UTTERANCES

Utterances are units of speech that are examined by conversational analysis in a stream of work within ethnomethodology.

"Conversation analysis and ethnomethodology regard utterances as tools for the performance of activities, and not merely as things that stand in for other things. Moreover, they regard all utterances as tools and not merely those, such as "I pronounce thee man and wife," that Austin has called "performatives." As Coulter notes, "Describing or stating a fact are as much activities . . . as baptising, [and] marrying . . . even though there may be no function-indicating device such as 'I hereby describe' conventionally prefacing the act of describing" (Coulter, 1991). 

Conversational Planning and Self-Serving Utterances: The Manipulation of Topical and Functional Structures in Dyadic Interaction 
M. L. McLaughlin, A. D. Louden, J. L. Cashion, D. M. Altendorf, K. T. Baaske, S. W. Smith, University of Southern California, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Vol. 4, No. 3-4.
Thirty-two pairs of strangers were videotaped during a 15-minute interaction during which one of the pair, acting as a 'confederate' of the experimenters, inserted a pre-designated 'boast' into the conversation. Male and female confederates were observed to differ significantly on some aspects of their approach to the task: Women were significantly more likely to be calculating, top-down planners, while males were more likely to offer boasts as 'answers' to unprompted questions from their partners. Although there were trends for women to use more reciprocal questions and more topical control strategies than men, the obtained differences were not significant. - jls.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/4/3-4/233

Problems with and Alternatives to the Use of Coding Schemes in Research on Counseling 
Michael J. Patton, University of Missouri-Columbia, The Counseling Psychologist, Vol. 17, No. 3, 490-506 (1989) DOI: 10.1177/0011000089173008
The uses and effects of coding schemes in research on counseling process and outcome are analyzed. It is concluded that the interpretation1 of counseling events in terms of the categories of a coding scheme attenuates at adequate description of those events whenever the researcher uses the coder `s interpretation of events as if it were veridical with the participants' inter prctation.

Conversation analysis and ethnomethodology are proposed as alternate methods of data collection. These methods rely on detailed observation of the sequential utterances of counselor and client in order to identify the structures of their interaction that lend the encounter its perceived character for the participants. Thus, the context of meaning created by the participants through their relationship of interaction is made topical in the analysis of the ongoing even is of the interview. - tcp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/17/3/490

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