Conversation Analysis

This entry introduces conversation analysis (CA)—a qualitative methodology that originally arose within American sociology. CA is a methodological approach that focuses on the study of social interactions, with a particular emphasis on the orderly and sequential nature of talk. CA aims to study how people make sense of and respond to one another, as researchers using CA assume that people perform social activities through their language use. As such, CA gives particular attention to the organization of talk and examines how conversational turns are designed to perform particular social actions (e.g., make requests, cast blame). In this entry, an abbreviated overview of the history of CA is provided, as well as a description of some of its core features.