keskustelunanalyysiin

Keskustelunanalyysi is a field of study focused on how language is used in everyday interaction to produce social meaning. It encompasses methods for examining spoken discourse, turn-taking, sequence organization, and the ways speakers accomplish understanding, disagreement, and alignment. The term may refer to broader discourse analysis as well as the more specific tradition of conversation analysis (CA).

Historically, conversation analysis emerged in the 1960s from the work of researchers such as Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. It emphasizes the meticulous, close examination of naturally occurring talk and the micro-structure of interaction: how turns are allocated, how adjacency pairs function, how repairs are performed, and how topics are introduced and shifted. Broader discourse analysis includes approaches like critical discourse analysis (CDA), which investigates how language encodes power, ideology, and social inequality, as well as sociolinguistic and text-analytic methods that consider larger discursive practices and genres.

Methods commonly used in keskustelunanalyysi include qualitative analysis of transcripts, often derived from recorded conversations, interviews, meetings, or public discourse. Transcriptions may employ specialized conventions to capture timing, intonation, overlaps, and other features. Researchers frame research questions around interactional mechanisms, turn structure, relevance of items, and interactional outcomes, while still drawing on theories from linguistics, sociology, and anthropology.

Applications span education, organizational communication, media studies, and social sciences, where understanding how talk constructs social reality is central. Limitations include the focus on micro-level interaction and questions about generalizability, ethical considerations in recording, and the need for careful contextual interpretation.