Abstract

The objective of this study is to show how conversation analysis, a sociological discipline, approaches the study of social institutions. Social institutions are conceived as the crystallization of members’ communicative, interactional practices. Two institutional domains – psychiatric interviews and broadcast news interviews – and a specific interactional practice – ‘formulations’ – are examined in this study. The results show that (1) in psychiatric interviews the psychiatrist uses formulations to transform the patients’ avowals and establish a psychiatric problem. (2) In broadcast news interviews, formulations might help the interviewer to clarify or transform the statements of the interviewee, or challenge his assertions. The comparison of formulations in two different institutional settings serves the purpose of (1) demonstrating how communicative conduct is adapted in particular settings in ways that invoke and configure distinct social institutions and (2) inspect the knowledge, practices, logic, etc., mobilized by members of the epistemic communities of psychiatry and journalism.

Highlights

  • The comparison of formulations in two different institutional settings serves the purpose of (1) demonstrating how communicative conduct is adapted in particular settings in ways that invoke and configure distinct social institutions and (2) inspect the knowledge, practices, logic, etc., mobilized by members of the epistemic communities of psychiatry and journalism

  • As conversation analysis ( CA) has shown (e.g., Atkinson and Drew, 1979; Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Heath, 1981; Heritage and Clayman, 2010; Wilson, 2012) there is a clear connection between sequences of interaction and the social institutions in which they take place

  • Other sociological disciplines that derive from an interpretive tradition relate social structure and interactional organization in a dialectical or reciprocal manner: social structure determines and is determined by interactional organization

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Summary

Introduction

As conversation analysis ( CA) has shown (e.g., Atkinson and Drew, 1979; Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Heath, 1981; Heritage and Clayman, 2010; Wilson, 2012) there is a clear connection between sequences of interaction and the social institutions in which they take place. Conversation analysis and the study of social institutions perspectives conceive communicative conduct as the result or product of socio-cultural elements like age, gender, organizations, institutions, etc. The perspective adopted by CA—clearly stemming from the ethnomethodological concern with the reflexivity of social action—is somehow different from the two mentioned above: our sense of order is the result of interactional practices and created in and through talk.. The perspective adopted by CA—clearly stemming from the ethnomethodological concern with the reflexivity of social action—is somehow different from the two mentioned above: our sense of order is the result of interactional practices and created in and through talk.1 This perspective urges the analyst to approach the study of the interactional and the institutional domains from a non-causal viewpoint.

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