT

• (a) Power and talk – thinking about institutional talk and role relationships

• (b) You are comparing examples so as to uncover any evidence that people use the structures of talk to exert or resist specific role-relations in context

• Qualitative methods & conversation analysis: comparing non-institutional (informal) talk with institutional talk– Informal talk

• (a) students talking

• (b) talk between mother and daughter

– Institutional talk • (c) doctor-patient interaction

• (d) courtroom talk

• (e) classroom talk

• (f) police-suspect talk

• (g) radio phone-in talk

• (h) job interview

• (i) meeting

Turn-taking rules• RULE 1: This rule applies to the first transition relevant place of any turn • (a) If the current speaker selects the next speaker during the current turn then

the current speaker must stop speaking and the next speaker must speak next. And he/she must speak next at the first transition relevant place after this 'next speaker' selection

• (b) If the speaker does not select a next speaker during a current turn, then anybody else present (other parties) can self-select and the first person to do this will gain 'speaker rights' at the next turn.

• (c) If the current speaker has not selected the next speaker and nobody else self-selects then the speaker can continue (although this is not a requirement). In doing so he/she gains a right to have a further turn-constructional unit.

• RULE 2: When rule 1 (c) has been applied by the current speaker, then at the next transition relevant pause, rules 1 (a) to 1 (c) apply again, and keep reapplying until speaker change is accomplished.

• The set of rules and the elements used by people to indicate transition relevant places are conceived of as a system - a system which is designed to faciliate the 'turn-taking' organisation central to conversation.

• ‘How to do conversation analysis: a brief guide’

• A turn-taking ‘check-list’ (for observing and/or analysing recorded conversation). (Adapted from Sacks, Schlegoff and Jefferson, 1974).

• 1. Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs• 2. Overwhelmingly, one party speaks at a time• 3. Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but

brief• 4. Transitions (from one turn to the next) with no gap and no overlap

are common. Together with transitions characterised by slight gap or slight overlap, they make up the vast majority of transitions.

• 5. Turn order is not fixed, but varies• 6. Turn size is not fixed, but varies• 7. Length of conversation is not specified in advance• 8. What parties say is not specified in advance• 9. Relative distribution of turns is not specified in advance• 10. Number of parties can vary• 11. Talk can be continuous or discontinuous• 12. Turn allocation techniques are obviously mixed (see rules above).• 13. Various ‘turn-constructional links’ are employed, e.g., turn can be

projected ‘one word long’ or they can be sentential in length• 14. Repair mechanisms exist for dealing with turn-taking errors and

violations, e.g., if two parties find themselves talking at the same time, one of them will stop prematurely, thus repairing the trouble.

Guide for the practical: • http://www.kent.ac.uk/psychology/department/people/forresterma/c8MFx.pdf

An example transcript

SP500 – Qualitative methods – conversation analysis

• Week 1 – Introduction

• Week 2 – Selecting your files to transcribe and using PRAAT

• Week 3 – Transcription

• Week 4 – Analysis

• Week 5 – Write up

Praat = Praat is a program for speech analysis and synthesis see http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/