Studies in ETHNOMETHODOLOGY HAROLD GARFINKEL University of California, Los Angeles Penrice Hatt, Ne., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey(© 1067 by Prexnce-Hats, Isc, Englewood Cus, Now Jersey All rights reserved, No part of this book ‘ay be reproduced is any form or by any means ‘witout permission in weting fom the publaker Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 67-2565, Curent printing (last dit) woeT6s4 gad Prewmce Hass lerensamraty Ine, London Prevrice Hatt or AUrraatis, Pr. Lo. Syney Prevrice Hatt or Caxans, roy Toro Provrice Hatt or Inoue Pavatz Lyo, New Deh Phnvrict Hatt oy Jara, tne, Tokyo To ABRAHAM GARFINKELPreface In doing sociology, lay and professional, every reference tothe “real world,” even where the reference i to physical oF biological events, isa reference to the organized activites of everyday life ‘Thereby, in contrast to certain versions of Durkheim that teach that the objective reality of social facts & sociology’s fundamental pein- ‘ple, the lesson is taken instead, and used as a study policy, that the objective reality of socal facts ar an ongoing accomplishment of the concerted activites of daily life, with the ordinary, artful ‘ways of that accomplishment being by members known, used, and taken for granted, i, for members doing sociology, a fundamental phenomenon, Because, and in the ways itis practical socology’s fundamental phenomenon, it is the prevailing topic for ethno. methodological study. Ethnomethodblogical studies analyze every- day activities us members’ methods for making those same activities isibly-rationsband:-reportableforalrpractical- purposes, Le, “ac countable," as organlzations of commonplace everyday activities. ‘The reflexivity of that phenomenon isa singular feature of practical actions, of practical circumstances, of common sense knowledge of Socal structures, and of practical sociological reasoning. By pemnit- ting us to locate and examine their occurrence the reflexivity ofthat phenomenon establishes ther study “Their study is directed to the tasks of learning how membersva STUDIES Iv ETHNOMETHODOLOGY seta, orlnary activites const of methods to mae practical ac oun pert ceeumsancer common tense lege of social ‘encase olga rnonng ely dof eng th foal properties of commmonplas, praca coo So son tn tn ct ting nn ts of hose settings The formal proper ban he gua tees fom oo ether source, aid ino other ay, Because this to ou study tsk amor bo accel by fee invention, cone Stacie unl tering occupy, or bak reviews, ad 010 ‘posal ntti pi to thw de fom ay erst thw ‘Bo onpantatinlly stated methods of racial reasoning Sin ty, ere an be nahing to quae! with ero comet about pac fi solopa sesning and xetse profesional socal fngusts aepracal Cough and rowgh cep at guarels beeen thse doing profesional ingles snd ethnometboslgy Mey be of terest © phenomens for ehonetodolgel side, thee quired seed not be taken seriou ‘tometbolgil suds ave tot dete to formulating o arguing conecves, They ste socks when they are done a ois: Aibough they ae dred tothe popuation of manual 0 soc Spal mcs, these are In no soy supplement 0 “andar Procedure but are dint from them. They do ot formulate a Ea for praca eto, ar was being found abot practi Texos that they were beter or wore than they ae usual racked tp tobe Nor ac thy serch of humanist agument, nor db they enange Ino enmurge pormiave cso af ier. Deri put en yar group of icening so has be ding cimmethedobpia tudes dy to day concerns: Egon Dito, ‘Ro V. Cleourel Linkey Charl, Cig McAndrew, Mica Moerman, Edward Rose, Harvey Sacks, Emmanuel Schegloff, David Sodhow, D. Lawrence Wider, tnd Doo Zimmerman, Harvey Sacks frst enone portal beeaose hs extoordary Writings deste ve seve rel rors. “Through tues made have been made avaable whose se as eased dma of slo phenomena: the formal properties of common sous actives a «practi organizational Tetmplshment An early body of ork of considerable seis now ‘Sher pln orn pres This volume spat of Ut ary comps. te A later, very large set of materials is cusently circulating prior to publication. Findings and methods are becoming available at an in- reasng rate, and itis pointless any longer to doubt that an m= mense, hitherto unknown domain of social phenomena has been uncovered. ‘The studies in this volume were writen over the last twelve years regret a certain unity inthe collection that was obtained by pondering and rearranging tets. 1am saddened by that practice for in the way it assures to the collected articles an overall “good sense” it will certainly have sacrificed news, The articles originated from my studies of the writings of Taleot Parsons, Alfred Schuty, ‘Aron Gurwitsch, and Edmund Husserl, For twenty years thei wrt ings have provided me with ineshaustible dteetives into the world of everyday activites. Parsons’ work, particulary, remains amesome for the penetrating depth and unfailing precision ofits practical sociological reasoning on the constituent tasks of the problem of social order and it solutions, ‘The completion of these studies was made materially possible by the following grants and fellowships. Studies reported in the papers on routine grounds, the documentary method, and passing were supported by a Senior Research Fellowship, SF-1, from the US, Poblie Health Service. Investigations of common understand ings and coding pracies were supported by Senior Research Fel- lowship SE-S1 from the US. Pubic Health Service, Grant Q-2 from the Research Section of the California State Department of Mental Hygiene, and Project ACAFOSR.157.65 of the Behavioral Sciences Division of the Air Foree Office of Scientile Research. ‘The work upon which the paper on the ratonalities is based was Initiated while the author was a member of the Organizational Be- havior Projct, Princeton University, and was completed under a Senior Research Fellowship, SF-81, from the U.S. Public Health Service. The author is indebted tothe Interdisciplinary Program in the Behavioral Sciences at the University of New Mexico, Summer, 1958, under project AF 49(655)-98 of the Behavioral Sciences Dit. sion, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, ARDC, and the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology was privileged to spend the academic year 1960-1964 as a Fel- Jow in the Center for the Scientife Study of Suicide of the Losx STUDIES iN ETHNOMETHODOLOGY Angeles Suicide Prevention Center. Iam indebted to Drs, Edwin S. ‘Shneldiman, Norman L. Farborow, and Robert E, Litman for their spilt. ‘The investigations of the work of the Paychistrie Outpatient CCinio of the UCLA. Neuropsychiatric Institute were supported by Grants A-7 and Q.2 from the Reseach Section of the California State Department of Mental Hygiene, and Senior Rescarch Fellow thip SF-81 from the US. Public Health Service. ‘The investigation of sta uses of clinic folders was supported by Grant Q.2 from the Research Section ofthe California State Depart :ment of Mental Hygiene, the senior author's Senior Research Pellow- ship SF-81 from the US, Publie Health Service, and the Confer. ‘ences on Ethnomethodology under Grant AF-AFOSR-278-62 ofthe Behavioral Sciences Division of the Alr Force Offce of Scientific esearch. Harry R. Brickman, M.D, and Eugene Pumpian-Mindlin, MD, former Directors of the Peychiatric Outpatient Clinic of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, greatly facilitated the inquiries. Drs. Leon Epstein and Robert Ross, encouraged the cine studies and administered Grants A-T and Q-2 from the California Department of Mental Hygiene ‘when they directed its Research Section, Particular gratitude is extended to Dr. Charles E. Hutchinson, ‘Chief of the Behavioral Seiences Division, Air Foree Office of Sci entific Research, whose Division supported the Conferences on Ethnomethodology with Grant AF-AFOSR-278-62 to Falwarl Rose and me, and Studies of Decision Making in Common Sense Situs- tions of Choice with Grants AF-AFOSR757-85, and AF-AFOSR- 1757-86 to Harvey Sacks, Lindsey Churchill and me ‘The study of methodological adequacy benefited in many im portant ways from the ertiesms of Drs. Richard J. Hill, Eliot. Mishler, Eleanor B. Sheldon, and Stanton Wheeler. Thanks are due to Egon Bitner, when he was my research assistant, for coding the ceases, and to Michael K. Mend forthe caleulatons. The paper re {quired the advice of Professor Charles F. Moselle, Department of Statistis, Harvard University, and the inventiveness of Professor Wilfred J. Diton, Schoo of Public Health, University of California, [Los Angeles. Profesor Dixon devised the method for sing ehi square to evaluate data involving conditional probabilities. With his permission the method is reported in Appendix 1 Only Tam re- sponsible for the paper's shortcomings Tam grateful to my stadents Michael R. Mend and Patricia Allen for their asistance with the clinic and reliability studies. Peter Meflugh, when he was a graduate student at UCLA, assisted me with the “counseling” experiment, David Sudniow worked to the Timits of his patience to improve the writing. Robert J. Stoller, Egon Bitter, and Saul Mendlovte collaborated im the studies that cite them as co-authors, The study of jurors is based on interviews with jnrors done by Mendlovitz and me