The conversation analytic view of context is often critiqued as being too narrow. In this article, we join the ongoing debate regarding conversation analysis (CA) and context by 1) synthesizing existing scholarly attempts at either conceptualizing or exploring the possibilities of combining CA and ethnography and 2) giving further considerations to whether or how resorting to talk-extrinsic data may be beneficial. We do so by providing four illustrative cases, with increasing complexity, from four different settings. In each case, an initial CA analysis is followed up with an informal ethnographic interview with the participants. By offering some specificity to this ongoing methodological controversy regarding talk-extrinsic data, we aim to begin building a useful framework within which further discussions on analysis, context, and cross-fertilization may proceed.
Research on vocabulary-learning and teaching has predominantly relied on experimental designs and interviews, in which learning is largely treated as an individual rather than a social process, and factors such as repeated exposure and strategy teaching are highlighted, with a focus on planned vocabulary instruction. Relatively less information exists with regard to how vocabulary, let alone unplanned vocabulary, is taught and learned during naturally occurring classroom interaction. Using data from 28 hours of videotaped interaction from 14 different adult English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms, this conversation analytic study explores how unplanned issues of vocabulary get problematized in situ either unilaterally or bilaterally. While the unilateral approach involves the teacher problematizing an item without any observable evidence of trouble in prior interaction, such evidence is integral to the bilateral approach. Findings of this study may constitute a useful resource for strengthening the professional practice of systematically handling unplanned vocabulary instruction in the language classroom.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.