Conversation analysis (CA) is a well-attested method within multiple humanistic and social science disciplines that uncovers the working of human communicative behaviours. CA is also used to comprehend the way we produce and understand naturally occurring talk in various social and institutional spheres. This course is an introduction to the methods of CA, a field of research which takes naturally occurring interaction as its object of study. You will receive hands-on training in transcription and systematic analysis of interactional data through this highly empirical and rigorous methodology. With this training, you will become acquainted with how research is conducted in this field of study. Topics covered include turn-taking, adjacency pairs, opening and closing, agreement and disagreement, pre-sequences, preference organization, repair, story-telling, and the requesting, giving, and reception of information in conversation.
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Year Taken: AY 18/19, Sem 1
Conversation Analysis (CA) has its roots in Sociology. I have no idea why it is under one of Linguistics’ Major PEs though. This whole course involves giving your analysis of conversations in the form of an essay, with supporting evidence in the conversation itself. The prof’s favourite phrase is, “DO NOT PSYCHOLOGIZE!”. This means that you are not the conversation participant himself/herself and should not be giving inputs like, “He must be happy since his intonation went up”. Overall, I did badly for this and feel that I am in no position to give advice. If you are the type that is good at reading between the lines (Literature skills), you may want to consider this course. The group was set since week 1. The group assignments were very light though, and it was possible to finish each group assignment 48 hours before submission.
15% Group Transcription Assignment
5% Group Assignment 1
5% Group Assignment 2
5% Group Assignment 3
20% Individual Assignment 1
40% Individual Assignment 2
10% Class ParticipationThe reading for this course is really heavy, however, the readings merely want to convey how to use certain CA principles. A quick google search will save you a lot of time IMO. This is 1 of those modules in which you can study and try applying all you want and still won’t score well. If you have good literature analytical foundations, you should be fine. I don’t, so I struggled in this course.
Somebody allegedly cheated during the 15% Group Transcription assignment for my batch, resulting in voiding of this segment. This 15% was split and added into the other components. In my opinion, this course is 1 of those courses in which you either get it or you don’t. Unfortunately, for my case, I didn’t get it and was tanking Bs lol. There are quite a number of people getting A+s for various assignments but interestingly, no As nor A-s, with the rest of the grades ranging from B+ to D+. Goes to show that you either get this module or you don’t.
This review was published with the kind permission of aLMSstudent. Originally published at https://ntulmsmods.wordpress.com/2018/12/10/ntu-lms-2018-2019-semester-1/
June 30, 2021
