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Annual Review of Critical PsychologyCopyright 1999 Discourse Unit

Vol. 1, pp. 34-49 (ISSN 14!4-"#3$%

Conversation analysis: a refexive

methodology or critical psychologyMichael A. Forrester

Abstract . This paper considers the potential value of conversation analysis(CA) as a re exive methodology for critical psychology. Following anoutline of constructs within ethnomethodologically inspired CA a num!erof implications for critical development in psychology are outlined. "otingthe increasing use of CA within psychology discussion touches on there exivity inherent in this methodological enterprise and its tendency

towards theoretical closure. The suggestion is made however that #doingCA# encourages an understanding of re exive practice !y re$uiring acritical awareness of participant%oriented methods for #ma&ing sense of#everyday activities. 'hether CA can contri!ute towards facilitating a post%structuralist criticality is then considered followed !y concludingcomments on the potential advantages of CA for critical psychology.

Key words conversation analysis re exivity ethnomethodology

Critical psychology aims to challenge the dominant theories andperspectives in psychology and wor& towards redressing the

in ustices misrepresentations and implicit ideological im!alancesendemic to academic and professional practice. "umerous writersvoice dissatisfaction at some of the more insidious methodologicalprocedures and practices in psychology techni$ues which in largepart position people as #o! ects of study# some distance from thepsychologist as investigator. *n this paper * aim to wor& up theproposal that the ethnomethodologically inspired re exivity of conversation analysis (CA) may provide a conceptually richmethodological framewor& for critical psychologists interested inextending psychology#s !oundaries and engaging withcontemporary critical thought.

The main reason why a re exive outloo& sympathetic to criticalpsychology can !e encouraged through using CA is !ecause of theconcern it has with participants own orientations to the meaningma&ing practices of everyday life. +owever such an aim is li&ely to!e achieved only if care is ta&en to recognise and critically engagewith the positivistic tendencies of CA as a method and therestrictive professionalism it can exhi!it as a su!%disciplinespecialism. Although doing CA can engender a deep appreciation of the artful achievement of people#s ordinary and everyday tal& itcan also give rise to a seduction with the #data# % engendering anuncritical methodological fantasy that the structures and

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procedures identi ed !y the analyst #capture# and constitute thereality of social encounters. *n tracing out a critical commentary of CA * aim to suggest one or two ways in which this methodology cancontri!ute to the foundational !asis of critical psychology primarily!y !uilding upon the re exivity CA inherits from ethnomethodology(/ar n&el 01234 +eritage 015-4 C6y6ews&i 01514 7otter 0112).

*n order to understand the re exivity CA engenders a num!er of comments on CA#s ethnomethodological foundations can serve as auseful starting position. This will help rm out a !ac&ground for theproposal that CA could !e of particular value to critical psychology if it encourages a critical orientation to it#s own procedures and avoida tendency towards methodological closure. Following a shortoutline of ethnomethodology CA and an example formulation of particular value to critical psychology (mem!ership categorisationdevices) the discussion touches on two constructs which haveparticular resonance in psychology more generally re exivity andintersu! ectivity. 'hy CA opens up a critical psychological windowon other more traditional areas of the discipline is then consideredfollowed !y a !rief discussion on whether CA may !e amethodological pro ect of potential value to post%structuralperspectives. A num!er of concluding comments focus on theshortcoming and possi!ilities of CA as a re exive methodology forcritical psychology.

Ethnomethodology and CA

The dissatisfaction that critical psychology has with the mainstreamdiscipline !ears some similarities to criticisms voiced !y a smallnum!er of sociologists during the 0128#s who !ro&e away frommainstream sociology developing what !ecame &nown asethnomethodology. 9igni cant in this development were thewritings of 9chult6 (012:) who argued that the social world isfundamentally an intersu! ective one a living context of everydayroutines where most of our activities are accomplishedmechanically (non%cognitively) and reality natural and o!vious.7rominent also was /ar n&el who outlined the ethnomethdologicalresearch principle emphasising that

The o! ective reality of social facts as an ongoingaccomplishment of the concerted activities of daily life withthe ordinary artful ways of that accomplishment !eing !ymem!ers &nown used and ta&en for granted is afundamental phenomenon (/ar n&el 0123 **).

