The Theoretical Framework of Ethnomethodology ; An Introduction to Conversational Analysis

Abstract

Garfinkel's unswerving insistence on the indexical properties of actions and expressions (context-dependency of meaning) uncovers the actor's ongoing cognitive judgemental work which embeds the present scene in terms of the “common sense knowledge of social structure” into the coherent, repetitive and stable social order. Little attention is given to this ongoing judgemental work. This is because the skilled mastery of the work creates and sustains the normative structure of cultural community, so that the mastery defines the membership of that community. In a word, the member's competence is taken for granted to render the scene meaningful and under the jurisdiction of the normative social structure.
The fact that the ongoing practices of member's competence sustains the normative order radically alters the process of subjective interpretation i.e. the concept of “understanding”; “understanding” is no longer some “inner” process happening in the individual but an “operation” to render the present scene intersubjectively available. Sack's “conversational analysis” enters on to illuminate this culturally provided member's competence in the conversational interaction and in fact, succeeds in describing the fine mechanism built in the conversation.