Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

494 Part 6: Language and Interaction
frequently mean more than they say which of course they do (e.g. ‘I’m not
happy’, ‘Well! that was interesting’), how are we able to determine what in
fact they mean in any given case? Garfi nkel noted that in fact, in the course
of their everyday activities, members of society do not seem bothered by
the kind of radical indeterminacy this would seem to imply. Rather, they
adopt an attitude to everyday life that seems to largely circumvent these
potential problems. For instance Garfi nkel noted that unless given reason
not to, people generally assume that things are as they seem – they trust,
that is, in ordinary appearances. By the early to mid-1960s, Harvey Sacks
was deeply immersed in themes that Garfi nkel and Goffman had developed,
and it is common and not entirely inaccurate to say that CA emerged
as a synthesis of these two currents – it was the study of practical reasoning
(Garfi nkel) applied to the special and particular topic of social interaction
(Goffman).
The sequential organization of understanding in conversation
One of the key insights of early CA was that conversationalists’ methods
of practical reasoning are founded upon the unique properties of conversation
as a system. For instance, conversationalists inspect next turns to
see if and how their own talk has been understood. That is, they exploit
the systematic properties of conversation in reasoning about it. As analysts
we can exploit the same resource. Consider the following fragment
from one of Sacks’ recordings of the Group Therapy Sessions. 2
(1) (Sacks, 1995a: vol. I: 281). 3
1 Roger: On Hollywood Boulevard the other night they were
2 giving tickets for dirty windshields ((door opens))
3 Jim: hh
4 Therapist: Hi, Jim [c’mon in.
5 Jim: [H’warya
6 Therapist: Jim, this is uh Al,
7 Jim: Hi
8 Therapist: Ken,
9 Jim: Hi
10 Ken: Hi
11 Therapist: Roger.
12 Roger: → Hi
13 Jim: Hi
14 Therapist: Jim Reed.
Sacks (1995a [1966]) draws attention to ‘the prima facie evidence afforded
by a subsequent speaker’s talk’ in his analysis of the therapist’s turns at