The #ta&en for granted# intersu! ectively &nown facts of everydaylife !ecame the central focus of this perspective. ;e ningethnomethodology as a scienti c pro ect Coulon (011< p. 0)suggests the aim is

to analy6e the methods or the procedures that people use

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which the processes of the production of the possibility of theexistence of phenomena are to !e understood (and theorised)integrally with the explanation of the phenomena themselves.

There is no dis unction !etween theory and methodology !uta crucial continuity.

*n ethnomethodology the suggestion is not that people themselvesare hyper%self re exive and constantly thin&ing a!out what they aredoing and saying. ather as /ar n&ely noted when engaged ineveryday activities people are not concerned (generally) withdiscussing practical actions in a self%re exive fashion

They recogni6e demonstrate and ma&e o!serva!le for eachother the rational character of their actual and that meanstheir occasional practices while respecting that re exivity asan unaltera!le and unavoida!le condition of their in$uiries.(/ar n&el 0123 p. 5)

To paraphrase Coulon (011ngaged in the !usiness of everyday tal& as soon as we descri!easpects of our social world those very descriptions !ecome partand parcel of that world. For ethnomethodology re exivity is thatessential feature of social action that presupposes the conditions of it#s production and at the same time ma&es (acts) o!serva!le asactions of a recognisa!le sort. The meaning of re exivity here isa&in to presupposition i.e. the idea that any communicative actrecognised as intentional will rest upon those presuppositions saidto constitute #shared social &nowledge#. *n tal& and interactionpresupposed intersu! ective &nowledge is the practical social&nowledge that competent spea&ers can !e said to hold #implicit&nowledge tacitly held !y mem!ers of a culture % implied in thethings that people say and do.# ( amsden 0115 p. -5).

Conversation analysis highlights the implicit re exivity of everydaytal& for example highlighting how participants display anorientation to the normative character of conversational structurein their noticing of #deviant cases# during tal& (what#s implied in

ignoring a $uestion changing topic suddenly staying silent for anunexpectedly long pause and so on). 'hatever else re exivitymight !e it is part and parcel of dynamic action locally produced incontext and encompassing activities from the !anal to thesophisticated. 7otter (0112) emphasises this conception of re exivity in ethnomethodology noting that descriptions andexplanations are not ust #a!out# something they are always also#doing# something and one cannot consider people#s explanationsoutside of the localised context within which what constitutes an#explanation# is wor&ed up !y participants during the tal&%in%interaction.

A related idea is the notion of intersu! ectivity. The signi cance of

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an #architecture of inter%su! ectivity# in interaction rests on thepremise that it is impossi!le to really &now any!ody else#sintentions thoughts or feeling. >thnomethodology generally ta&esthat view that although we cannot access another persons privatethoughts and experience nevertheless we can o!tain an#intersu! ective# shared world as an everyday practical

accomplishment. The idea is that people recognise they do nothave identical experiences however for all intents and purposesagree to act as if they do. 'e can trace this notion directly to9chult6 (012: p.

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however speci c instances in context inform these !ac&groundexpectations and there is thus a &ind of cyclical circular relation!etween speci c instances and general patterns

/ar n&el#s point is that there is no way out of this cycle. *t iswhat all of us ma&e do with in our everyday lives. The only

access to the underlying patterns is through instances andthe only way of understanding instances is in terms of thepatterns to which they !elong (7otter 0112 p. -1).

