Papers
Role as an interactional device
Social Problems, vol.37, no.4, 1990, pp. 564-577.
This paper reports on an aspect of the social organization of interaction, namely, the use by interactants of the concept "role." In contrast with traditional social scientific uses of the concept as an explanatory resource in the analysis of social action, I propose that interactants use this concept to make sense of--as well as accomplish--actions and activities in the social world. Analysis of segments of conversation taken from videotapes of the Iran-Contra Congressional hearings demonstrate this as well as the more general point that description is a form of social action.
Hearing Talk: Generating Answers and Accomplishing Facts.
1992. In Perspectives on Social Problems, Vol. 4, pgs. 25-45.
This analysis reveals two 'questioners' methods' which shape witnesses' answers and also sustain the interview orthodoxy. These methods are explicated, and argued to be partially constitutive of the Congressional Hearing as a social setting.
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Achieved Coherence in Aphasic Narrative.
1999. In Perspectives on Social Problems. Vol. 11, pgs. 261-276.
This paper addresses what can be called 'the problem of coherence' in aphasic discourse. Most research on aphasic discourse analytically strips it from the context of its in situ production, and then paradoxically finds language deficits at the sentence level, but intact discourse abilities. This paper argues that conversation analytic methods can solve this problem by analyzing the data without desocializing and detemporalizing it. We then argue that sequences of social action, not individuals, are the locus of conversational competence and coherence.
Accomplishing a request without making one: A single case analysis of a primary care visit.
Co-authored with Virginia Teas Gill & Felicia Roberts. In Text 21(1/2) (2001), pp. 55 ± 81.
Physicians and other care-givers need to recognize the various and often subtle ways that patients make initiatives, such as requesting medical interventions, in medical encounters. Prior research on patients' requests and physicians' responses has limited real-world relevance because it treats `requesting' and `responding' as straightforward, discretely codable categories.
In this study, we use conversation analysis to investigate how a primary care patient delicately hints that an HIV test is warranted and how her physician recognizes (and responds to) her implicit request for this diagnostic test. Our findings provide an empirically grounded and detailed account of some of the subtle interactional dynamics involved in making and responding to medical requests. By documenting the diversity of patients' and physicians' practices, we will gain a more comprehensive understanding of patients' initiatives, physicians' responsiveness, and patient-centered behavior.
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