Introducing how conversations work in the wild
Across the years I’ve collected and shared a range of resources for introducing people to the both science of conversation and the findings from such research. In this post I’m sharing resources relating to the latter. You can take our one-hour module as a more guided introduction that also has CPD accreditation with ACRRM and AMA cpdhome.
If you’d like to self-explore, however, you can take a look at the following resources as well as my Instagram @the_conversation_doctor.
The first is the excellent TEDx Talk by Prof Elizabeth Stokoe, who has also written a very accessible and interesting book called Talk, which is probably the first place to go in terms of learning about conversations. Prof Stokoe has shared a lot on how conversations work, with numerous non-academic articles and podcasts. She also developed an evidence-based approach to communication training, Conversation Analytic Role-play Method. If you are interested in CARM, we can offer this at Bedside Manners as I am an Affiliate.
For a book that is more academic and focused on interaction in social institutions, such as education and healthcare, Prof John Heritage and Prof Steven Clayman from UCLA wrote Talk in Action, which provides foundational information on conversations in the wild.
There are also the following resources that are excellent ways in:
Dr Emily Hofstetter’s short videos on conversation
Taking Turns in Conversation with Prof Stephen Levinson on the BBC Word of Mouth podcast
What is conversation analysis (CA)? What is ethnomethodology? with Dr Saul Albert on the People Who Read People podcast
The Interaction Engine with Prof Stephen Levinson on the Because Language podcast
CADSS - CA Data Sessions South YouTube channel, which has longer videos of some of the findings from conversation analytic research.
There’s also a whole wiki dedicated to Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, which has a large bibliographic database and an Encyclopaedia of Terminology for CA and IL.
If you want to learn more about how to do Conversation Analysis, you can enrol in our 10-week asynchronous course.