9ince the pu!lication of 9ac& 9cheglo= and De=erson#s (013-)in uential paper on turn%ta&ing in conversation numerous studieshave focused on highlighting how people manage to conduct theireveryday interactions in orderly ways. The very production of #talas tal& is shown to !e a highly sophisticated practicalaccomplishment where people engage in re exive procedures so asto produce the very possi!ilities for #intersu! ective meanings# (inwhatever ways they are constituted within local contexts) anddisplaying the process of ongoing accounta!ility in dynamic andparticipant%oriented ways (+eritage 01554 /oodwin 015-4 At&insonand +eritage 015-4 9chen&ein 0135). *n a now classic paper on thenature of closings in conversation 9cheglo= and 9ac&s (013,)descri!e how people manage to produce the possi!ility of ending aconversation a not insigni cant pro!lem given the endemicallyturn%ta&ing nature of tal&. Closings are highly structural eventsdescri!a!le as an interactional system which is !oth sensitive to theneeds of the participants and where the se$uential ordering of ad acency pairs (E&ay Ges @ye @yeH) is something thatparticipants themselves orient to. As 7sathas (011ssentially conversation analysis aims to show how meanings andrepresentations in discourse are produced through the structuresprocedures and practices of tal&. ?ynch and @oden (011-) note thatas a research enterprise conversation analysts have !eenprincipally concerned with classifying and descri!ing the structuresand general procedures employed !y people in understanding andta&ing part in conversations (7sathas 0112). These include turn%ta&ing closing conversations introducing topics as&ing $uestionsma&ing re$uests and other related features of tal& (see +utch!yand 'oo t 0115 for an introduction).

From the outset 9ac&s (011:) conceived of the enterprise as a

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scienti c method employing inductive and comparative procedures(?evinson 015,4 +eritage 015-4 ?ynch and @oden 011-) and thepractice of treating conversational structure as #!asic# and thencomparing such structural elements with other form of #institutionaltal has formed the !asis for wor& in uential !eyond this su!%discipline of sociology CA (Jimmerman and 'est 013-4 Molotch

and @oden 015

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conversation is seen !y some critical psychologists as a restrictiveattempt at analytic closure ('etherall 0115).

The nature of the recording transcri!ing and reporting of conversational phenemenon is what is central to this de!ate.9cheglo= (0113) adopting a somewhat strict interpretation of the

ethnomethodolgical pro ect insists that !efore any ideologicalpolitical or theoretical gloss can !e superimposed on anyconversational event a technically pure analysis of the tal& itself must ta&e place. And this technical analysis insists that only if thepeople involved in the tal& demonstra!ly display orientations towhatever feature category theory or interpretation of interest tothe analyst is there in the data are there grounds for ma&ingwhatever claims are forthcoming. *n reply 'etherall (0115) pointsout that this interpretation of participant orientation is much toonarrow and if anything when the conversation analyst selects this(and not that) fragment of tal& heIshe is claiming that it is thisparticular fragment which de nes what the participants#orientations are.

Certainly the relationship !etween the ethnomethodological focuson participant mem!ership and (CA) analyst is to some extentignored in the literature. The very process of recordingtranscri!ing and reporting any conversation is itself a descriptiveand thus a theoretical act (even if only implicitly). 9ince the earlywor& of Echs (0133) social theorists have pointed out that totranscri!e is to theorise and to ma&e the claim that it is possi!le to#capture# a technically pure rendering of tal&%in%interaction !eforeproceeding with theoretical or scholarly analysis is !etterunderstood with respect to the di culties ethnomethodology hashad esta!lishing itself in mainstream $uantitative sociology. *n arecent study loo&ing at the relationship !etween young men#sconception of sexuality and their accounts and explanations of sexual !ehaviour 'etherall (0115) highlights the fact thatparticular examples of participant mem!ership orientations (i.e.the implicit model of moral !ehaviour ascri!ed to women and men)can only !e understood with reference to !roader ideological andcultural !eliefs regarding gender relations. *f analysts wish to

account for the occurrence of a particular utterance (why thatnow ) a realisa!le and potentially defensi!le explanation cannotignore the !ac&ground material presuppositions which informordinary people#s everyday interactions.

