CONVERSATIONAL FRAGMENTATION: NATURALLY-OCCURRING GROUPINGS IN SOCIAL INTERACTION.
Item
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Title
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CONVERSATIONAL FRAGMENTATION: NATURALLY-OCCURRING GROUPINGS IN SOCIAL INTERACTION.
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Identifier
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AAI8023727
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identifier
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8023727
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Creator
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PARKER, RICHARD.
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Contributor
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Lindsey Churchill
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Date
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1980
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, Theory and Methods
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Abstract
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Formal features of conversational interaction have been studied by researchers in sociolinguistics and a variety of other social-scientific disciplines. Most research to date, however, has drawn empirical data from interpersonal communication in rather orderly settings, leaving interactional complexity open to speculation.;In this exploratory study we examine the social organization of fragmented and rather complex interaction. We find that conversationalists are guided by norms of interpretation which make complexity comprehensible. These norms warrant selective attention to, and selective participation in, speech within distinct groupings. The same norms serve us as indispensable analytic resources.;Of special interest in this study are instances in which a setting characterized by a single conversational focus becomes transformed into a setting in which two or more conversations co-occur. We find that norms and regularities previously observed in single-conversation settings cannot be generalized to multiple-conversation settings.;We conclude by considering interaction which is ambiguous or problematic for conversationalists, and observe their negotiations with one another over the patterns which their actions should properly follow. We arrive at a perspective in which both the regularities and uncertainties of conversational interaction are traced to the essential renegotiability of social-interactional definitions.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Sociology