when we were afliated with the Jury Project of the Law School ofthe University of Chicago. Debts are owed to very particular persons: to James H. Clark, friend and editor; and to old frends: William C. Beckwith, Joseph Bensman, Heinz and Ruth Ellersleck, Erving’ Coffman, Evelyn Hooker, Duncan MacRae, Jr, Saul Mendlovitz, Eliot G. Mishler, Henry W. Riecken, Jr, Wiliam 8. Robinson, Rdward Rose, Edwin ‘. Shneidman, Melvin Seeman, ad Eleanor B. Sheldon. [My lovely fe knows this hook with me. Hav. GanrorestAcknowledgments Chapters One (in part), Two, Thre, and Eight were previ cusly published. Chapter One includes material from "Practical Sociological Reasoning: Some Features in the Work of the Los “Angeles Suicide Prevention Center,” in Essays in Self Destruction, ceted by Edwin §. Shneidman, Intemational Science Pres, 087, in press Chapter Two is reprinted with revisions from Socal Prob lem, Winter, 1964, Vol 1, No.8, pp 25 280. Chapter Thee is r= printed with pomason of the Macaill Company from Theories of the Mind, cited by Jordan M, Scher, the Fro Press of Clencoe The, New York, 1962, pp. 680712. Chapter Eight orginally ap peated in Behaviorl Science, Vol 5, No, Janvsry, 1960, pp. 72 3 Tt ako appeared in Decision, Values, and Groups, Vo. edited by Norman F. Washvume, Pergamon Pres, In, New York, 1962, pp. SD4S24. Iam indebted to these sources for thei pension to rit T wish ao to thank the RAND Corporation for permis to reprat the detailed excerpt from the monograph by Olaf Helmer and Nichols Rescher, On the Epistemology of the Inexact Sciences, P.1513 Santa Monies, California: RAND Corporation, October 13, 1955, pp. 614 Chapter Seven, “Methodologial Adequacy in the Quantitative Study of Selection Criteria and Selection Practices in Paychiatic (Outpatient Clinics” was drafted in Marc, 1900. No updsting of thexv STUDIES in ETANOMETHODOLOGY lst of studies was done after the original Ist was assembled in March, 1960 and so several studies are conspicuously absent, eg, Elliot Mishler and Nancy E, Waxler’s study, "Decision Processes i Psychiatric Hospitalization,” American Socalogical Review, Vol. 2, No. 4, August, 1963, p. STBSST; and the long series by Anita Bahn ‘nd her associates atthe National Insitute of Mental Health, A re- view of studies was done orginally inorder to discover the "param ters” ofthe selection problem and to enrich thelr discussion. At the time the paper was vriten the task of reporting what had been found out about admissions to psychiatric clinics was of secondary interest, and is now immaterial Contents ONE What is ethnomethodology? Two ‘Studies of the routine grounds of everyday activities THREE ‘Common sense knowledge of social structures: ‘the documentary method of interpretation in lay and professional fact ining FOUR Some rules of correct des ‘hat jurors respect % 1mPy STUDIES IN ETANOMETHODOLOGY FIVE Passing and the managed achievement ‘of sex status in an intersexed person, part Meth ‘quantitative study of selection eriteria and selection practices in pychiati outpatient clinics EIGHT ‘Tho rational properties of scientific common sense activities ‘Appendix to chapter ive 16 ONE What is ethnomethodology? ‘The following studies seek to treat practical activites, prac: tical circumstances, and practical sociological reasoning as topis, fof empirical study, and by paying to the most commonplace ati. ities of daily life the attention wsually accorded extraordinary ‘events, seek to lear about them as phenomena in their own right.“ ‘Their central recommendation is thatthe activities whereby mem hers produce and manage settings of organized everyday. allie are identical with member’ procedures for making those settings “seeountable” The “rellesive,” or ~incamate” character of account ing practioes and accounts makes up the crux ofthat recommenda: tion, When I speak of acconntable my interests are directed to such matters as the following. 1 mean observable-and-reportable, ie, available to members as situated practices of looking-and: telling. 1 mean, too, that such practices consist of am endless, on fing, contingent accomplishment; that they are carried on under the auspices of, and are made to happen as events in, the sam forinary airs that in organizing they describe; that the prac: tices are done by parties to those. settings whose skill with, knowledge of, and entitlement tothe detailed work ofthat accom. plishment-whose competence-they abstinately depend upon, ree- ognize, use, and take for granted: and that they take thei competence for granted ise furnishes partes with a setting’distinguishing and partiular features, and of course it furishes them as well as resources, troubles, projets, and the fest ‘Some strictorally equivocal features of the methods and results| by persons doing sociology, lay and professional, of making prace tical activites observable were epitomized by Helmer and Res cher! When members” accounts of everyday ctivitios are used fs prescriptions with which to locate, to Hlentiy, to analyze, to Classify, to make recognivable, oF to And one's way around in com- parable oceasons, the prescriptions, they observe, are law-like, patiotemporlly restricted, and “loose.” By “loose” is meant that though they are intendedly conditional in thei logical form, “the nature of the conditions i sich that they ean often not be spelled ‘out completely or fll.” The authors cite as an example « state- tment about sailing Beet tactics in the 18th century. ‘They point ‘out the statement eatries as a test condition reference to the state (of naval ordnance In elaborating conditions (under which such a statement would hold) the historian delineates what is typical of the place and period, The full implications of such relerence may be vast and inexhaustible, for instance --- ordnance soon ramifes tia metal working technology into metallurgy, mine ing, ete. Thus, the conditions whieh are operative ia. the formulation of an historical Iaw may only be indicated in a ideneral way, and are not necessarily, indoed, in most cases ‘cannot be expected to be exhaustively articulated. This char fcteristie of toch laws is here designed as loseness ‘A consequence of the looteness of historical laws 4s that they are not universal, but merely quastgeneral in that they dint of exceptions. Since the conditions delimiting the area ‘of application of the law are often not exhaustively atiew Tated. 8 supposed violation of the law may be explicable by showing that a legitimate, but as yet wnformulated, precon ‘ition of the law's applicability is not follled in the case ‘under consideration, Consider that this holds in every particular case, and holds not bby reason of the meaning of “quaslaw,” but because of investi- ‘tors’ actual, particular practices. "Olaf Hales sod Nicholas Resher, On the Epitonaogy ofthe tneract spe HS ne Ms tn! BAN pr ke, Further, Helmer and Rescher point out, ‘The laws may be taken to contain a tacit caveat of the ‘usually” of “other things being equal” type. An historical law is Uhus pot still universal in that t must be taken as applicable to all cases falling within the scope of its ex: plctly formlated or formulable conditions, rather, it may be thought to formulate relationships which obtain generally (oF better, which obtain "asa rue Such "aw" we will term quasélow, In order for the law to be valid it is not necessary that no apparent exceptions occur, Tt is only necessary that, if an apparent exception Should occur, an adequate explanation be forthcoming, an explanation demonstrating the exceptional characterise of the ease in hand by establishing the violation of an appropri ate, if hitherto unformuleted, condition of the laws apples Bilt. ‘These and other Features can be cited for the cogeney with which they describe membery accounting practices, Thus: (1) ‘Whenever a member is requted to demonstrate that an account analyzer an atl stution, he invariably makes use of the prac tices of “et cetera,” “unless” and "Tet it pass" to demonstrate the rationality of his achievement. (2) The definite and sensible char acter of the matter that is being reported is settled by an assign ment that reporter and auditor make to each other that each will have furnished whatever unstated understandings are requite. Much therefore of what is actually reported is not mentioned. (3) Over the time for their delivery accounts are apt to require that “auditor” be willing to wait for what will have been sad in order thatthe present significance of what has been said will have be- fame cer. (4) Like conversations, reputations, and careers, the particulars of accounts are built up step by step over the actual Uses of and references to them. (5) An account's materials ate apt to depend heavily for sense upon their serial placement, upon th relevance tthe auultor’s projects, o upon the developing course Of the organizational occasions of thee use In shor, recognisable sense, or fact, or methode character, of Impersonality, or objeciviy of accounts are not independent of the socially organized occasions of theie ws, Their rational features consist of what members do with, what they “make of” the se-‘counts inthe socially organized actual occasions of their use. Mem- 1 bers accounts are cefleively and essentially ted for