Talk-in-Interaction on the Playground: Sequences and Categories in Fairy Club

Abstract

This thesis is an ethnomethodological case study of a game described as' fairy club'. Fairy club was played by a group of six and seven year old children for entire lunchtime periods, and was audio-recorded over three days. The recordings were transcribed in detail, and then examined using the principles, tools, and findings of conversation analytic (CA) research. The thesis deals closely with Harvey Sacks' (1992) work on children and play, and the categorical and sequential organisation of talk and social action. The analysis applies the organisational properties and structures for social interaction and games that Sacks proposed in order to generate a formal description of fairy club. Fairy club is described as a membership categorization device – a locally relevant set of categories and associated rules for recognizing and applying these categorizations - that was generated in, and relevant for, situated instances of action (Sacks, 1972a,1972b, 1992). The apparent owner of fairy club was also the teacher in the club, and the other members were her students (or, workers). An institutional model of membership and activity was established and made relevant in the deployment of these membership categories, and in the organization of turns-at-talk and social action. Two single-case analyses illustrate the application of the fairy club device for accomplishing particular contexts and action. In the first, the fairy club' shares news' using a formal model for turn taking. The analysis considers the categorical and sequential organization of this episode, and discusses how an institutional order of talk was introduced, resisted, and abandoned in the course of sharing news. The second case is a conversation between two fairy club members that took place while the teacher was absent, and in which a number of negative assessments were made about aspects of the club - including the teacher. Drawing on Sacks' (1992) work on partitioning populations, cover categories and safe complaints, the analysis considers the design, positioning, and category relevance of the assessments, and the alignments between the members over the course of the sequence. For example it is argued that co-membership as a worker in fairy club was used as a cover category for initiating and generating' safe' criticism and complaint about a friend (Sacks, 1992). The thesis contributes to conversation analytic research on the sequential organization of talk-in-interaction, perhaps most substantively in its attention to the categorical organization of sequences and action, and the sequential organization of categorization work. The analytic approach demonstrates how Sacks' notion of the membership categorization device can be understood as a framework created in, and used for, the organization of turns-at-talk and locally situated interaction, and used to generate analytically rigorous accounts of social action. In offering a detailed analysis of a children's game, and insight into children's everyday competencies, intersubjective understandings and social action, the thesis makes a substantial contribution to the fields of ethnomethodology, child studies and the sociology of childhood, linguistics, education and psychology.