Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis by Wayne Martin Mellinger, PhD
ETHNOMETHODOLOGICAL CONVERSATION ANALYSIS By Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D. For the Blog Everyday Sociology (January 2024) Edited by Karen Sternheimer Everyday talk-in-interaction is the medium through which our identities are enacted and our relationships are negotiated. It is often through situated activities such as talk that the practical problems of our lives get resolved, the tasks of our workplaces get completed, and the business of society gets managed. Talk-in-interaction is a fundamental mechanism through which culture is enacted, providing the very infrastructure of social institutions. Everyday talk-in-interaction is indeed the fundamental site of human sociality. Conversation Analysis (CA) is an approach to studying everyday social interactions which focuses on how participants in a conversation collaboratively build meaning and organize their interactions through verbal and non-verbal behaviors. It closely analyses the moment-by-moment unfolding of social life...