Talk is one of the main resources available to qualitative researchers. It offers rich, meaningful data that can provide real insights and new perspectives. But once you have the data how do you select an appropriate means of analysis? How do you ensure that the approach you adopt is the best for your project and your data? The book will help you choose strategies for qualitative analysis that best suit your research. It walks you through key decisions, provides actionable game plans and highlights the advantages and challenges of the main approaches. It is packed full of real examples designed to showcase the different tools you might use to meet your own objectives. Each section of the book focuses on one popular strategy for analyzing talk-based data: Narrative Analysis Conversation Analysis Discourse Analysis Taken together these sections will help you to fine-tune the link between your primary research question and your methods; to ensure that your theoretical stance fits with your methods; and to reason through your analysis in a way that will be recognizable to the intellectual communities of narrative, conversation, or discourse analysts. This book is both starting point and map for any social scientist looking to strategically and purposefully analyse talk data.

Talk is one of the main resources available to qualitative researchers. It offers rich, meaningful data that can provide real insights and new perspectives. But once you have the data how do you select an appropriate means of analysis? How do you ensure that the approach you adopt is the best for your project and your data? The book will help you choose strategies for qualitative analysis that best suit your research. It walks you through key decisions, provides actionable game plans and highlights the advantages and challenges of the main approaches. It is packed full of real examples designed to showcase the different tools you might use to meet your own objectives. Each section of the book focuses on one popular strategy for analyzing talk-based data: Narrative Analysis; Conversation Analysis; Discourse Analysis Taken together these sections will help you to fine-tune the link between your primary research question and your methods; to ensure that your theoretical stance fits with your methods; and to reason through your analysis in a way that will be recognizable to the intellectual communities of narrative, conversation, or discourse analysts. This book is both starting point and map for any social scientist looking to strategically and purposefully analyse talk data.

What can language tell us about society? Looking at a range of genres, from political speeches to internet chat, this book shows how qualitative methods are used to analyse discourses throughout the social sciences. The practical problems of designing and conducting discourse-based research are solved in this key resource for all social scientists.

Although he published relatively little in his lifetime, Harvey Sacks's lectures and papers were influential in sociology and sociolinguistics and played a major role in the development of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. The recent publication of Sacks's "Lectures on Conversation" has provided an opportunity for a wide-ranging reassessment of his contribution.

′This book admirably fulfils its stated objective of describing social research methods in action and exploring, from a range of perspectives, the linguistic shaping of social context. Overall, this is a balanced, well-edited and coherent collection of papers, bringing together high quality work from recognized authorities in the analysis of talk-in-interaction. It is also highly accessible; it would certainly make an excellent resource book for undergraduate, graduate (and practising!) social scientists ′ - Rebecca Clift, University of Essex ′Talk and Interaction in Social Research Methodologies is a much-needed methods text. Focusing on research methods in action, the volume offers a new way of viewing the realities of social research. By taking language use seriously, the text reveals the details and depths of a wide range of research projects as they have seldom been presented before. This is the first book of its kind to offer such a powerful and insightful depiction of the role of talk-in-interaction in relation to social research methods. The book′s plan is creative and unparalleled. There′s nothing else like it. The editors—Paul Drew, Geoffrey Raymond and Darin Weinberg—represent the very best from multiple traditions of researching talk-in-interaction—from both sides of the Atlantic. The chapters are written by a sterling collection of researchers—a virtual honor roll of conversation analysts and kindred spirits. This book is a "must read" for social researchers of all disciplines who are interested in social interaction. It should be assigned reading for all graduate students being introduced to qualitative methods. It should be on every qualitative researcher′s book shelf. It is a tour de force in demonstrating the absolutely fundamental position that language use holds in social science methodology′ - James A Holstein, Marquette University This is a methodology text with a difference. It demonstrates the importance of talk in a variety of social research methodologies. Even documents, the seemingly least interactional form of social data, are shown to have important interactional dimensions. The book focuses systematically on how sociological methods are essentially conducted through forms of spoken interaction, and how these interactions shape the results that emerge in research. The book demonstrates: " How spoken interactions shape the outcomes of core research methodologies " The role which talk-in-interaction plays in key substantive areas of sociology notably race, crime, gender and media " Reveals the interactional underpinnings of research methodologies This is the first text aimed at an undergraduate and Master′s audience in Sociology and Social Research, which shows the crucial part that spoken interaction plays in the conduct and products of conventional sociological methodologies.

