Discourse Analysis and

Conversation Analysis
MEREDITH MARRA

Discourse analysis (DA) is an umbrella term which refers to a range of qualitative frame-
works used for the empirical examination of language in use. The many different approaches
covered by the term have diverse theoretical underpinnings, have a variety of disciplinary
origins, and make use of distinct methodologies and tools. Within applied linguistics, there
are a range of approaches to the analysis of talk including conversation analysis (CA),
critical discourse analysis, and interactional sociolinguistics, as discussed below. While
CA is normally treated as belonging to a category distinct from other DA approaches
because of its theoretical assumptions, traditions, and data sources (Antaki, Billig, Edwards,
& Potter, 2003; Wooffitt, 2005), DA and CA share the common goal of attempting to
understand and interpret social reality as it is discursively (re)produced by interactants
in context.
Approaches to the analysis of discourse gained popularity in the 1980s and 1990s in
line with a general “discursive turn” in the social sciences (see, e.g., Harré, 1995). Academics
across a number of disciplines (including philosophy, anthropology, social psychology,
communication studies, management, and linguistics) increasingly rejected the artificiality
of experimental design in favor of a more contextualized approach to research. The people
under investigation in this research were no longer referred to as subjects to be manipulated,
but rather as participants who were co-producers of their interactional accomplishments.
Fixed and given categories such as age, gender, and status were questioned, and emphasis
was placed on the way in which these social factors are negotiated within interaction,
recognizing the meanings that participants assign in talk as well as the linguistic and
discursive mediation of social lives. Discourse is thus understood as “a form of collabora-
tive social action” ( Jaworski & Coupland, 1999, p. 49).
A useful way of identifying the scope of discourse is to consider a distinction made by
James Paul Gee (1990) following Michel Foucault (e.g., 1990) and Pierre Bourdieu (e.g.,
1991). In Gee’s terms, Discourse (written with a capital “D,” that is, big “D” discourse) is
used to refer to distinctive and institutionalized ways of thinking and interacting which
represent certain values and attitudes and which are also recognized to be representing
these; for example, the discourse of rugby or political discourse. Little “d” discourse, by
contrast, is the (sometimes mundane) talk and conversations in which we participate every
day, that is, language in use. Discourse analysts can focus on either, or indeed both, of these.
In exploring discourse, researchers take coherent stretches of language beyond the word,
phrase, or sentence (Schiffrin, 1994), “text,” as their unit of analysis. What is understood
as text differs according to the approach adopted, but it is typically naturally occurring data,
either spoken or written. While the various types of DA can be sorted according to the
text mode (spoken, written, or more recently multimodal; LeVine & Scollon, 2004; Norris
& Jones, 2005), or the theoretical underpinnings (e.g., critical vs. functional approaches),
others have categorized types of DA according to the disciplinary origins (e.g., McCarthy,
Matthieson, & Slade, 2002) or whether the analyst takes a macro- or micro-focus in their
approach (e.g., Stubbe et al., 2003). To explain some key differences, three common
approaches are described in more detail below. In making this selection, my criterion is

The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, Edited by Carol A. Chapelle.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0320
2 discourse analysis and conversation analysis

the treatment of context; context is relevant for each, but what constitutes context, and the
ways in which the analyst makes use of context, differ.

Conversation Analysis

Within applied linguistics in particular “conversation(al) analysis” has sometimes been

