Conversation analysis and the study of social institutions: methodological, socio-cultural and epistemic considerations

Abstract

The objective of this study is to show how conversation analysis, a sociological discipline, approaches the study of social institutions. Social institutions are conceived as the crystallization of members’ communicative, interactional practices. Two institutional domains – psychiatric interviews and broadcast news interviews – and a specific interactional practice – ‘formulations’ – are examined in this study. The results show that (1) in psychiatric interviews the psychiatrist uses formulations to transform the patients’ avowals and establish a psychiatric problem. (2) In broadcast news interviews, formulations might help the interviewer to clarify or transform the statements of the interviewee, or challenge his assertions. The comparison of formulations in two different institutional settings serves the purpose of (1) demonstrating how communicative conduct is adapted in particular settings in ways that invoke and configure distinct social institutions and (2) inspect the knowledge, practices, logic, etc., mobilized by members of the epistemic communities of psychiatry and journalism.