Abstract
At his death in April 2014, Stephen Hester
left behind an unfinished manuscript of a
book, entitled 'Descriptions of Deviance'.
In this book he takes an MCA approach to
examining how categorial formulations of
deviance are interactionally constructed
and negotiated in talk in educational
settings. The data comprise transcriptions
of pupil review meetings involving
teachers and educational psychologists in
an education authority in Northern
England. In analysing this data, and
consistent with the approach he had
championed throughout his career, Hester
emphasises the occasionality of categorial
formulations. Recognising that this
emphasis is not unproblematic and
requires careful consideration, before
turning to the data he discusses the
problem of 'culturalism'. He argues that
Sacks' distinction between 'occasioned'
and 'natural' category devices does not
lend support to the culturalist view of
category use. Furthermore, while
Schegloff's cautions concerning the
methodological pitfalls of MCA are serious
and well made, the analysis of categorial
data, especially texts, need not fall into the
trap of 'culturalism'.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 56-63 |
Journal | Journal of Pragmatics |
Volume | 118 |
Early online date | 21 May 2017 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 21 May 2017 |
Keywords
- Membership Categorisation Analysis
- Culturalism
- Stephen Hester
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SALLY HESTER
- History, Geography & Social Sciences - Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences
Person: Academic