1 Sociology 1001 (01) Fall 2014 Reading guide #6 ANTI-SOCIOLOGY #1 ETHNOMETHODOLOGY (part 3) – Conversation Analysis (Hale 76-77) As we have seen the ethnomethodologists first discovered that “social life has this hidden, taken for granted structure to it (practical reasoning, or common sense reasoning) -They tried to show that our daily social life is based on a shared `social language’ which nobody thinks about (or even realizes) -this is similar to how our daily life is based on a shared language which nobody thinks about (eg English or French in New Brunswick), it is just ‘taken for granted’ -similarly, social life is based on a shared language which everybody takes for granted -that ‘shared language’ is called ‘common sense reasoning’ -And just as we follow the rules of English without ever thinking of them, we also follow the rules of social life without usually thinking of them - and just as we can play around with the rules of English, we can also do the same with the rules of social life -Moreover, we do this in very sophisticated ways, and very creative ways, without even thinking about it -this all seems ‘natural’ to us. (-Yet as any immigrant to Canada will tell you, learning to speak English like a native speaker is one of the hardest things in life to do; and learning to be thought of as a natural-born Canadian is equally as hard ) -But just as the structure of English can be studied and analysed, So can the structure of ‘common sense reasoning’ -And it is conversation analysis (a sub-school within ethnomethodology) which has taken this type of study the furthest. -Moreover, it uses a model of analysis imported largely from the science of linguistics. THE LINGUISTICS ANALOGY – Producing ‘orderliness’ in talk Just as a linguist may be interested in studying the ‘grammar’ of everyday language; the conversation analyst is trying to study the ‘social grammar’ of everyday social life Typically the linguist will examine that which is common sensically understood in the language being studied, and provide examples Thus if we start with one of the most basic building block of the English language, the sentence, we can see how a linguist would study English (and linguists usually start with this fundamental building block of English – the sentence) Eg in English we can say 1. I’m going to the store 2. I will go to the store soon 3. I am going to the store And all ‘native speakers’ would rely on their ‘expertise’ to agree that these sentences are good ‘english’ Yet, at the same time, every native speaker of English will also recognize the following as not English 4. Store the to going I’m. (even though it has exactly the same words as sentence 1) Yet, if we ask the native speaker why this is not ‘good english’, they will probably not be able to give us an answer (except to say something like – ‘we just don’t talk like that) So the job of the linguist is to show the underlying structure which allo.