Talk-in-Interaction, qualitative approach to Linguistic Anthropology

Coordinator : Dr. Emi Morita, Department of Japanese Studies

Project Description and Scope

The purpose of this reading group is for people who are interested in studying the socio-linguistic phenomenon of talk-in-interaction to explore a multidisciplinary approach to language, culture and society. The group will spend its first year reading and discussing the work of linguistic anthropologists Charles Goodwin and Marjorie Harness Goodwin.

Charles Goodwin is one of the most influential scholars of language-in-interaction. Since the appearance of his first book, Conversational Organization: Interaction Between Speakers and Hearers, in 1981, Goodwin has been advocating that structures for the organization of action-in-interaction, and an ecology of sign systems that includes not only talk, but also a range of different kinds of displays made by the body, as well as the semiotic resources of the material environment, are all equally important resource for human communication. For those of us are engaged in the study of Conversation Analysis, an in-depth understanding of Goodwin’s view of the interactional construction of talk is crucial.

Marjorie Harness Goodwin is an expert in the ethnographic analysis of language practices in various social situations, including the workplace, children’s playgrounds, and in families. By taking a linguistic anthropological approach to naturally occurring real-world data, M.H. Goodwin expands on Ervin Goffman’s notion of the ‘social situation’ as one that is inherently co-constructed and performative. Her work also challenges many stereotypes about gender, ethnicity, and interactional competence – all concerns that are very relevant to the various research agendas of the members of our group.

In short, both Charles Goodwin and Marjorie Harness Goodwin have developed new ethnographic methods for capturing and analyzing the interactional orientation of ordinary people as they go about the everyday business of constructing and organizing the communal participation framework for human sociality in the material world. The members of our reading group are all interested in the analysis of human interaction as captured in audio-visual data, and by careful study of the Goodwin’s 30 year corpus, we hope to gain further useable insight on how to focus our micro analyses so as to better analyze and understand the sign systems of human communication in the real world.

Initial Reading List

  • Goodwin, Charles (2007) Participation, Stance, and Affect in the Organization of Activities. Discourse and Society, 18(1). pp. 53-73.
  • Goodwin, Charles (2007) Language, Culture, Social Organization and the Material Word: Why a Five Field Approach is Necessary. Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes, 13(2). pp. 5-9, 34.
  • Goodwin, Charles (2007) Interactive Footing. In Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction, edited by Elizabeth Holt and Rebecca Clift. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 16-46.
  • Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (2003) "The Relevance of Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Children's Peer Negotiations."In Handbook of Language and Gender. Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff, eds. pp. 229-51. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (1999) "Morality and Accountability in Girls' Play." Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Symposium About Language and Society-Austin, Volume 43. Nisha Merchant Goss, Amanda R. Doran, and Anastasia Coles, eds. Pp. 77-86. The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Linguistics, Austin, Texas.
  • Goodwin, Charles & Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (2002) "Multi-modality in Girls' Game Disputes" (with Marjorie Harness Goodwin and Malcah Yaeger-Dror). Journal of Pragmatics 24 (10-11): 1621-49.

Meeting Schedule and Events

The next meeting will be on 28 November 2008. For further schedule, please contact the coordinator.

List of Participants