their rational features to the socially organized occasions of their use for they are features of the socially organized occasions of their use “That tie establishes the central topic of our studies: the rational accountability of practical actions as an ongoing, practical accom- plishment. I want to specly the topic by reviewing three of its constituent, problematic phenomena. Wherever studies of prac: tial action and practical reasoning are concerned, these consist of the following: (1) the unsatisfied programmatic distinction be- tween and substitutability of objective (contest free) for indesteal expressions; (2) the “uninteresting” essential relexivity of accounts of practical actions; and (3) the analyzabilty of acionsimcontext fs & practical accomplishment. The unsatisied programmatic distinction between ‘and substttebilty of objective for indexicel expressions Properties that are exhibited by accounts (by reason of their being features ofthe socially organized oecasons of thet se) are available from studies by logicians as the properties of indexical’ expressions and indesical sentences. Husserl” spoke of expressions whose sense cannot be decided by an auditor without hi neces sarily knowing or assuming something sbout the biography and, the purposes of the user of the expression, the circumstances of the utterance, the previous course of the conversation, or the par. ticular relationship of actual or potential interaction that exists Detween the expresior and the suditor. Russell? observed that descriptions involving them apply on each occasion of use to only ‘one thing, but to diferent things on diffrent occasions. Such eX pressions, wrote Goodman, are used to make unequivocal state- rents that nevertheless seem to change in truth value. Each of ther utterances, “tokens,” constitutes a word and refers to a cer 2 n Marvin Father, The Foundation of Phnemenolny(Corbrlge, Mas. chute) Hat Unites Pras 1843), pp 23728 "SteectdRamell nguyen an rath (New Yok: W. W, Nee Campa, Tne th pp ola. "ReimCoodian, The Sacre of Aypeamanee (Cambriie, Mase toate Harvard Untenty Pr 1850, 9 3 s tain person, time, or place, but names something not named by some replica of the word. Theie denotation is relative to the / speaker Their use depends upon the relation of the user to the object with which the word is concemed, Time for a. temporal indevical expression is relevant to what it names. Similarly, just, ‘what region a spatial indevical expression names depends upon the location ofits utterance. Indexical expressions and statements, ‘ontaining them are not frecly repeatable, in a given discourse, not all their replicas therein are also translations of them. The list can he extended indefinitely Virtually unanimous agreement exis among students of prac- tical sociological reasoning, laymen and professionals, about the properties of indexical expressions and indexical actions. Impres- sive agreement exists as well (1) that although indexical expres- Sons “are of enormous utility” they are “awkward for formal Aiscourse; (2) that_a distinction between objective expressions nd indexical expressions is not only procedurally proper but un svoidable for whoroever would do science, (3) that without the distintion between objective and indesieal expressions, and with ‘vt the prefered nse of objective expressions the victories of gen eralizing, rigorous, sient inguvis~loge, mathematics, some of the plysieal sciences—are unintelligible, the vietores would fal, tnd the inexact sciences would have to abandon their hopes; (4) that the exact sciences are distinguishable from the inexact siences by the fact that in the ease of the exact sciences the distinction betoveen end substitution of objective for indexical expressions for problem formulation, methods, Andings, adequate demonsteation, Adequate evidence and the rest i both an actual task and an factual achievement, whereas inthe ease of the inexact seiences the availsbilty of the distinction and substitutability to actual tasks, practices, and revulls remains nrealieably programmatic, (5) that the distinction between objective and indexial expressions, insofar asthe distinction consists of inquires’ tasks, ideals, wns, resources, achievements, and the rest describes the dillerence be. twveen sciences and artsme,g, between biochemistry and dock mentary flming (8) that terms and sentences can be distinguished as one or the other in accordance with am assessment procedure that makes decidable their character as indexieal or objective expressions; and (7) that in any particular case only practical dif taulies prevent the substitution by an objective expression for an {ndexical expression Features of indexcal expressions motivate endless methodologl- cal ses dieeted to their remedy Indeed, attempts to rid the practices of seience of these nuisinoes lends to each sesence its distinctive charater of preoccupation and productivity with meth- fodological issues. Research practitiones’ studies of practical acti ites of a science, whatever their science, afford. them endless ‘occasions to deal rigorously with indexical expressions. ‘Areas in the socialsciences where the promised distinction and promised substtatabiity ccous are countless. The promised Aistinetion and substitutability are supported by and themselves support immense resources directed to developing methods forthe strong analysis of practical actions and practical reasoning, Prom- ‘seal applications and benefits are immense Nevertheless, wherever practical actions are topics of study the promised distinction and substitutability of objective for indexical fxpressions remains programmatic in every particular case and in every actual oceasion in which the dsinetion or substitutability must be demonstrated. In every actual ease without exception, con- ditions will be cited that a competent investigator willbe required to recognize, such that in that particular case the terms of the demonstration can be relaxed and nevertheless the demonstration bbe counted an adequate one. We leam from logicians and linguists, who are in vitually unan- mous agreement about them, what some of these conditions are. For “long” texts, or “long” courses of action, for events where members’ actions are featutes of the events their actions are ac- complising, or wherever tokens are not used oF are not suitable 18 proxies for indexical exprssions, the programs claimed demon strations are satisfied as matters of practical social management. ‘Under such coneitions indexial expressions, by reason of thelr prevalence and other properties, present immense, obstinate, and Inremediable nuisances to the tasks of dealing rigorously with the phenomena of structure and relevance in theories of consistency proofs and computability, and i attempts to recover actual as com- pared with supposed common cond and common talk with full, ‘ruetural particulars. Drawing upon their experience in the uses 7 of sample surveys, and the design and application of measurements fof practical actions, statstial analyses, mathematical models, and ‘computer simulations of social proceses, professional sociologists tare able to document endlessly the ways in which the program: ‘atic distinction and substitutability is satsGed in, and depends ‘upon, professional practices of socially managed demonstration. In short, wherever studies of practical actions are involved, the Aistinetion and substitutability is always accomplished only for all, practical purposes. Thereby, the frst problematic phenomenon Is recommended to consist of the reBexivity of the practices and attainments of sciences in and of the organized activities of every day life, which isan essential reflexivity. The “a teresting” essential reflexivity of accounts FFor members engaged in practical sociological reasoning-at we shall sce in later studies, for aff personnel at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, for staf users of psychiatric cline folders at U.CLA, for graduate student coders of prychiatic records, for jurors, for an intrsexed person managing sex change, for professional sociological researchere—their concerns re for what is decidable “for practical purposes” “in light of this situ tion,” “given the nature of actual ceumstances," and the like. Practical circumstances and practical actions refer for them (0 many’ organizational important and serious matters: to resources, ims, exeuses, opportunities, tasks, and of course to grounds for arguing or foretlling the adequacy of procedures and ofthe fnd- Ings they yield. One matter, however, is excluded from their inter sts: practical actions and practical circumstances are not ia themselves a topic, let alone a sole topic of their inguties; nor are their inguties, addressed to the tasks of socologieal theorizing, undertaken to formulate what these tasks consist of as practical actions. Inno cate it the investigation of practical actions under- taken in order that personnel might be able to recognice and describe what they are doing in the fist place. Least of all are practical actions investigated in order to explain to practitioners thelr own talk about what they are doing. For example personnel at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center found it alogether