Editing Conversation analysis (section)

=== Contrasts to other theories about language ===
In contrast to the use of [[introspection]] in linguistics, conversation analysis studies naturally-occurring talk in a strongly empirical fashion through the use of recordings<ref name=sacks1984>{{cite book |last=Sacks|first=Harvey|editor1-last=Atkinson |editor1-first=J. Maxwell |editor2-last=Heritage |editor2-first=John |title=Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis |date=1984 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9780511939037 |pages=21–27|chapter=Notes on methodology}}</ref> Unlike ethnographers, Conversation Analysts tend to focus on transcribing recordings, and usually do not question the people doing the talk nor members of their [[speech community]] to ask for their interpretations. A lot of CA research has been done by researchers analyzing encounters in their own native tongue rather than in other languages.

Unlike [[discourse analysis]], Conversation Analysts focus on interaction at a micro level, and usually do not look at written texts nor overarching sociocultural concepts (for example, 'discourses' in the Foucauldian sense). Its method, following Garfinkel and Goffman's initiatives, is aimed at uncovering the methods that the interacting members rely on to make sense of each other. Conversation Analysts look for clues to these methods in the actions of the interlocutors themselves rather than trying to impose some outside analytical framework onto them. The aim is to model the resources and methods by which those understandings are produced.

In considering methods of qualitative analysis, Braun and Clarke distinguish [[thematic analysis]] from conversation analysis and [[discourse analysis]], viewing thematic analysis to be theory agnostic while conversation analysis and discourse analysis are considered to be based on theories<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Braun|first1=Virginia|last2=Clarke|first2=Victoria|date=January 2006|title=Using thematic analysis in psychology|url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa|journal=Qualitative Research in Psychology|language=en|volume=3|issue=2|pages=77–101|doi=10.1191/1478088706qp063oa|issn=1478-0887|hdl=2027.42/138221|s2cid=10075179|hdl-access=free}}</ref> although Sacks himself argued that researchers should follow the data.