+aving said that it remains the case that the critical scepticismimplicit in the #participant orientation# stricture provides a goodfoundation or !uttress against the excesses of linguistic formalismcategorical imposition and the associated methodologicalprocedures commonly found in psycholinguistics and the socialpsychology of language. ecently 9to&oe (0115) employed CA in a

study of gender relations and noted that contrary to the somewhatgeneralist literature on gender language and power in tal& (see

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Dames and ;ra&ich (011,) for a review) people themselves utilisegender categories in their discussions with one another and do soin ways that can !e highly contradictory am!iguous andchangea!le (even during one stretch of tal&). 9to&oe (0115) pointsout that only through using CA was it possi!le to understand theinherent tensions and varia!ility in participant mem!ership

categorisations.?i&e other literature emerging in this eld (e.g. Anta&i and'iddicom!e 0115) 9to&oe (0115) focuses on one aspect of CA&nown as mem!ership categorisation where attention is drawn tothe fact that participants employ mem!ership categorisationdevices in pursuit of their local aims during tal&. +ester and >glin(0113) descri!e the focus of mem!ership categorisation analysis ascentred on the locally used invo&ed and organised presumedcommon%sense &nowledge of social structures which mem!ers of society are oriented to in accomplishing naturally occurring ordinaryactivities. *n other words if during a conversation with someone *refer to himIher as a #caring friend# then to do so invo&es manyfeatures characterisations and presuppositions regarding what it isto !e a friend someone who cares and whatever else comes alongwith using such a category or la!el during an actual conversation.'ithin discursive psychology there has !een a growing interest inthe production recognition and manipulation of mem!ershipcategorisation devices !y people during conversation (Anta&i and'iddicom!e 0115). The argument is that whenever we areengaged in tal& we routinely spontaneously and unselfconsciouslyuse #mem!ership categorisation# devices (MC;#s) to organise ourconceptions of what we see or hear. 7art and parcel of the very actof #sense ma&ing# during interaction is achieved through employingsuch #devices# and attending to their production as potentiallynoticea!le phenomenon. As an example in her analysis of onesmall turn during a parent%teacher interview @a&er (0113)highlights that the way in which mem!ership categorisation (e.g.as parent teacher children or whatever) is immediatelypresupposed and oriented to !y participants through the simple actof using a phrase at a speci c point in time during the tal&. Throughemploying mem!ership categorisation devices we convey a

signi cant amount of cultural &nowledge and mar& out relevantdiscursive o! ects for recognition and co%oreintation !y participants.

>ssentially the analytic tas& is to highlight how participants ma&euse of the resources of mem!ership categorisation (e.g. categoriesof !eing a parent !oss child professional or whatever).9ummarising the identi cation of MC;#s as a $ualitativemethodological procedure @a&er (0113) notes the rst step is tolocate the central categories (of people or places or things) thatunderpin the tal& including any standard relational pairs such asparents%teacher. Categories can either !e mar&ed out explicitly or

implied through actions and responses within the tal&. Followingthis the analyst wor&s through the activities associated with each

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of the categories in order to ll out the attri!utions that are madeto each of the categories. #The attri!utions that are hinted at are asimportant as any stated in so many words hinted%at categories oractivities or connections !etween them indicate the su!tlety anddelicacy of much implicit mem!ership categorisation wor (@a&er0113 p. 0-,). Finally the third step is to loo& at the categories and

the attri!ution associations that mem!ers produce (connections!etween #cultural particulars#) and the social actions that areimplied i.e. descriptions of how categories of actors do could orshould !ehave. 'hen participants #do descri!ing# they construct asocial world in which their categories have a central place. Ksing adramaturgical metaphor @a&er (0113) views MC;#s as participants#puppets which they can dress up in and ma&e !ehave in variousways (i.e. as category%associated activities).

'hat is signi cant is that demonstrating that tal& is anaccomplished activity produced !y participants who exhi!it asophisticated orientation to the processes and mechanismsinvolved provides a grounded perspective for researchers interestedin social interaction. As a micro%sociological context the study of conversation is increasingly !een adopted as a &ey method forunderstanding the relationship !etween the individual and thesocial ('ootton 01134 @lum%Bul&a and 9now 011:4 Anta&i and'iddicom!e 0115). The methodology itself is conceived as !eingsomehow uncontaminated and a%theoretical or at least lessin uenced !y the analysts pre%theoretical assumptions (?evinson015,4 9chego= 0113) notwithstanding the reservations we havenoted a!ove summarised cogently !y 'etherall (0115).