Talk is a central activity in social life. But how is ordinary talk organized? How do people coordinate their talk in interaction? And what is the role of talk in wider social processes? Conversation Analysis has developed over the past forty years as a key method for studying social interaction and language use. Its unique perspective and systematic methods make it attractive to an interdisciplinary audience. In this second edition of their highly acclaimed introduction, Ian Hutchby and Robin Wooffitt offer a wide-ranging and accessible overview of key issues in the field. The second edition has been substantially revised to incorporate recent developments, including an entirely new final chapter exploring the contribution of Conversation Analysis to key issues in social science. The book provides a grounding in the theory and methods of Conversation Analysis, and demonstrates its procedures by analyzing a variety of concrete examples. Written in a lively and engaging style, Conversation Analysis has become indispensable reading for students and researchers in sociology, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, social psychology, communication studies and anthropology.

A unique anthology of textual analysis methodologies, this book offers a thorough introduction to the key approaches and the tools students need to implement them. Every chapter contains not just the theory behind each methodology, but also its advantages and disadvantages, its problems with ontology and language, and its relationship to studying social phenomenon. Through contemporary and relatable real-world worked examples, the book illustrates different contexts in which a methodology has been successfully used and allows students to see the methods in action and extrapolate the techniques into their own research. Methods included: Content analysis Argumentation analysis Qualitative analysis of ideas Narrative analysis Metaphor analysis Multimodal discourse analysis Discourse analysis Engaging and authoritative in equal measure, this guide to textual analysis is the perfect foundation for students conducting research in the social sciences.

Provides practical guidance for both students and academics on how to use video in qualitative research, how to address the problems and issues that arise in undertaking video-based field studies and how to subject video recordings to detailed scrutiny and analysis.

This is the first practical book on how to apply Harvey Sacks' membership categorization analysis technique, an increasingly influential method for conversation analysis. Categorization analysis is a method for the study of situated social action and offers a complementary method to the traditional sequential analysis used in the study of naturally occurring talk and text.

Communication research is evolving and changing in a world of online journals, open-access, and new ways of obtaining data and conducting experiments via the Internet. Although there are generic encyclopedias describing basic social science research methodologies in general, until now there has been no comprehensive A-to-Z reference work exploring methods specific to communication and media studies. Our entries, authored by key figures in the field, focus on special considerations when applied specifically to communication research, accompanied by engaging examples from the literature of communication, journalism, and media studies. Entries cover every step of the research process, from the creative development of research topics and questions to literature reviews, selection of best methods (whether quantitative, qualitative, or mixed) for analyzing research results and publishing research findings, whether in traditional media or via new media outlets. In addition to expected entries covering the basics of theories and methods traditionally used in communication research, other entries discuss important trends influencing the future of that research, including contemporary practical issues students will face in communication professions, the influences of globalization on research, use of new recording technologies in fieldwork, and the challenges and opportunities related to studying online multi-media environments. Email, texting, cellphone video, and blogging are shown not only as topics of research but also as means of collecting and analyzing data. Still other entries delve into considerations of accountability, copyright, confidentiality, data ownership and security, privacy, and other aspects of conducting an ethical research program. Features: 652 signed entries are contained in an authoritative work spanning four volumes available in choice of electronic or print formats. Although organized A-to-Z, front matter includes a Reader’s Guide grouping entries thematically to help students interested in a specific aspect of communication research to more easily locate directly related entries. Back matter includes a Chronology of the development of the field of communication research; a Resource Guide to classic books, journals, and associations; a Glossary introducing the terminology of the field; and a detailed Index. Entries conclude with References/Further Readings and Cross-References to related entries to guide students further in their research journeys. The Index, Reader’s Guide themes, and Cross-References combine to provide robust search-and-browse in the e-version.