Data Collection

Conversation analysts typically work with recordings of naturally occurring interactions. The limitations of early recording technologies meant that CA was founded largely on the analysis of audio-recordings.

Video-recordings were introduced relatively slowly from the mid-70s on. There is now a substantial set of published work based on video analysis of interaction. CA has increasingly developed an interest in bodily behaviour (gesture, gaze, pointing, posture, etc.) and the relationship between this and accompanying speech.

A comprehensive transcription notation representing various characteristics of the timing and delivery of talk was invented by Gail Jefferson and is continually being refined (Jefferson 2004). This key shows only the notation used in the data displayed in this article

Aspects of the relative timing of utterances:
[ ]	square brackets	Overlapping talk
=	equals sign	No discernible interval between turns (also used to show that the same person continues speaking across an intervening line displaying overlapping talk)
(0.5)	time in parentheses	Intervals within or between talk (measured in tenths of a second)
(.)	period in parentheses	Discernible pause or gap, too short to measure
Characteristics of speech delivery:
.	period	Closing intonation
,	comma	Slightly upward 'continuing' intonation
?	question mark	Rising intonation question
-	hyphen/dash	Abrupt cut off of sound
:	colon	Extension of preceding sound - the more colons the greater the extension
here	underlining	Emphasised relative to surrounding talk
HERE	upper case	Louder relative to surrounding talk
°here°	degree signs	Softer relative to surrounding talk
hhh		Audible outbreath (no. of 'h's indicates length)
.hhh		Audible inbreath (no. of 'h's indicates length)
Lines in bold simply indicate the lines to which the reader's attention is being drawn for the purposes of a given analysis.

We show some transcripts that use this notation in this article. However, it is the recordings themselves that constitute CA’s primary data, and transcripts are regularly revised during the analytic process.

Provided that appropriate ethical clearance is obtained, the researcher’s colleagues, clients, user-groups, stakeholders and others can also be given access to the recorded data. Best practice in contemporary CA is to make the data extracts displayed in published articles available on the web. So, for example, you can listen to many extracts from Schegloff’s articles at:

www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff

or view our beauty salon data at:

www.york.ac.uk/depts/soci/about/s_toer.htm

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