View/Open - Scholarly Commons Home

Chapter Five - A Beginning – Page 166
Considering an extract from the transcript as a Sticky Moment
An extract from the transcript of the audiotape recording of the session (included above
on Pages 147 to 162) is given in the left-hand column of Table 5.1 below. This is one
focus of my analysis, but at the same time, I am keeping in mind the array of other data
that I have, not least my responses in the right-hand commentary column throughout the
transcript of the whole session, my experience of the rest of the session and of the
semester as a whole. This extract is presented as a Sticky Moment, in brief because it
seems to me to be a moment dense with layers and depths of meaning, and it is my
thesis that such moments are particularly amenable to group-analytically oriented
investigation (see Page xv of the Preface, Page 76 of Chapter Two Part Two, and Page
101 of Chapter Three for discussion of Sticky Moments). The Sticky Moment is
particularly useful in highlighting a discontinuity, but much of the exploration that
follows is aimed at giving meaning to the episode that led to the discontinuity and
accounting for what follows.
In the case of this extract, I have selected this because it seems to be the point at which
there is maximum disturbance to the surface of the interaction in the session, and thus
likely indicative of complexity of dynamics around this point. In terms of analysing and
interpreting the extract, this will largely be done through consideration of the session as
a whole, and then this moment and the surrounding episode within that context.