Conversation Analysis: An Introduction and Overview 12 June 2017

In the last thirty years, Conversation Analysis has become the preeminent method for the analysis of naturally occurring interaction. Despite its name, CA studies all forms of talk-in-interaction in institutional or work related settings as well as in ordinary conversation. It also studies embodied behaviours such as gaze, gesture, and movement. 

In this course, we introduce the history and principles of CA, sketch some of its main analytic procedures, and show how it offers a indepth view of how we use talk in social interaction, and how these analytic practices inform a radical methodology in sociology.

This course is recommended for people with no prior knowledge of CA who just want to get a basic understanding of its distinctive approach, and those who intend to go on to take the more technical CA skills training programmes offered in the Department.

Course Leaders: The course team will be Robin Wooffitt and Darren Reed
Location: University of York, Research Centre for Social Sciences (RCSS)
Fee: £75 (which includes tea/coffee and materials
Please contact Sarah Shrive-Morrison to reserve your place 
sarah.shrive-morrison@york.ac.uk 

Critical Health Psychology in South Africa

Merran Toerien and Clare Jackson presented at the conference for the International Society for Critical Health Psychology, held in July at Rhodes University in South Africa.

Merran Toerien and Clare Jackson formed part of a symposium entitled 'Conversation analysis as critical analysis?', organised by Prof. Elizabeth Peel (University of Worcester) and chaired by Ryan du Toit (Rhodes University).  

The four papers broadly focussed on the use of conversation analysis (CA) to examine decision-making in clinical contexts, showing how CA can be used to illuminate the micro-social production of healthcare. Data from different clinical contexts formed the bases of the presentations.  

• Ryan showed the complex interplay between the lifeworld of a service user and the biomedical world in which she was interacting with staff in a diabetic clinic.  
• Clare explored the ways in which healthcare practitioners can open up or close down the interactional space for women to make decisions during childbirth.  
• Merran presented data from neurology clinics, showing the complicated nature and unintended consequences of enacting NHS policy for patient-led care in situated interactions between staff and service users.  
• Liz examined productions of diagnostic information about dementia in interactions between doctors and patients, showing how doctors are sensitive to the needs of patients and their families.