used as a somewhat woolly synonym for DA, where “conversations” were regarded as
the focus of a more general qualitative approach to analysis. This practice has largely
disappeared with the rising popularity of conversation analysis (CA) as an analytic approach
within the field, representing a specific school of thought.
CA is the study of “talk-in-interaction,” and analysts are interested in the sequential
organization of discourse including both everyday and institutional talk (e.g., ten Have,
2007, Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008). The approach has developed from pioneering work by
the sociologist Harvey Sacks and his colleagues Emmanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson
(e.g., Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974) and is particularly influenced by the work of
Harvey Garfinkel in ethnomethodology. Analysts use extremely detailed transcripts to
represent the audio and video recordings of talk which are the primary source of data for
analysis. Making use of this detail, the analysis focuses on micro-level linguistic features.
Analysts who take spoken discourse as their focus require a way of representing this
data. When transcribing, researchers use certain conventions to represent discourse features
such as pauses and overlaps, or paralinguistic information such as loudness or speed. The
transcription conventions they use can be dictated by the approach (e.g., Jefferson’s con-
ventions which are used in CA) or developed to meet the requirements of the analyst. In
either case, transcription remains a representation of the original data and any decisions
made in these representations can have an effect on analysis. Elinor Ochs (1992) noted the
significance of this in her arguments regarding “transcription as theory”; the way you
interpret text is influenced by those features you choose to represent, and different conven-
tions highlight different aspects of conversations and potentially different realities.
As a simple example of the kind of analysis undertaken by those working in CA, consider
Example 1 below, which has been transcribed using typical CA notation (Atkinson &
Heritage, 1984, following Jefferson). The transcript records information about the relative
noise of the setting (line 1), a lengthened consonant s: and short pause (.) (line 4), that what
is spoken very quietly while then is emphasized (line 5), for example. These details are all
relevant to the analysis offered by the approach, as discussed below.

Example 1
1 ((noisy background))
2 Richard: or it might be that Dee’s already found them
3 but they have to finish
4 what Dee’s done and fill in the gaps: (.)
5 °what° Dee’s started. .hhh then the
6 baseline report itse::lf (.) ((paper
7 flipping))which I think is fairly much this
8 the s:tuff we’ve go::t (..) with my
9 annotations? °heh heh°
(..)
10 Liam: yeah.
11 Richard: up to he::re.
12 Liam: yeah.
 discourse analysis and conversation analysis 3

In the case of CA, the participants’ reality is at the forefront of any interpretation. Analysts
following this school restrict their use of contextual information in their interpretations to
that of local context, or the context made relevant by the participants. This follows the
reasoning that if the context is significant to the participants, there will be evidence of this
within the interaction. Analysis relies on information within the recordings that is verified
with internal evidence, evidence which gains significance as the result of repeated research
into related phenomena.
Space allows for a mere hint at the issues that would be of interest in this kind of
analysis. One issue, for example, could be the long uninterrupted turn that Richard is able
to take between lines 2 and 10 (even though there are several opportunities to change
speaker, or transition relevance places, which are not taken up by Liam). From this together
with other detailed analysis we might draw the conclusion that Richard has more status
in this context, based on his ability to retain the floor, and we might use the way in which
his turn is produced in constructing this argument, as evidenced by pausing, vowel length-
ening, volume, laughter, and so forth.
In other approaches, however, we might use information about the relative hierarchical
status of the two speakers as a starting point for analysis, interpreting this kind of language
behavior as evidence of that status. The CA approach is bottom-up in contrast to a top-down
approach which would use existing and sometimes unchallenged contextual information.
The stance on the amount of extra information we bring to our analysis has been a par-
ticularly heated debate between CA and a contrasting approach, critical discourse analysis
(see van Dijk, 1999, as an example of this debate).

Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical social research has many offshoots including critical applied linguistics (e.g.,
Pennycook, 2001). Critical discourse analysis (CDA), which is within this critical school,
shares a common concern about social inequality, and analysts consider the relationship
and interaction of power, discourse, and ideology. Its roots lie in work by Marx, Habermas,
and particularly Foucault. In CDA, the analyst is interested in how power is (re)produced
in social practice through the discourse structures of unremarkable interactions, and the
approach is conceptualized as top-down with a focus on power and how power is used,
including both explicit power and naturalized dominance (e.g., Fairclough, 1995; van Dijk,
2008; Wodak & Meyer, 2009).
The approach contrasts markedly with CA in at least two ways: the contextual informa-
tion which is brought to the interpretation by the analyst, and the methodological approach.
In interpreting Example 1, for example, a CDA analyst could take the relative status of
the two speakers as a starting point and question Richard’s ability to dominate, not only
in terms of talk time but also in the ways in which he is summarizing a position on the
baseline report (lines 6–9) and simultaneously suggesting that this is the position that Liam
should take. In addition while the CA approach uses detailed transcription and has a
well-established methodology, CDA is much more methodologically eclectic (raising
questions of validity and reliability from those in CA) and far less likely to focus on
such fine-grained linguistic detail in the interpretations. For CDA the goal is to challenge
“taken-for-granted” dominance, and in doing so the analyst makes connections between
three different levels: ideology, the context (interpreted widely), and the text itself. In the
case of the example, a CDA approach might, for instance, question the nature of the
ideological stance that organizations should be divided into hierarchies which assign
asymmetrical power.
4 discourse analysis and conversation analysis

A middle ground in terms of attention to context can be found in interactional

sociolinguistics.