incongruous to consider seriously that they be so engaged in thework of certifying mode of death that a person seeking to commit fiicde, and they could concert their elforts to assure the um ‘equivocal recognition of “what really happened.” "To say they are "not interested” in the sad of practical actions is not to complain, nor to point to an opportunity they mis, nor i it a disclosure of eror, nor is it an itonie comment. Nether Is i the case that because members are “not interested” that they are “precluded” from sociological theorizing. Nor do their inquiries pireclide the use of the rule of doubt, nor are they precluded from Inaking the organized activities of everyday Ife sclentifealy prob- Tematies, nor docs the comment insinuate a difference between “basic” and “applied” interests in research and theorizing ‘What docs it mean then to say that they are “not interested” in studying practical actions and practical soclological reasoning? And ‘what isthe import of such a statement? ‘There i feature of members scoouns that for them is of such singular and prevailing relevance that 1 controls other features fn thei specif character as recognizable, rational features of prac tical sociological inquiries. The feature is this, With respect to the problematic character of practical actions and to the practical adequacy of thei inquises, members take for granted that a mem Ther mast atthe outset “know” the settings in which e is to operate if his practices aze to serve as measures to ring particular, lated, features of these setings to recognizable account. They treat as ‘the most passing matter of fact that members! accounts, of every sort, in all thet logical modes, with all oftheir uses, and for every ‘method for their asombly are constituent features of the settings they make observable. Members know, require, count on, and rake use of this refeaiity to produce, accomplish, recognize, oF omonstrate rtionaladequacy-forallpractica-purposes of their procedures and findings. "Not only do members-the jurors and the others—take that re fervty for granted, but they recognize, demonstrate, and make ‘observable for each other the rational character of their actual, fd that means their occasional, practices while respecting that reflexivity a an unalterable and tmavoidable condition of their inquiries ‘When I propote that members are “not intersted” in studying practical actions, Ido not mean that members will have none, a tle, of a Jot of st. That they are “not interested” has to do with reasonable practices, with plausible argument, and with reason able findings. Tt has 10 do with treating “accountable forall prac: tical-punposes” as a dicoverable matter, exclusively, only, and entitely. For members to be “interested” would consist of their undertaking to make the “rexive” character of practical activities observable; to examine the artful practices of rational inquiry as ‘organizational phenomena without thought for corectives oF iron. Members of the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center are like ‘members wherever they engage in practical sociological inquties though they would, they can have hone of i ‘The onalyzabilty of ectionsin-contoxt (98a practical accomplishment Tn indefinitely many ways member inquires are constituent features of the settings they analyze. In the same says, their in- quires are made recognizable to members as adequste-orall-pac- ‘ueal-purposes. For example, at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, that deaths ate made accountabl-forall-practial-purposes are practical organizational accomplishments, Organizatonally, the Suicide Prevention Center consists of practical procedures for ac- complishing the rational accountability of suicidal deaths as ree- fopnizable features of the settings in which that accountability Tn the actual occasions of interaction that sccomplishment for members omnipresent, unproblemati, and commonplace. For ‘members doing sociology, to make that accomplishment a topic of practical sociological inquiry seems unavoidably to require that they teat the rational properties of practical activities as “anthropo- logically strange.” By this I mean to cal attention to “rellxve" practices such as the following: that by his accounting practices the member makes familar, commonplace activities of everyday life recognizable as familar, commonplace activities; that on each ‘occasion that an account of common activities is used, that they be recognized for “another fst time": that the member teat the processes and attainments of “imagination” as continuous with the ‘other observable Features of the settings in which they occur, and of proceeding in such a way that at the same time that the member“in the mids” of witnesied actual settings reeognizes that wit reseed settings have an accomplished sense, an accomplished fac ticity, an accomplished objectisity, an accomplished. familiarity, an accomplished accountability, for the member the organizational hhows of these accomplishments. are unproblematic, ane. known vaguely, and are known only in the doing whichis done skilfully, reliably, uniformly, with enormous standardization avd as an un soountable matter. "That accomplishment costs of members doing, reengniring, and using ethnogeaphies. In anknown ways that accomplishment {s for members a commonplace phenomenon. And in the unknown, ‘ways that the accomplishment is commonplace it i for our Inter. ‘ess, an awesome phenomenon, for in ss unknown ways st consists (A) of members uses of concerted everyday activities as methods with which to recognize and demonstrate the isolatable, typical, uniform, potential repetition, connected appearance, consistency ‘equivalence, substitutability, directionality, anonymously describ: able, plinfl-in short, the rational properties of indexical expres. ‘sions and indesial actions. (2) The phenomenon consists, too, of the analyzablity of setions-in-contert given that not nly does no concept of contextin general exit, but every use of “contest” with ‘out exception is itself extentilly indesca ‘The recognizedly rational properties of their common sense in quiris-their recognized consistent, or methodic, ot uniform, oF planful, ete. character~are somchow attainments of members con: certed activites. For Suickde Prevention Center staff, for coders, for jurors the ational properties of thelr practical ingulses some hhow consist in the concerted work of making evident from frag ment, fom proverbs, from passing remarks, from mimor, from partial desriptions, from “codified” but estentilly vagne oat Togues of experience and the like how a person died in society, oF by what extera patients were selected for prychiateic treatment, for which among the slterative verdicts was correct. Somehow is the problematic crux of the matte, ‘What is ethnomethodlogy? ‘The earmark of practical sociological reasoning, wherever it oc: ‘uss is that it Seeks to remedy the idexical propeties of members! ” talk and conduct. Endless methodological studies are directed to the tasks of proving members a remedy for indesical expressions in members abiding attempts, with rigorous wes of ideals to dem- onstrate the observabilty of organized activities in actual occa Slons with situated particulars of tak and conduct, ‘The properties of indesca! expressions and indexica actions are ‘ordered properties. These consst of onganizationally demonstrable fense, of facticity, or methodic use, or agreement among “cultural colleagues” Their ordered properties consist of organizatonally ‘demonstrable rational properties of indexical expressions and in- ‘erica actions. Those ordered properties are ongoing achievements, of the concerted commonplace activities of investigators. The de- ‘monsrable rationality of indexcal expressions and indexical ac: tions retains over the course of its managed production by rmembers the character of ordinary, familar, rotinized practical ércumstances, As process anil attainment the produced rationality of indevcal expressions consists of practical tasks subject to every ‘exigency of organizational situated conduct. use the term “ethnomethodology” to refer to the investigation ‘of the rational properties oF indexical expressions and ater prac tical actions as contingent ongoing accomplishments of organized autiul practices of everyday life. The papers of this volume treat that accomplishment as the phenomenon of interest. They seek to speci ts problematic features, to recommend methods for is ody, but above all to consider what we might leam definitely bout i. My porpose in the remainder of this chapter i to char- acterize ethnomethodology, which T have done by presenting three Studies of the work of that accomplishment together with a con: cluding recitation of study policies. PRACTICAL SOCIOLOGICAL REASONING: DOING ACCOUNTS IN "COMMON SENSE SITUATIONS OF CHOICE” The Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center (SPC) and the Las Angeles Medical Examiner Coroners Oifiee joined forces in 1957 to fomish Coroners Death Certificates the warrant of scientific authority “within the limits of practical certainties imposed by the state ofthe art.” Selected cases of “sudden, unnatural death” thatwere equivocal between “suicide” and other modes