Garfinkel emphasizes the indexicality of language and the difficulties this creates for the production of objective accounts of social phenomena. However, his notion of indexicality is much broader than the philosophical or linguistic concept. For Garfinkel, all talk is indexical to the context in which it takes place and/or refers. Garfinkel rejects the representational view of language, preferring the more Wittgensteinian or Austinian account of speech act theory. This means that language, speech acts and social accounts are reflexive to the settings in which they are produced: they depend upon that setting for their meaning and the setting’s meaning depends on reflexive articulation. In recognizing this, Garfinkel’s concept of the incarnate accountability of social action can be seen. All social situations are accountable by, and to, its participants in that participation in the situation itself is to produce and respond to context relevant information and cues.

Ethnomethodological studies come in a wide variety of forms, including the sequential analysis of conversation; the study of social categorization practices (membership category analysis); studies of workplace settings and activities (studies of work).