You may use as many sources as needed.
Purpose:?? The purpose of this paper is to analyze the conversational encounter that you video-taped or audio-taped for the exercise in Unit. The main goal of this second analysis paper is to show how talk constructs and reflects people’s identities. This course has introduced you to a variety of concepts and ideas that can help you understand and explain how people’s talk does “identity-work.” For example, you were introduced to the concept of “person-referencing practices.” In important ways, this concept was used to show that how people refer to each other (i.e., names) has implications for master identities, personal identities, interactional identities, as well as relational identities. For this paper you will need to draw on everything you have learned in this course up until now to develop an analysis of the conversation you taped.
Here are the steps to follow to write a strong analysis paper:
Step 1: Watching/Listening to Your Taped Encounter and Transcribing
Part of conducting a good analysis requires that you listen to your data several times (3-4 times is usually a good number). Try to take notes on what you hear and or see people doing with their talk. (It also helps to note the approximate time at which interesting things take place in the conversation so that you can return to those moments.) Begin thinking about the kinds of identities that the participants are producing in their talk. By listening to your conversation several times and taking notes, you’ll be able to pinpoint moments of interest. You might be able to use the moment you transcribed for the assignment in Unit 5, but we’re asking you here to (re)consider the entire conversation and select other moments (1 or 2 more) that will be useful in building your paper’s claim about what type of identity-work is seen in the conversation. Once you’ve identified several interesting moments, transcribe them. Keep in mind that you do not need to transcribe the whole conversation (unless you want to), but you do need to select several instances that will help you craft a good analysis paper. You are also encouraged to jot down word and phrase selections throughout the conversation. A claim, for instance, that a person comes across as a “straight shooter” (a possible personal identity) might be evidenced by identifying the vocabulary that the person selected for a number of potentially sensitive references.
Step 2: Reflect about Discursive Practices
At this point, you should have selected and transcribed several moments of interaction and have a set of notes. Because one important purpose of this paper is to display your understanding of the ideas in this course, you will need to select at least three course concepts from Everyday talk to incorporate into your analysis. A good way to begin is to browse over the list of discursive practices on page 22 of Tracy (2002). Remember that all of the discursive practices presented throughout this course are tied in some way or another to “identity-work.” The goal of your analysis is to show how your transcript illustrates course concepts, and how the examples you highlight do identity-work.
Step 3: Writing Your Paper
The following points below should help you in focusing your analysis:
1. Select and foreground one person to analyze. If you are one of the participants, you may focus on yourself if you like. This step is important because it will help organize your analysis. Put simply, the analytic goal is to examine how the focal participant uses conversational practices to present him/herself, and how the conversational partner’s talk altercasts the focal participant.
2. The key part of this assignment is for you to show how the participants’ discursive practices reflect and build the different types of identities that the focal person has (i.e., appears to be). Attempt to answer questions like the following:
a. How does talk reflect the person’s master identities?
b. What identities are altercasted for the focal person through their partner’s talk?
c. What personal identities are constructed through the focal person and partner’s discourse practices? How is that being done?
d. Which interactional identities are made visible in the talk? How are these identities communicated?
3. In the beginning of the paper, provide any contextual information — where the conversation is occurring, a description of the physical space, past conversations or activities, others who are present, and so on — that is needed to make sense of the analysis that you will develop.
4. Final Advice:
a. Remember that the paper’s goal is to develop a coherent argument about the range of identities that make up who the focal person is (appears to be) and how the conversational moves of both parties contribute to those identities. What this means is that you need to give evidence for why you reach particular conclusions. In other words, if you argue that two people are displaying a “friendship,” you need to show how this is done in the particulars of talk. What indications do you have that this is in fact true? A strong paper will provide persuasive discursive evidence for the claims that are made.
b. Remember to provide instances of talk in your paper. Include pieces of your transcript in the body of your paper, with line numbers so that you can easily refer to lines of talk. However, don’t treat these instances as transparent evidence. Provide an analysis; unpack how the excerpts reveal what you say that they do. For instance, if you assert that someone is a “nonassertive, insecure person,” then, identify the discursive practices and reference the line numbers that support this stance, and explicitly argue why the practices in this particular conversational context are likely to mean what you claim they do.
c. Remember to define course concepts, such as those that are in boldface above, as you introduce them. These definitions may be in your own words or you may quote from Tracy and Robles’s book. Regardless of whether you quote or paraphrase, remember that you MUST cite the source of these definitions both in the body of your paper and in a references section at the end.
Tips for paper writing: Interaction analysis assignment (Unit 8)
– Select at least three course concepts from Everyday talk to incorporate into your analysis. (e.g. any of the discursive practices on p. 22, altercasting, facework, Grice’s conversational maxims, membership categorization…)
– Remember, no data speak for themselves. Any time you present a transcript excerpt in your paper, do three things:
1. Introduce the data (“In the segment below, participants talk about…”);
2. Present the data with transcription symbols and line numbers (feel free to copy-paste out of your unit 5 assignment);
3. Explain the relevance of those data to your argument (i.e., explain how they support your claim that the data count as an example of altercasting, face-work, categorization, etc.)
– Show how course concepts in the data tie in with ID-work – explain what you are learning about identity through your analysis. Be specific about what kinds of identity-work (master, personal, interactional, relational) you see in the talk.
– Avoid psychologizing. Don’t make arguments about what a person might be thinking. Instead, stick to arguments about what they are communicating through their talk.
– Define all terms.
– Cite any idea that is not your own in either HYPERLINK “https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/” APA or HYPERLINK “https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html” Chicago style format (both in-text and references). All definitions should be cited.
– Don’t forget to use quotation marks for quotes, including partial quotes. If you don’t, you will be committing plagiarism.
– FOCUS ON ONLY 1 OF THE INTERACTANTS. You may discuss how they present their own identity, and how others altercast them, but all your claims should be about your focus person’s identity. (Remember to be specific about which aspect of their identity – master, personal, interactional, relational – you’re talking about.)
– PROOFREAD. Reread your paper after writing. (It’s often helpful to read it aloud.) Make sure to look out for mistakes that Word or Pages won’t catch. Take care to avoid sentence run-ons and fragments, and work to make good transitions.
Many students ask about paper structure, and I always say that it’s up to you to structure your argument as you see fit. However, I will be looking for certain elements in your paper. Here’s one way of arranging them (You may arrange things differently if you’d prefer.):
Intro (1 paragraph):
– Thesis
– Preview of course concepts
– Introduction of conversation
Analysis segment 1 (1-2 paragraphs):
– Introduce transcript
– Cut and paste transcript into paper
– Explain how transcript excerpt illustrates course concept 1.
– Explain how this example of course concept 1 does identity work.
Analysis segment 2 (1-2 paragraphs):
– Introduce transcript
– Cut and paste transcript into paper
– Explain how transcript excerpt illustrates course concept 2.
– Explain how this example of course concept 2 does identity work.
Analysis segment 3 (1-2 paragraphs):
– Introduce transcript
– Cut and paste transcript into paper
– Explain how transcript excerpt illustrates course concept 3.
– Explain how this example of course concept 3 does identity work.
Conclusion (1 paragraph):
– Recap of main points
– Overarching claim about identity work in the data.