of death were refered by the Medical Examiner-Coroner to the SPC with the request that an inquty, called “psychological autopsy.” * be done. “The practices and concems by SPC. staff to accomplish their in: ‘uiries in common sense situations of choice repeated the features Of practical inquiries that were encountered in other situations studies of jury deliberations in negligence cases; clinic stall in Selecting patients for outpatient psychiatric treatment, graduate Students in sociology coding the contents of clinic folders into a ‘nding sheet by following detailed coding instructions; and count- Tess professional procedures inthe conduct of anthropological, linguistic, socal psychiatric, and sociological inquiry. The follow: ing features in the work at SPC were recognized by staff with frank acknowledgement as prevailing conditions of their work and as ‘matters to consider when assessing the efficacy, efficiency, or i telligiblty of their Work=and added SPC testimony to that of rors, survey researchers, and the rest (G2) An abiding concer on the part of all parties for the tom- poral concerting of activities; (2) a concem for the practical ques- tion par excellence: “What to do next”, (3) a concem on the inquirer part to give evidence of his grasp of "What Anyone Knows” about how the settings work in which he had to accomplish his inquiries, and his concern to do so in the actual occasions in ‘which the decisions were to be made by his exhibiable conduct {in choosing (4) matters which atthe level of talk might he spoken of as “production programs,” “laws of conduct.” “rules of rational "The flowing references coal egos on the “peli atopy” proce deyelped at te Low Angler Suse Penton Center. Theodore EGirey, "The Porense Patolor atthe NtlieDiscpiary.Approch f Dette Emagen Self-Beanetin, al Edwin 6 Sete (item ‘onl Slece Pres, 1967), fm pss, Todor J Cpe. “The Rae of Th Soul Seen ye: MedicnLngi Calton of Death fen. Sue In The Cry or Hel el Nornan Le Farr” ae nS Shona (ew veek_ McGraw ill Hook Comput 1001): Evi. Shietdnan ad ‘Neoar 1 Fathso “Sample lvetasoy of Equal Stila Death a The Ci for Hp, Raber Lsme, Theoare J Copiny, Ewin 8. Shel tan, Noman Le Eetarow, anf Nara D. Technic, "nvetitiey of guia Si Jownal of the mercan Meda section, 184 (1983), S235" ant Biwi 8 Shaaidman “Orntatene ow Deathe A itl ‘Ape of the Sy of Liven The Study of ie Robert W. White {Rey eh et ea ot) spel he feria oh decision-making,” “causes” “conditions.” “hypothesis testing.” models.” “rules of inductive and deductive inference” in the actual situation were taken for granted and were depended upon tw consist of recipes, proverbs, slogans, and partially formulated plans of action (3) inquires were required to know and be skilled fn dealing with situations “of the sort” for which “rues of rational decision-making” and the rest were intended i order to “see” or bby what they did to insure the objective, effective, consistent, com- pletely, empirically adequate, ie, rational character of recipes, Drophesies, proverbs, partial desriptions in an actual occasion of the use of rules; (6) for the practical decider the “actual ecca- sion” as a phenomenon in i own right exercised overwhelming priority of relevance to which “decision rules” or theories of de- sionsmaking were without exception subordinated in order to fssese their rational features rather than vlee ergy; (7) Snaly, tnd perhaps most charateristelly, all of the foregoing feature, together with an inguirer's “system” of altematives, his “decision” rethods, his information, his choies, and the rationality of his accounts and actions were constituent parts of the same practical ‘@rcumstances in which inguiers did the work of inquiry feature that inquiters if they were to claim and recognize the practicality ofthe efforts knew of, required, counted on, took for granted, ‘sed, and glossed. "The work by SPC members of conducting their inquiries was part and parcel of the day's work. Recognized by stall members fs constituent features of the day’s work, their inquiries were thereby intimately connected to the terms of employment, t0 various intemal and external chains of reportage, supervision, and review, and to sar organizationally supplied "priorities of rel fevances” for assessments of what “realistically” “practical,” oF reasonably” needed to be done and could be done, how quickly, with what resources, sseing whom, taking about what, for how Tong, and +0 on. Such considerations furnished "We did what we ‘could, and for all reasonable interests here i what we came out swith" Hs features of organizationally appropriate sense, fact, i Penonality, anonymity of authorship. purpose, reproducibility fe, of a properly and visibly rational account of the inquiry. ‘Members were required in their occupational expacities to For rmulate accounts of how a death realy-forall practical purposes“ sroois 1 ehouetHODOLoOY happened. “Realy” made avoidable reference to diy, ordinary cccuputioal workings. Members alone were ettled to invoke such workings as appropriate grounde for recommending the ex Tonable character of the rest scithout ncesty for furshing tpecifer On occasions of challenge, onary occupational work ihe would be sted explcly, in clevant parts Otherwise those features were divengaged from the product In thelr place an ae fount of how the ingury war done made out the howewas act Alive a5 appropiate to usual demands, osal attainment, tool races, end to usa talk by SPC personel talking at Done file proesonal practitioners shout sush demands, aol tn: trea and uel practices. ‘One of several titles (relating to mode of death) had to be assigned to each cate. The elletion consisted of legally possble {Smintins of four elementary poailities-natura dea, acc ‘dnt suicide, and Homicile® Al Ges were 40 admintered as to fot only withtand the varieties of equivcaton, ambiguity, and improvisation that arose i every acta oceson of their was bt the iles were so administered fo incite that ambigiy, ie fealty, and nproviation, It wae pat of the work not ony that cauiocaity iva trouble-isporhape a toubleut a the pra: loners were directed to the cites fn order to tite the ambigllyor the equivocal, to nvte the inprovition, orto Invite the temporing. and the rst Te not that the investigator, Inving lst files performed an Ingury that proceeded sep tvs to etal the grovnde for electing nog them The Formal Sav mo "Hlere is what we di and among the titles as gone of ‘our revareh thi te Bally interprets in» est fashion what wo found out” Instead titles were contnoally posted and fore {OKI An inquiry was apt to be heavily guided by the Ingulrers tse of inagined stings in whch the tle wil have boon “sed by one or staer loterested party, including the decor, and thi was done by the inguirers inorder to deride, using whatever Satu’ might have bee seared oot, that that “Satan” ould be “The posble combinations include the following: tral, acea; a cite, Ide posite sels poe sie, posible natu eens) ‘Show or soe andeteried, Chetsen) nt! or se, adden, ‘iceecad aur we sells deeneiods ao (among) satura or ne carer meld, eden. re used to mask if masking needed to be done, oF 19 equivocate or loss, or lead, or exemplify if they were needed. "The prevailing feature of sn inquiry was that nothing sbout it remained assured aside from the organized occasions of ts uses. Thus a routine in- Guiry was one that the investigator wsed particular contingencies to accomplish, and depended spon particular contingencies to ree- fognize and to recoromend the practical adequacy of his work. When astessed by a member, 12, viewed with respect to actual practices for making it happen, a routine inquiry i not one that fs aceomplshed by rule, or according to rules, It seemed much more to consist of an inguisy that is openly recognized to have fallen short, but in the same ways it falls short its adequacy is adkaowledged and for which no one is offering or calling particu larly for explanations. ‘What members are doing in their inquires is always somebody ‘lcs business in the sense that particular, organizational located, locatable persons acquire an interest in light of the SPC mem- ber’ account of whatever i that will have been reported to have “really happened.” Such considerations contributed heavily to the perceived feature of investigations that they were dicted in their purse by an account for which the claim wil have been advanced ‘that for all practical purposes itis correct. Thus over the path of has inquiry the investigators task consisted of an account of how 2 particular person died in society that Is adequately told, sul ‘ently detailed, clear, ete, forall practical purposes. “What really happened” over the course of arriving at it, a6 wel as after the "what relly happened” has been inserted into the fle and the tite has been decided, may be chronically reviewed as well as chronically foretold in light of what might have heen done, for what will have been done with those decisions. Ii hardly news that on the way to a decision what « decision will have come to was reviewed and foretold in light ofthe anticipated consequences of u decision. After « recommendation had been made and the fononer had signed the death cortieate the result can yet be, as they