Could CA have implications or psychology?

The conse$uences of using CA within psychology may !esigni cant. >mploying CA with clinically related areas has facilitatedcritical de!ate for example on the #Luality of ?ife construct#(Anta&i and apley 0112) on communication with people withlearning disa!ilities (Collins Mar&ova and Murphy 0113) and on!eliefs a!out developmental disorder ('ootton 01134 Blippi 0113).7art of the agenda for critical psychology is to criti$ue theories

methods and professional practice in psychology from perspectivesoutside the discipline and surely one important perspective derivesfrom people who actually participate in psychological studies.Argua!ly the most signi cant methodological implication of CA forcritical psychology is the re$uirement that the analyst focuses rstand foremost on participants# own methods of production (of socialreality) engendering a respect for the everyday and ordinarypractical accomplishment of tal&%in%interaction. This re$uires a re%orientation for psychology away from the #grand%narratives# of universality and onto people#s localised understanding of institutional #forms of life# (in the !roadest sense). *t may also

opens up the possi!ility of an #e$uity of analytic focus# in researchpractice although it is clear there are numerous institutional and

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professional !arriers to !e overcome !efore psychologists adopt aform of analysis which places centre stage participant#s ownformulations as the focus of analytic practice.

For the present we can nd recent examples of CA in educationalsettings including +eyman (0152) who examined the nature of

topic formulation in science teaching noting that the se$uentialordering of utterances had a !earing upon what !ecame #heara!lypro!lematic# for mem!ers of the classroom. 9imilarly in a study of classroom writing /reenleaf and Freedman (011,) employed CA toexamine the relationship !etween learning and pro!lem%solvingarguing that examining an evolving conversation in detail providedcritical evidence for the intellectual structuring of the classroominteraction. 'ithin feminist psychology we nd examples where CAhas !een employed in the study of date%rape highlighting the waysin which exchange se$uences can !e oriented in particular ways toindicate refusals. Bit6inger and Frith (in press) for example point outthat the close study of conversation indicates that women exhi!it asophisticated awareness of the culturally normative ways of #sayingno# and the policy of designing s&ills training pac&ages to as toma&e refusals during tal& literal and formulaic is counterproductive.'hile recognising that critical discourse analysis is viewed as amore li&ely method for advancing political ideals they suggest that&nowledge of the detail of tal&%in%interaction can help formulatepolitical arguments and practical programs.

Adopting a conversation analytic perspective also has particularimplications for developmental psychology as @urman (011-) hasintimated. Most if not all societies expend considera!le e=ort onexplicitly conceptualising classifying and explaining development(Morss 01124 Bir&patric& 015,4 Martini 011

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Conversation structures are dynamic immediate unfoldingpro ecta!le and predicta!le which points to the signi cance (anddi culty) of learning how to participate in tal& with others. Childrenas young as 05 months show a clear orientation to the se$uentialnature of conversation (Tarplee 0112) and where attempts at

pro ected structural forms are misunderstood this can often lead toconsidera!le di culty ( see 'ootton 011-4 01134 on the #terri!letwo#s#). Furthermore as 'ootton (0113) argues se$uentialunderstandings create the !asis for the child to entertainexpectations a!out how interaction should unfold. +e suggests thatthe earliest expressions of attri!uta!le outrage (in the child#ssecond year)

represent the most extreme expression of the child#s moralsensi!ility at this time....There seems little dou!t that it is theinfringement of se$uential expectations which occasions thisdistinctive outrage. *f this is so then this suggests that forchildren of this age their moral sensi!ility is not so much anoutcome of a!sor!ing a parentally superimposed set of moralconcerns as it is of operating with expectations which ta&etheir warrant from recent events within the interaction.('ootton 0113 p. 011)

Focusing on se$uential understandings interdependently expressedas part of the ongoing dynamic context would undou!tedly mitigateagainst the excessive cognitivism of developmentalpsycholinguistics. Knderstandings !ecome social practicalaccomplishments and always related to pu!lic accounta!ility.Everall there are grounds for arguing that employing conversationanalytic methods provides the !asis for encouraging criticalre exivity yet at the same time can !e seen as extending familiar$ualitative methodological practices found in psychology.

