Conversation Analysis is important for anyone who wants to understand how conversation is organized. Students are given every opportunity to hear and analyse ordinary everyday conversations and to collect their own conversations for analysis. Students whose first language is not English will be able to collect and analyse data from their own language. There is a strong CA research culture at ANU. Students will be given every opportunity to learn from these more experienced CA researchers through seminars, data analysis sessions, and the fortnightly Discourse Analysis Group.

This course is compulsory for graduate students who wish to undertake further research (thesis or sub-thesis) in the area of discourse analysis, conversation analysis or applied conversation analysis. It is also recommended for graduate students who wish to undertake further research in critical discourse analysis. Students should consult with the Convenor of Applied Linguistics or their potential supervisor as to whether or not they should take the course.

On satisfying the expectations of the course, you should be able to

1. Collect examples of naturally-occurring everyday conversation.
2. Transcribe examples of naturally-occurring everyday conversation, using conversation analysis transcription conventions.
3. Explain, and argue for, the structural ‘rules' of everyday conversation e.g. rules for ensuring that only one person talks at a time, rules for opening and closing conversations, rules for determining what is a ‘turn at talk' and rules for determining the structural organisation of these turns at talk.
4. Work in a group to analyse how conversations are structured (non-assessed).
5. Think about, write and present an argument using conversation analysis.
6. Critique other methods of analyzing discourse (non-assessed).

Assessment consists of a transcription assignment (10%), and two analytic assignments (20% and 25%), as well as a final project (45%) due in the exam period. Passing of the course is conditional on students passing all assessment items.

This course has 3 contact hours per week (lectures and tutorials). In addition, students are required to attend the fortnightly Discourse Analysis Group seminar.

In addition to the required contact hours (lectures, tutorials and Discourse Analysis Group), it is expected that students will spend an additional 8-10 hours per week on this course.

This course introduces graduate students to conversation analysis. Students are not required to complete any prior course before enrolling in this course.

There are no courses that must be taken prior to or concurrently with this course.

LING3011

Liddicoat, A. (2007) An Introduction to Conversation Analysis. Continuum.

Psathas, G. (1995) Conversation Analysis: The Study of Talk in Interaction. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

ten Have, P. (2007) Doing Conversation Analysis, Sage Publications: London. 2nd Ed.

Students will be given a full reading list at the beginning of the semester. Journals that publish conversation analysis research include, Research on Language and Social Interaction, Journal of Pragmatics, Human Studies, DIscourse & Society, Discourse Studies, Language in Society.

Other than normal internet access to Wattle, no special equipment is required to access materials to complete the course. Students will be instructed as to how to download (and use) computer software (freeware) called Audacity as this program is useful when transcribing data.

This class is co-taught with undergraduate students LING3011. However, LING6511 students have additional tutorials.