say, “revised,” It ean still be made a decision which needs to bbe reviewed “once more Inquirers wanted very mach to be able to assure that they could come out a the end with an account of how the person died that ‘would permit the coroner and his staf to withstand claims arguing6 spies enmiowstoo0.0 cal as to mode of death. That death they use as a precedent with ‘hich various ways of living i seciety that could have terminated with that death are searched out and resd “in the remains’ in the seraps of this and that like the body and its trappings, medicine bottles, notes, bits and pleces of clothing, and other memorabilia stuff that can be photographed, collected, and packaged. Other “re. mains” are collected too: rumors, passing remarks, and stories materials in the “repertoires” of whosoever might be consulted via, the common work of conversations. These tchatsoever bits and pieces that a story or a rule or a proverb might make intclligible fare used to formulate a recognizably coherent, standard, typical, cogent, uniform, planfal, te, a. professionally defensible, and thereby, for members, a recognizably rational account of how the society worked to produce those remains. Thi point will be easier to make if the reader will mult any standard textbook in forensic pathology. Init he wil fnd the inevitable photograph of victim with a slashed throat. Were the coroner to se that right” to ree: ‘ommend the equivocality ofthe mode of death be might say some: thing lke this: "In the case where a body looks lke the one in that, picture, you are looking at a suicidal death because the wound shows the ‘hesitation cus’ that accompany the great wound. One ‘ean imagine these euts are the remains ofa procedure whereby the tim frst made several preliminary trials of a hesitating sort and then performed the lethal shsh. Other courses of action are imag inabe, too, and so ents that look like hesitation cuts can be pro- duced by other mechanisms. One needs to start with the actual Aisplay and imagine how diferent courses of actions could havebeen organized such that that picture would be compatible with {One might think of the photographed display asa phase-of-the fction, In any actual display is there course of action with which that phase is uniquely compatible? That is the coroner's question.” "The coroner (and SPCers) ask this with respect to each partic~ ay ease, and thereby theie work of achieving practical decidabil- ity seems almost unavoidably to display the following prevailing land important characteristic, SPCers must accomplish that decid- bility ‘with respect t0 the “thiss": they have to start with this much, this sight; thie note; das clletion of whatever is at hand. ‘And whatever i there is good enowgh in the sense that whatever is there not only will 60, but dees. One makes whatever is there do, 1 do not mean by “making do” that an SPC investigator is too tly content, of thst he does nat look for more when he should. Thstead, I mean: the whatever its that he has to deal wit, that is what will have been ased to have found out, to have made de: Cable, the way in which the society operated to have produced that pictur, t0 have come to that scene as its end result, In this ‘way the remains on the sla serve not only as a precedent but as a foal of SPC inquiries. Whatsoecer SPC members are faced with fnust serve as the precedent with which to read the remains 0 35 to see how the solely could have operated to have produced what 4s atthe inquirer has “in the end,” “nthe Boal analysis” and “in ‘any case” What the inquiry can come to is what the death PRACTICAL SOCIOLOGICAL REASONING FOLLOWING CODING INSTRUCTIONS Several years go amy co-workers and I undertook to analyze the caperience of the U.CL.A. Outpatient Clinic ia order to answer the questions “By what eniteria ae its applicants selected for teat- ment?” To formulate and to aner this question we used a version fof e method of eohort analysis that Krasner and his associates * had tsed to deserbe load snd flow characteristics of patients in mental hospitals. (Chapters Six and Seven report furler aspects ofthis re- M1 Kramer, HL, Colisein RH, Il apd NA. Ihe, “Arians cf 1 EM Meth to the Stay of Monta. Haya Pepaltons, gchar Research Royo of te Amerson Phin Aneto, Tone, 1186, 9p. 878 : search) Suse ates of “et cata “ake inten ‘prveloial teing” “ihe eofeence “intestmeat ond Cla? wee cece wie ets ees teak Figure 1. Any path from est contact to termination was called a FIGURE 1, Creer paths of psians of payhonie ene We wished to know what characteristics of patients, of clinical ‘personnel, of their interactions, and of the tree were associated ‘with which careers. Clinic records were our sources of information, ‘the most important of which ware intake application forms and case folder contents. In order to obtain a continuing record of, ptient-clinc case transactions from the time of a patient’ inital contact until he terminated a “Clinic Career Form” was designed tnd inserted into ese folder Beas hint fldrs contin tee fords that clinic personnel provide of their own activites, almost all of these sources of data were the results of self-reporting Procedures, ‘Two graduate students in Sociology at UCLA. examined 1.552 lini folders for the information to complete the items of « Coding Sheet. A conventional reliabikty procedire was designed and con ducted with the aim of determining the amount of agreement between coders and hetwoen successive trials oftheir coding, Ac cording to conventional reasoning. the amount of agreement fur rishes one set of grounds for lending eredence to coded events 28 actual clinic events, A exitcal feature of conventional elabltymms rcpt noma spoken accomplish the cling. codes were assuming nowledge of the Saregama tionsinrat ens Shen ng wont Seater dak ce wees mice mean car re Se Tepes th i tle a Sonate erie ich aired en ac te wk soi eit ec imeeal 9 woe fase tars See here Scie nt en ay Ma oa era a ce areata spb mah tence cae ne Staaten ice ale Pn set new ee 2S rs a and “factum valet” (Le,, an action that i otherwise prokbited by 8 rule is counted correct once iti done). For convenience let me call these “ad hoc" considerations, and call thelr practice “ad hoe- Jing” Coders used the same adhoc considerations in order to ee. ognize the relevance of the coding istructions to the organized activities ofthe clini. Only when this relevance was cleat were the coders sitiied that the coding instructions analyzed sctally en- ‘countered folder contents so as to permit the coders to teat folder contents as reports of "real events” Finally, ad hoc considerations ‘were invariant features of the practices of “ollowing coding in- structions.” Attempts to suppress thes while retaining an unequit- ‘cal sense to the instructions produced bewilderment om their pat. Various facets of the "aes" reliability study were then devel: ‘oped, at frst in order to see if these results could be Bry estab lished, and after it was clear, to my satisfaction, that they could, 0 ‘exploit their consequences forthe general sociological character of the coders’ methods of interrogation (as well as contrasting meth- fds) as well as for the work that i involved in recognizing of claiming that something had been done by rule—that an action had followed or had been “governed” by instructions, ‘Ad hoc considerations are invariably relevant considerations in| Aeciding the it between what could be sead from the cline folders and what the coder inserted into the coding sheet. No matter how definitely and elaborately intractons had been writen, and de- spite the fact that strict actuarial coding rules could be form lated for every item, and with which folder contents could be mapped into the coding sheet, insofar as the lai had to be ed vanced that Coding Sheet entries reported real events of the clin {c's activites, then in every instance, nd for every item, “et cetera,” “unless” “let it pass” and “factum valet” accompanied the coders rasp of the coding instractions as ways of analyzing actual folder contents. Their use made it possible, es well, fr the coder to read 4 folders contents as a report about the events that the Coding Sheet provided and formulated as events of the processing tre. ‘Ordinarily researchers treat such ad hoc procedures as Hawesd "Davi Maras ml of an iefermatiosmathing game wa tke to de foe the, meng fant scan metho! ir Inerpsting” See Bl na gues and Anca Pico of See 3h Non sums oes feeding Os mite te ocanone fn whch “et cete td ta tacts though ad foe ese thi se wer Fi tc ck Sy ce Pe eee Se ran i gone ait te ha hie Seer Touch ir oon a tet heir teh so Fatieiahs cantina re mab Soe Beh Su nt ce a se may ede nea ely So ae rp rasemria hepa eee ry goat ine we i a a ie ce ae re ce a now ga oe Sate ae oe en ond te ee Ce a a fe Poe el nate Se Pe re oe ae id a se ab ace ae i ay sty oe), caper lr ms oe bac oon Se eel ee be folder. This he accomplishes in something like the way that one a ‘must know the orderly ways of English usage in order to recognize fn utterance as a word-n-Eaglsh or know the rules of « game to ‘make out s move-ina-game, given that altemative ways of making out an utterance or a board play are always imaginable. Thereby. the coder recognizes the folder content for “whet it