A post-structuralist CA or critical psychology?

As signi cant aspect of critical psychology has !een the criti$ue of contemporary approaches to language within psychology what

9pears (0113) and others refer to as the #turn to language#. Themore traditional modernist view considers language as a formalo! ect a system of signifying relations which exists as a pre%determined formal structure functioning as a communicative tool(and a largely unpro!lematic neutral entity amena!le to analysis).For the most part the study of language in psychology rests uponthis orientation and from Choms&y (01

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speech genre register and so on. ?anguage segments the worldaccording to culture and context (?ee 011:) yet in doing soproduces versions of that very reality ideological interpretationspotentially repressive contesta!le and always deeply insidious(Foucault 013:). iewed in this way language cannot !e a neutralcontext%free entity as social practice and productive semiosis

whether tal& or text language interpenetrates all forms of analysisfol&%hermeneutic and formal%analytic. Ene danger of conversationanalysis as methodological practice is that the formalistictendencies of psychology will lead to an overemphasis on structureand wor& against theorisation informed !y ideological and criticalconcerns.

This can !e avoided if CA moves !eyond focusing solely on thoseelements of conversation which focus on the sophistication of participants# methods and critically engage more directly with thepro!lematic agenda of post%structuralist thought. 'etherall (0115)advocates such an approach arguing that it is possi!le to utilise theethnomethodological focus of CA yet integrate analysis with ideassympathetic to the post%structural pro ect (e.g. the wor& of ?aclauand Mou=e 0153). Consider for example how a CA perspectivemight inform critical de!ate regarding the status of individuationpersonhood and su! ect positioning. +oward (015< p. -0

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appears to !e an antinomy !etween the theori6ed notion of the enunciative position in discourse and the untheori6edconcept of the individual who lls these positions in aseemingly straightforward manner. (Mc"ay 011- pp. 33%35).

*t is clear that the pragmatics of how su! ect positionings are co%

constructed dynamically in context could !e highlighted throughemploying conversation analysis !ut only through an analysiswhich does not extrude the content of people#s discursiverepresentations as 'oo tt and Clar& (0115) and 'iddicom!e(0115) has indicated. The wor& of Anta&i et al (0112) hashighlighted the fact that participants have little di culty inmaintaining contradictory self%identity positions in ways thatFoucault indicates. 9uch wor& also shows that CA as a re exivemethodology can inform $uestions germane to post%structuralistcriti$ue and de!ate.

Critical questions or CA

'hile it is possi!le to identify reasons why CA may !e anappropriate methodology for critical psychology we need to !eaware of potential limitations. Consider rst the seductive nature of CA as an empiricial scienti c practice. For 9ac&s (011:) the veryexistence of primitive natural science demonstrates that methodscan !e descri!ed in ordinary language in such a way that ot hers c&nrepro'uce those etho's. (See )ynch &n' *o'en (1994% +or & 'et&ile' criti ue o+ S&c s conception o+ n&tur&l science.% /n i port&nt &spect o+ such etho's &ccountsis th&t they &re intern&l to the community of practitioners who composeand use them. *n other words descriptions of mem!ers#competences are presented as intelligi!le instructions for othermem!ers. ?ynch and @oden (011- p. 18) note

@y distinguishing the analytic competence of mem!ers of theconversation analytic community from the vernacularcompetence of the ordinary conversationalists descri!edconversation analysts have segregated their technical reportsfrom the communal practices they descri!e. The ade$uacy of such accounts no longer depends upon their e=ective use as

instructions for reproducing the practices descri!ed4 instead udgements a!out empirical ade$uacy are reserved for othermem!ers of the analytic culture there!y entitling them andthem alone to decide on non%intuitive (or specialised%intuitive) grounds how well any technical report representsthe collection of data it descri!es.

