The turn of talk. No interpretation please!

How often do we focus on naturally occurring conversation? Our main article by Celia Kitzinger and Merran Toerien offers a look at the roots of Conversational Analysis, and its development since the 1960s, whilst a foreword by Ailean Mills puts the whole topic in context and discusses its relevance to qualitative researchers.

Maybe it’s time, says Mills in her introduction, to review the number of questions we ask, how we ask them – and, indeed, whether these questions block naturally occurring conversation.

The main article, by Professor Celia Kitzinger and Merran Toerien offers readers an introduction to Conversation Analysis. It is an approach whose intellectual roots lie in the sociological tradition of ethnomethodology, which is primarily concerned with how ordinary activities get done and people’s ways of making sense of the everyday social world.

There is also an extensive reading list for those wishing to learn more about Conversation Analysis.