actually fan “See what note inthe folder‘ really talking about’ Given tis, if the coder has to be satisfied that he has detected 8 real clinic occurrence, he must treat actual folder contents a3 standing, proxy for the soclalorderin-and-o-clinicactiviis, Ae tual folder contents stand to the socially ordered ways of eine activites as representations of them; they do nat describe the order, nor are they evidences ofthe order. Iti the coder’s use of folder documents as sign-functions to which I mean to. be pointing in saying that the coder must know the order ofthe clini activites that he i looking at in order to recognize the actual content as an appearance-ofthe-order. Once the coder can “soe the sytem” in the conten, iti possible forthe coder to extend and to otherwise Interpret the coding instructions—to ad hoe them=so a to mai tain the relevance ofthe coding instructions tothe actual contents, tnd in this way to formulate the sense of actual content 50 that it ‘meaning, even though it is transformed by the coding, is preserved inthe coder’ eyes as areal event ofthe clinic's actual activites, ‘There are several important consequences (1) Characteristcally, coded results would be treated as i they were disinterested descriptions of clinic events, and coding rules are presumed to back up the claim of disinterested description But if the work of ad hocing is required to make such cms intel Tigbl, ican always be anguedand so far I do not see a defensible reply—that the coded results consist of a persnasive version of the socially organized character of the clini’ operations, regardless of what the actual order is, peshapsivdependently of what the actual order is, and even without the investigator having. detected the sctual order. Instead of our study of patients clinic careers (a8 well, 85 the multitude of studies of various socal arrangements that have been carried out in similarly conventional ways) having deverbod the order ofthe clini’ operations, the account may be argued to consist of a socially invented, persuasive, and proper way of talk {ng about the elinic as an orderly enterprise, since “ater all” the sccount was produced by “Scentife procedures.” The account™ ries M emoneHoDo.oor would be itself part of the actual order of the clini’s operations, In much the same way that one might treat a person’ report on his own activities av a feature of his activites. The actual order would remain to be described (2) Another consequence arses when we ask what i to be made of the care that nevertheless so assiduoesly exercised in the de sign and vse of coding instructions for interrogating, actual con- tents and transforming them into the language of the coding sheet? If the resulting account is itself a feature of the clinic's activites, then perhaps one ought not read the coding instructions as a way of obtaining a scientife description of the clinic’ activities, since this assumes thatthe coding language, in what iti talking about, is independent of the interests of the members that are being ‘served in using it, Coding instrtions ought to be read instead as ‘consisting of a grammar of rhetoric; they furnish a “social seiencs” ‘way of talking so as to persuade consensus and action within the practical circumstances of the clin's organized daly activities, a {rasp of which members are expected to have asa matter ofcourse, By referring to an account ofthe eine that was obtained by fllow- ing’ coding instructions, i is posible for members with diferent Interests to persuade each other and to reconcile their talk about line affairs in an impersonal way, wile the matters that ate really being talked about retain their sense, for the “discussants” as a legitimate or illegitimate, a desiable or undesirable, an advan taged or dsadvantaged state of aflais forthe “discussants” in their ‘ceupatonal ives, It furnishes an impersonal way of character fing their afsirs without the members relinquishing important or- ‘anizationally determined interests in what the account, in their tyes is “after all” all about. What it all about isthe clini order ‘whove real features, a any member knows that Anyone Knows, are ilways none of somebod)-else-inthat organization's busines. PRACTICAL SOCIOLOGICAL REASONING: COMMON UNDERSTANDING Sociologists distinguish the “product” from the “process” mean Ings of a common understanding, Ax “produc,” a common under- standing is thought to consist of shared agreement on substantive Inatters, a8 “process,” consists of various methods whereby some- thing that a penton says dos scout ace wth Ta iit Rogen an Verena dt Charter ao method aid ewledge, Weber proved soya an authority for this distinction. = provided siete A atlas of sudet experiences in reporting commonplace comeraton igget tse ether te or “poco po js common nding cms of anne enpor ose oF meet work. The expences suet sme Series segues he fac that ae ees omen ending, Se essary an operation str {i Caer Teo orth npr in wich tents wer sshd orp comton converts by og 08 he I de 8 hot at he prs sty dtl one gt ae they and trp ware the) wee big aoa, Te flog cllany pred ere vwsuaxn: Dana succeeded in This afternoon as Twas bring ptting’a penny ining Dana, our four-year-old son, A parking meter to- home from the nursery school, ay without being he succeeded in reaching, high picked up, enough to puta penny in 8 parking meter when we parked fn meter zone, whereas before he had always had to be picked up to reach that high, wore: Did you take him to Since he put a penny in a meter the record store? that means that you stopped while he was with you. 1 know that you stopped atthe record store either on the way to set him or on the way back. Was on the way back that he ‘was with you or did you sop there onthe way to get him and. somewhere ole on the way Tack? ossaxp: No, to the shoe repair No, I stopped atthe record store shop. fon the way ta get him and stopped atthe shoe repir shop con the way home when he was ‘with me,% uot IN eHROMETHODOLOOY 1 know of one reson why you raight have stopped at thoe repair shop. Why did you infact? warn; What for? ossaxo: [got some new shoe As you will remember I broke a Iaces for my shoes. shoe lace on one of my brown ‘oxfords the other day so T ‘Hopped to get some new laces. wore: Your loafers need Something ese you could have new heels badly. gotten that T was thinking of. You could have taken in your black loafers which need heels badly. You'd better get them taken care of petty Soon. Students filed out the left side ofthe sheet quickly and easily, Dut found the right side incomparably more dificult. When the assignment was made, many asked how much I wanted them to write. AS T progressively imposed accuray, carty, and distinet- hese, the task became incressingly laborious. Finally, when T re (ured that they assume T would know what they had) actualy talked about ony from reading Iterally what they wrote literally, they gave up with the complaint that the task was impossible “Although their complaints were concerned with the laborious: ness of having to wite “more, the frustrating “more” was not made up of the lage labor of having to reduce a mountain with Duckets. Tt was not their complaint that what was talked about ccosited of bounded contents made so vast by pedantry that they Ticked sulfeient time, stamina, paper, drive, or good reason to write “ell of ik Instead, the complaint and is circumstances Seemed to consist of this f, for whatever a student wrote, 1 was Able to persuade him that & 88 not yet accurate, distinc, or clear foush, and if he remained wiling to repair the ambiguity, then fhe retumed to the task with the compat that the writing itself developed the conversation as branching texture of relevant mat {ers The very way of accomplishing the tsk anutipied ts Features, ‘What task had 1 set them such tha it required that they waite more"; such that the progressive imposition of accuracy, clarity, and literalness made it iereasingly dificult and fnally impossib 7 and such that the way of accomplishing the task mutplied its features? If 4 common understanding consisted of shaned agree- rent on substantive matters,their task woukd have been identical With one that profesional sociologists supposedly address The tsk ‘would have been solved at professional socilogits are apt to pro pote its solution, as follows Students would fst distinguish what was said from what was talked about, and set the two contents into a correspondence of sign and referent, What the porties said would be treated as a sketchy, partial, incomplete, masked, elliptical, concealed, ambig tous, oF misleading version of what the partie talked about. The task would consist of filling out the sketchiness of what was s3 What was talked shout would consist of elaborated and come: sponding contents of what the parties said. Thus the format of Jeftand right hand columns would accord with the “fet” that the contents of what was said were recordable by writing what tape recorder would pick up. The right hand column would require that something "more" be “added.” Because the sketchiness of what was said was its defect, it would be necessary for students to look ete: ‘where than to what was said in order (4) to find the correspond Ing contents, and (b) to find the