?i&e many other professional discipline the claims conversationanalysis ma&e a!out methodological ade$uacy are interdependentwith the locally formulated practices s&ills and competencies withconstitute the nature of analytic study. *n an e=ort to #!e scienti c#

professional conversation analysts have succeeded in producing ananalytic culture that distances them from #merely# intuitive

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orientations to situated actions. Although conversation analyststa&e into consideration participants# orientations to those analyticstructures that can !e excavated from the minutae of conversational fragments the analytic practices and technicalcriteria may no longer re ect the principles of /ar n&el#s (0123)critical ethnomethdology. Conversation analysts are increasingly

formulating their analytic assumptions against a !ac&drop of #texts# (transcripts) from prior contexts ta&ing their point of departure from a speciali6ed corpus of analytic models and ndings.*nstead and following the suggestion outlined !y ?ynch and @oden(011-) the $uestion for ethnomethodology has not !een a!out#seeing what someone is saying# !ut as&ing #how is that done #

@y treating primitive science as a re exive achievementR asa sta!le order of intelligi!ility that is !uilt up from withinpu!lic displays of social structureR and not as a preliminaryprecursor to a natural science of human !ehaviorethnomethodologists can once again ta&e up natural%philosophical initiatives to investigate how o!servationsdescriptions and replica!le methods are produced withinscienti c and everyday circumstances (?ynch and @oden011- p. 1,).

A second limitation concerns methodological practice. 'e need tocast a critical eye on what constitutes the #data# of conversationanalysis. ?eaving aside the o!servation that video recording is acultural practice which methodologically spea&ing psychology hastreated as simply recording #what is there# the process of transcription remains #text# production. Beeping in mind theo!servation that the transcripts of CA share an allegiance with thedevelopment of genres for indicating speech in the novel the$uestion of transcription tends to !e viewed simply as a pro!lem of

nding an ade$uate notation to represent what#s !een studied.+owever there is no notation that will !e generally ade$uate to thetas& of representation somehow a!le to construct the evidentialtext of CA as self%su cient #data#. To $uote eason (0115) on thispoint

*f co-text is that !ody of (covert or overt) relevance whichcomes with the text then the surtext is that eld of intertextual and extratextual supplementation (includingsettings the grain of voices glances and shuSes) whichinform the listener#s (whether participant transcri!er oranalyst) #ta&e# on (apprehension of) the spea&ing. ( eason0115 p. :).

The pro!lem of notation may yet hinder the development of acritically re exive conversation analysis. As eason (0115) notesthe analytic fantasy of a #perfect record and ideal notion# removethe !usiness of recording and transcription from their culturalsituatedness. This can lead to the suppression of an understanding

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of them as always already em!edded in the social interaction theyare employed to represent #and in their disguised reappearance asmethodological (and hermeneutical) pro!lems . su!stantive issuesare transformed into technical pu66les# ( eason 0115 p. 2).

Concluding comments

Although one can identify certain limitations of CA for criticalpsychology there remain signi cant potential !ene ts. First there islittle dou!t that #doing CA# encourages an understanding of re exive practice (!oth in the #localised# and the critically engagingsense) !y re$uiring a critical awareness of participant%orientedmethods for #ma&ing sense of# everyday activities. 9econd thefocus on the locally managed se$uential production of participantmem!ers understandings can highlight how #surtextual#institutional forces !ear upon and (re)produce social relations.

Third there are grounds for suspecting that ethnomethodologicallyinspired CA can !e extended and employed in service of a post%structuralist agenda (discursive anti%developmental feminist orwhatever) as Bit6inger and Frith (in press) have noted. The verypractice of doing CA can also facilitate a reconsideration of long%held assumptions underpinning more traditional research areas inpsychology. Finally using conversation analysis can engender !othan appreciation a!out and cele!ration of the ordinary practicalaccomplishments which constitute #doing P!eingQ human#.Conversation analysis is a methodology which can contri!ute to there exive foundations of critical psychology.

Re erences

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