Interactional Sociolinguistics

As the name suggests, interactional sociolinguistics (IS) developed within sociolinguistics,

following the traditions of two highly influential scholars, sociologist Erving Goffman
(1963, 1974) and linguistic anthropologist John Gumperz (1982a, 1982b). Interactional
sociolinguistics aims to analyze discourse in its wider sociocultural context, and draws on
the analysts’ knowledge of the community and its norms in interpreting what is going on
in an interaction, rather than taking the overtly political agenda of CDA or the micro-
sequential focus of CA (Schiffrin, 1994, and Swann, 2000, provide useful overviews; see
also Tannen, 2005, as an example).
In this framework language is viewed as social interaction and analysts take a speaker-
oriented perspective when describing the discourse (following Goffman), identifying
“contextualization cues” which allow participants to make situated inferences about likely
interpretations of utterances (following Gumperz). The analyst uses information about the
sociocultural context with the theoretical reasoning that this context allows the opportunity
to more fully identify the contextual presuppositions that figure in hearers’ inferences of
speaker’s meaning (Schiffrin, 1994, p. 105). In practice, this includes such features as turn
taking (like CA) and content (like CDA), as well as pronoun use, discourse markers (e.g.,
oh, okay, well), pauses, hesitations, and paralinguistic behavior, among a much wider range
of relevant features.
In the case of Example 1, the or at the beginning of line 2 could be interpreted as a
signal that Richard is providing one of a range of possibilities for Liam. His attitude about
the likelihood of the possibility is signaled through the use of hedges: or it might be
that . . . Further cues are provided in line 5 with the emphasized then, which operates as
an utterance-initial discourse marker serving to orient the hearer (and speaker) to the fact
that Richard is listing the next step for how they should proceed.
This short description of three divergent methods for analyzing a stretch of discourse
has suggested the analysis of discourse can provide a range of insights. Each approach
offers a different focus, yet all provide useful information about language in use.

Discourse Analysis for the Classroom

The emergence of a communicative approach to language teaching was a catalyst in the

rising popularity of the use of DA in applied linguistics (Adger, 2001). The investigation
of the discourse of language teaching benefited from early interest in a framework devel-
oped by the Birmingham School. This framework was developed to provide a systematic
way of investigating classroom talk, particularly the structure of classroom interaction.
Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) identified a three-part exchange as a recurrent and significant
pattern within classroom practice: the IRF (initiation—response—feedback) exchange. We
see these three components in action in Example 2, which was recorded in an advanced
English-language classroom.

Example 2
1 Teacher: [to Fiona] yeah and you look very smart already
2 color combination’s great
3 we call it funky
 discourse analysis and conversation analysis 5

4 you know what funky is?

5 Christian: funky [mispronouncing the vowel]
6 Teacher: funky [looking at student, drilling] looking a little bit unusual
7 Christian: cool
8 Teacher: cool yeah like you your hat [laughs]
9 yeah gotta be cool at the races

In line 4 the teacher asks the class if they understand what funky is (I). Christian seeks
clarification by echoing the word (line 5), which is interpreted by the teacher as a lack of
knowledge. Once the meaning is explained to him the student provides a synonym, cool,
which is accepted as correct in line 8 (F). The response component of the exchange (R) can
thus be seen in both lines 5 and lines 7, indicating the flexibility of the components within
the framework, and hinting at the complexity of these exchanges in practice.
The focus on structure is only one of many more areas of interest in more recent
approaches to the discourse of the classroom. For example, we might also be interested
in the way in which the teacher disseminates cultural knowledge about living in the
community (the interaction occurs in response to a newspaper article and photo about
upcoming horse races and the associated fashion event, which is an important day in the
social calendar for the community), or the way in which the teacher builds rapport with
the class through her use of laughter, compliments, and choice of lexical items. There are
countless possibilities offered by a discursive approach.