grounds to argue—becsuse they would need to argue—for the corrtness of the correspondence. Because they were reporting the actual conversation of particular persous, they would look for these farther contents what the conversitonalist had “in mind” or what they were “thinking.” or what they “believed” or what they “intended.” Furthermore, they ‘would need to be assured that they had detected. what the con Yersationalists actually, and not supposedly, hypothetically, image Inably, or possibly had in mind. That is to say, they would need to cite observed actionsobserved ways that the parties conducted themselves-in order to furnish grounds forthe claim of “actually.” ‘This assurance would be obtained by secking to establish the presence, in the conversational” relationship, of warranting ve- tues such as thir having spoken honestly, openly, candidly, sin cerely, and the like. All of which is to say that stents would invoke thelr knowledge of the community of understandings, end thelr knowledge of shared agreements to recommend the adequacy of their accounts of what the partis had been talking about, ie, ‘what the parties understood in common. Then, for anything thestudents wrote, they could assume that I, as a competent co. member of the stme community (the conversations were afterall Commonplace) should be able to see the correspondence and its grounds, 1 did not see the correspondence or if I made out the fontents diferently than they did, then as long as they could con tinue to assume my competencete,, as long as my alterative Interpretations did not undermine my right to claim that such alter natives needed to be taken seriously by them and by me-I could ‘be matte out by the students as insisting that they Furnish me with finer detailing than practical considerations required. In such case they should have charged me with blind pedantry and should hhave complained that because “anyone can see” when, forall prac tical purposes, enough is enough, none are so blind as those who sell not se. “This version of their task accounts fr their complaints of having to-write “more.” It allo accounts for the task’ increasing laborious: nes when elarity and the like were progressively imposed. But it {doesnot account very well forthe inal impossibly, for it explains fone facet ofthe task’ “impossibility” as students’ unwillingness to {go any further, but it does not explain an accompanying sense, thames, that stidents somehow saw thatthe tsk was, in principle, ‘unsccompishable, Finally, this version of their tsk does not ex plain at all their complaint that the way of accomplishing the task tnulkplied its features. "An alternative conception of the task may do better. Although it may at frst appear strange todo so, suppose we drop the asump- tion that in order to describe a usage as a feature of a community fof understandings we must atthe outset know what the substantive ‘Common understandings consist of, With i, drop the assumptions focompanying theory of signs, according to which a “sign” and “ref- ferent” are respectively properties of something said and some- thing talked about, and which in his fashion proposes sign and referent to be related as corresponding contents. By dropping such {theory of signs we drop aswell, thereby, the possibility that an invoked shared agreement on substantive matters explains a usage 1 these notions are dropped, then what the partes talked about could not be distinguished from how the partes were speaking. An txplanation of what the parties were talking about would then con- Sst entirely of deseribing how the partes had been speaking: of furnishing a method for saying whatever isto be sad, like talking ‘gnmonymousl, talking lronieally, talking metaphorically, talking cepticaly, taking nareatively, talking in a questioning or answer ing way, lying, glossing, double-talking, and the ret In the place of and in contrast to « concer for a difference be tween what was said and what was talked about, the appropriate difference is between a language-community member's recognition that person is saying something, te, that he was speaking, on the ‘one hand, and how he was speaking on the ether. Then the recog nized sense of what a person said consists only and ently in recognizing the method of his speaking, of seeing howe he spoke. T suggest that one not read the right hand column as correspond ing contents of the let, and thatthe students’ task of explaining ‘what the conversationalists talked about did not involve them in laborating the contents of what the conversationalists sai Tsug- fest, instead, that their written explanations consisted of their attmpts to instruct me in how to use what the parties suid as @ method for seeing what the converstionalists sai. T suggest that Thad asked the students to furaish me with instructions for recog nizing what the partis were actually and certainly saying. BY persuading them of altemative “interpretations.” by insisting that ambiguity stil remained, I had. persuaded them that they had demonstrated to me only what the parties were supposedly, or probably, or imaginably, or hypothetically saying. They took this 0 mean that their insructions were incomplete; that their demon- stratons failed by the extent to which thei instructions were in- complete: and thet the diference between claims of actully” and “mupposely” depended on the completeness of the ntructions, We now see what the task was that required them to wite “more.” that they found increasingly dificult snd fnally impossible, and that became elaborated in its features by the very procedures for doing it. Thad set them the task of formulating these instruc: tions so as to make them “increasingly” accurate, clear, distinct, and finally literal where the meanings of “increasingly” and of clarity, acuraey, distinctness, and literalness were supposedly ex- plained in terms of the properties of the instructions themselves and the instructions alone. I had required them to take om the in possible task of “repairing” the essential incompleteness of any set of instructions no matter how carefully or elaborately waiten they20 nies IN EmINOMEHODOLOOT might be, I had required them to formulate the method that the parties had used in speaking as rules of procedure to follow in ‘rd to say what the partes sai, rules that would withstand every txigency of situation, imagination, and development. I bad asked them to describe the partes’ methods of speaking as if these meth- fds were somorphie with actions in strict compliance with a rule Of procedure that formulated the method as an instructable matter. ‘To recognize what is stid- meant to recognize how a person is Speaking, ee, to recognize that the wife in saying “your shoes need heels badly” was speaking aaratively, oF metaphorically, oF ‘euphemisticlly, or doubletalking. "They stumbled over the fact thatthe question of how a person fs speaking, the task of describing a person's method of speaking, {s not saisied by, and {snot the sume as showing that what he ‘aid accords with a rule for demonstrating consistency, compati- bility, and coherence of meanings. For the conduct of thelr everyday affairs, persons take for granted that what is said will be made out according to methods thatthe parties use to make out what they are saying for its clear, fonstent, coherent, understandable, or planful character, é2, as Subject to some rules furisdition—in @ word, as rational, To see the “sense” of what is suid isto accord 9 what was sald its char liter “as a rule” “Shared agreement™ refers to various social meth ‘ods for accomplishing the members recognition that something eas Uaidacording-o-arule and not the demonstrable matching of sub- Stance matter. The appropriate image of a common understand. ing is therefore an operation rather than 4 common intersection of overlapping sets. "A person doing sociology, be it lay or professional sociology, ‘ean treat a common understanding as a shared agreement on sub- Santive matter by taking for granted that what i said will be made out in accordance with methods that need not be specified, ‘which isto say that need only be specified on “special” occasions. ‘Given the discovering character of what the husband and wife were talking about, its recognizable character for both entailed ‘he use by each and the attribution by each to the other of work ‘whereby what was said is or will have been understood to have Tecorded with their relationship of interaction as an involable rule Of their agreement, as an intersubjectvely sed grammatical a scheme for analyzing each others tek whose use provided that they would understand each other in ways that they would be un- derstood. It provides that nether one was entitled to call upon the other to specify how st was being done; nether one was entitled to claim that the other needed to “explain” himself In short, a common understanding, entailing a t does an “inner temporal course of interpretive work, necessarily has an operational structure. For the analyst to disregard its operational structure, 8 to use common sense knowledge of the society in exactly the ways that members use it when they must decide what persons are really doing or rally “king about”

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