The article begins with a sketch of the relation of interaction to language and to culture, and of the students of interaction to the students of language and of culture. A 10-second segment of recorded interaction at a family dinner is then examined in a fashion meant to preserve the integrity1 of what is being done interactionally while incorporating attention to the deployment of various facets of the language that is used, and its relationship to simultaneously ongoing bodily doings. An (...) interactional practice – whining – from that episode is then juxtaposed with the same practice in several other segments of interaction in the interests of developing a more formal, transsituational account. The viability of research focused on phenomena in an analytically distinct domain of events while preserving the integrity of the occasions in which instances of the phenomenon occurred is then reviewed, using a case study of the conjoint use of phonetic analysis and conversation analysis. The article concludes with a reply to Levinson's article in this special issue of the journal, and uses the occasion to sketch the relationship between interaction and so-called ‘macro’ social and cultural formations such as kinship. (shrink)

The article is the first Russian translation of the most well-known piece in conversation analysis, written by the founders of CA Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson. It has become a milestone in the development of the discipline. The authors offer a comprehensive approach to the study of conversational interactions. The approach is based on the analysis of detailed transcripts of the records of natural conversations. The authors show that in the course of the conversation co-conversationalists use a number (...) of techniques to organize the turn-taking. These techniques are combined in four rules: the first option is the transfer of speakership via allocation of the next speaker by the current speaker; if this first option is not realized, turn-taking may happen via the self-selection by one of the participants; if the second option remains unrealized too, the current speaker continues speaking, with all three options being recurrently provided at all next transition relevant places. The result of the operation of these rules is an orderly conversation based on the principle “one speaker at a time.” According to the authors, this model is compatible with obvious observations concerning conversational practices that they make. The authors show that in every conversation there is a turn-taking system in operation, which provides for a flexible adaptation of the every conversation’s structure to any possible topics and any possible speakers’ identities. Such approach considers how the participants in social interactions order their communication with each other, achieving a sense of normally occurring interaction. (shrink)

Inspired by recent theorization by Dreier and Lave concerning situated perspectives on learning, I illuminate learning of international graduate students in a science lab in Japan as trajectories of participation in multi-layered activities and various mutually constituted occasions, and as crossing of multiple communities of practice. By doing so, I describe trajectories of participation as unique and multiple ways characteristic of individual participants instead of as a linear process from newcomer to old-timer or from peripheral to full participation in a (...) community of practice. Identity formation is also reformulated as discovering and constituting one’s unique self through crossing multiple communities of practice rather than merely as becoming a member in a community of practice. Further, I show that identity formation may be regarded not merely as adjusting the relationship among multiple communities within individuals, but as the practice of organizing new linkages among communities and of reconstituting communities of practice. (shrink)