Discourse Analysis and Research Design

DA remains a vast but one of the least defined areas in linguistics (Schiffrin, 1994), and
offers many benefits in terms of interpreting the ways in which we discursively construct
our social lives. The sketch of a handful of frameworks provided here illustrates that DA
means different things to different people. Most significantly, however, it is important to
recognize that DA is theoretically grounded. Whatever approach the analyst chooses, DA
provides a systematic, rigorous, linguistically informed, theoretically based analysis of
data collected following specific (clearly defined) procedures.
One of the perceived weaknesses of a qualitative approach according to those who favor
experimental designs is the validity and reliability of the research; the analyst has the
potential to bring a biased lens to the interpretation. Silverman (2010) notes that this
kind of qualitative research must be able to withstand scrutiny, be replicated, and avoid
“anecdotalism.” Increasingly researchers are being challenged to provide a warrant for
their interpretations (Cameron, 2009, and Swann, 2009, provide recent discussions of
warranting). One way in which analysts justify their approach is triangulation. To enhance
the credibility of the analysis researchers compare their findings with other sources, includ-
ing other data sets, existing research, and attention to evidence provided by participants,
whether elicited through deliberate attempts, or as found in local context.
The issue of the credibility of a qualitative approach recognizes that there are multiple
readings of any text. This is one of the strengths of a discourse analytic approach since
good practice allows access to the complexity of social interaction. In terms of application,
recognizing the assumptions, weaknesses, and strengths of a certain approach is an import-
ant consideration. This is summed up in a quotation from Stubbe et al. (2003, p. 380) on
the range of discourse analytic approaches currently in use in the field and the responsibil-
ity of the analyst for the choices they make:
6 discourse analysis and conversation analysis

Each approach therefore provides a slightly different lens with which to examine the
same interaction, highlighting different kinds of context and respective features. These
are not necessarily in conflict with one another (though in some cases the analyses and/
or the theoretical assumptions underlying them are difficult to reconcile); rather, they are
complementary in many ways, with each approach capable of generating its own useful
insights into what is going on in the interaction, with the proviso that the framework
adopted needs to be a good match for the research questions being asked.

Making an appropriate selection from the range of DA approaches and carrying out sys-
tematic analysis within a theoretical frame allows for productive understandings of the
social interactions in which we engage and offers significant application within linguistics.

SEE ALSO: Classroom Discourse; Context in the Analysis of Discourse and Interaction;
Conversation Analysis and Ethnomethodology; Conversation Analysis and Transcription
and Data; Coulthard, Malcolm; Critical Discourse Analysis; Discourse Versus discourse;
Gee, James; Interactional Sociolinguistics as a Research Perspective; Multimodal Discourse
Analysis; Ochs, Elinor; Qualitative Sociolinguistics Research; Schiffrin, Deborah; Sinclair,
John; Tannen, Deborah; Transcription; Validity in Qualitative Research; van Dijk, Teun A.

References

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Hutchby, I., & Wooffitt, R. ( 2008). Conversation analysis. Cambridge, England: Polity.
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 discourse analysis and conversation analysis 7

Norris, S., & Jones, R. H. (2005). Discourse in action: Introducing mediated discourse analysis. London,
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Suggested Readings

Coupland, N., & Jaworski, A. (Eds.). (2006). The discourse reader. London, England: Routledge.
Gardner, R. (2004). Conversation analysis. In A. Davies & C. Elder (Eds.), The handbook of applied
linguistics (pp. 262–84). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Heritage, J., & Clayman, S. (2010). Talk in action: Interactions, identities. Malden, MA: Wiley-
Blackwell.
Johnstone, B. (2002). Discourse analysis. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Mitchell, R. F. (2009). Current trends in classroom research. In M. Long & C. J. Doughty (Eds.),
The handbook of language teaching (pp. 675–706). Oxford, England: Wiley-Blackwell
Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation analysis. In N. H. Hornberger & S. L. McKay (Eds.), Sociolinguistics
and language teaching (pp. 492–527). Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.
Wodak, R., & Weiss, G. (2007). Critical discourse analysis: Theory and interdisciplinarity. New York,
NY: Palgrave Macmillan.