Warning--overload in progress

I have only been able to digest chapter 4 so far.  Maybe my brain is on overload due to comps being due Friday (I’m guessing that is it).  Regardless—I have post-it notes on nearly every page, which means I have many questions. 

 

First of all, when we discussed the idea that CA researchers do not consider themselves qualitative, now I see why.  In the opening pages, Schegloff’s (1968) study discusses phone calls and how each phone call can be ‘unique’, but the general turn-taking or sequence of the conversation (in this case 500 of them) can be generalized.  The most interesting part of this particular study discussed was the one ‘deviant case’ (p. 91) in which the caller is the first to speak.  Schegloff then went through the entire research over again in order to reformulate his analysis based on one call-, and then instead of ‘answerer speaks first’ (which actually makes sense), he then has an “adjacency pair called summons-answer sequences” (p. 91). I believe I understand this, because when a phone rings and the answerer says “Hello”, it’s not necessarily a greeting, it is acknowledging you’ve picked up—greetings come AFTER one says “Hello”, or some other utterance, such as a first name, or “this is so and so”, and then starts the conversation. If a doorbell rings, a person may go and open the door, but he or she may not speak first—but they answered the door, which would make this the same idea as the ‘deviant case’ on the telephone (because the officer didn’t seem to be sure if the Red Cross rep picked up the phone).   So, I understand why Shegloff did this, as this makes even more sense, but I am wondering if that is what another CA researcher would do after finding one anomaly (or ‘deviant case’).  Is that akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater?  I mean, what if that ‘deviant case’ would not have happened?  Although it is fortunate that this one phone call out of 500 was discovered—what does that mean for CA?  Will you ever have enough data?  When is it okay to stop collecting and analyzing?  I read the main point was to “maximize the generalizability of analytic accounts” (p. 92), but just prior to that line, Hutchby and Wooffitt (2008) do say that they used the Shegloff (1968) study as an example because of its clear cut nature.  I feel confused.

            I did understand the Drew (1987) ‘po-faced’ response section, but I was wondering where that name came up—there’s not an explanation that I could find—I was just wondering. My favorite example was the two women talking about a date and the cigarette—I was actually impressed with myself that I correctly interpreted that conversation as I was reading it prior to reading the authors’ discussion (I have a tendency to jump to the conversations themselves in this book first, then read about them after I read them—I’m trying to work on my interpretation skills and learn Jeffersonian.  I am trying to ‘hear’ the conversation as I read it—and I am drawn to it—the transcripts come to life with this type of transcription, but that is what it was for, right?

            The last thing I wanted to discuss was the “three stage model” on p. 104.  To me, this read very ‘non qualitative’ if that makes any sense—but if you’re looking for a phenomenon (that’s one, right? Phenomena are multiple) then you are not part of the research, and you’ve stated that CA people do not consider themselves qualitative researchers.  Now I can see that.  However, if CA also looks at social patterns or finds how turn-by-turn conversation is found within social patterns, it is qualitative.  Ugh.  I still like the book, and I am still very interested in CA, but now I feel as if I am getting tangled up in the basic premises of CA and I am having difficulty making my way through.