Interaction Analysis

The term interaction analysis is used in a broad sense to refer to a large body of research and theory concerned with understanding how conversation works. Interaction analysis researchers look for systematic devices of discourse used by communicators as they take part in conversation. Interaction analysis is largely concerned

with verbal communication as opposed to nonverbal communication, although nonverbal communication is not excluded in principle, especially nonphonemic properties of speech, such as speaking tempo, silence, vocal pitch, and intonational contours. Research on interaction analysis pays attention to discursive devices related to turn taking, topic selection, purposes of individuals' utterances, interruptions, structure of conversation, relationship between utterances, alignment between communicators, indirectness, metamessages, social actions, frames, background knowledge, context, identities, face, roles, and the relationship between properties of talk and outcomes. This entry addresses key concepts that arise as we develop an understanding of how social interaction works.

Research on conversation tries to understand how individuals coordinate their behavior, and it examines how people create their relationships with one another by talking. Conversation can be seen as a cooperative and collusive activity that is sensitive to reducing the risks to communicators. By risks what is meant are things like being seen in a poor light, as insulting someone when that is not intended or appearing ungrateful or critical. Most of this relational work is done as communicators talk to one another not about their relationship or who they are, but about other things. Conversation is improvisational theater. Utterances, not sentences, are the units of talk; utterances occur at particular points in time and place, and they are intended for particular recipients. Sentences are grammatical units that occur in writing. Utterances may consist of a sound, “uhuh,” word, “yes,” phrase, “I will,” and sometimes a full grammatical sentence, “He did come home.” One popular metaphor that has been used to describe conversation is game, with moves, rules, goals, and strategies. Another metaphor is dance, with one partner taking the lead while being responsive to his or her partner.

As a broadly applied label, interaction analysis covers a number of overlapping approaches, including conversation analysis (with an emphasis on the structure of conversation; e.g., greeting-greeting or summons-response), pragmatics (the principles and mechanisms that allow us to communicate more than is actually said), ethnomethodology (the appropriateness of linguistic behavior), rules theory (the implicit rules communicators follow), and [Page 865]discourse analysis (a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary study of how people make sense of what they hear and read).