Explanation
Conversation analysis studies how participants organise naturally occurring interaction turn by turn. Meaning is not assigned only to isolated sentences but inferred from sequential position: a question makes an answer relevant, delay may project refusal, and repair shows how understanding is practically secured. The method favours recordings and detailed transcripts because pauses, overlap, prosody, and gaze can organise action. A priori categories should not replace participant orientations. The conceptual movement follows talk in time, observes the expectations each turn creates, and uses the next turn to test what action participants themselves have made recognisable.
Movement of thought
1. A recorded interaction is first transcribed in temporal sequence with relevant multimodal detail. 2. Each contribution is examined for the action it performs and the next action it makes relevant. 3. The actual response retrospectively displays how participants understood or misunderstood the preceding turn. 4. A counter-test seeks deviant cases and repair rather than classifying an isolated utterance by intuition. 5. Recurrent sequences support an empirical account of social order produced by participants themselves.
Scientific use case
Interaction, medical, and classroom research can study turn-taking, preference organisation, repair, and institutional roles. Analysis must disclose recordings, transcription decisions, and sequential evidence.
Example
“Are you coming tonight?” receives a long pause and then “I have to get up early.” The follow-up “So probably not?” shows that the indirect answer was treated as a refusal.
Counterexample
An isolated sentence analysis without conversational sequence is not conversation analysis. A questionnaire does not become natural interaction merely because its answers are linguistically formulated.
Distinction
Distinguish conversation analysis from discourse analysis as a broader methodological field, content analysis, and experimentally produced dialogue. It reconstructs sequential order through observable participant orientation.
Effect on thought and perception
Conversation analysis reveals microscopic practices through which people continually establish understanding and relationship. It corrects premature interpretation but requires carefully contextualised data.
Resonance
Every conversational turn leaves an expectation to which the next responds. Interaction becomes a chain of reciprocal readings, corrections, and continuations.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Conversation Analysis“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-091-052. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-091-052The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson’s 1974 paper uses recordings of naturally occurring conversations to model locally managed turn-taking. Possible turn completion provides an occasion for selecting a next speaker or self-selection. This is a specific contribution within conversation analysis, not the entire field or a model identical for every speech-exchange system. German reception and the field label’s earliest use remain unverified.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
Do not isolate an utterance; its possible completion and the next contribution show how participants organize the sequence together.
References for the historical section
- HC-C-SACKS · Introduction printed696–697; §§2–3.2 printed702–703, PDF1–2,7–8 (1-based)