ABSTRACT
In this introduction to the special issue of Research on Language and Social Interaction on “Experimental and Laboratory Approaches to Conversation Analysis,” I make the case that while naturalistic observation should take precedence over other methods, Conversation Analysis as a field should embrace a methodological pluralism that includes not only quantification but also experimentation and laboratory observation. Before I introduce the contributions to the special issue, I discuss the prohibition against such methods in the field, situate naturalistic and laboratory research on a methodological continuum, and develop a series of arguments in favor of experimental and laboratory studies of interaction.
Notes
1 Sacks (Citation1984, p. 21) notably proposed that sociology could be “a natural observational science” (see also Schegloff, Citation1992, pp. xxx–xxxii).
2 Although I came to this idea independently, when I arrived I found I was not alone. Lorenza Mondada has taught this at workshops on multimodal interaction for many years. Bavelas (Citation1995) has argued that the distinction between artificial and natural data is a false dichotomy, as has Speer (Citation2002). And De Ruiter (Citation2013) has observed that an inherent trade-off exists between internal and ecological validity in interaction research, depicting these as two continuous dimensions.
3 At least not ethically. The use of third-party video (Jones & Raymond, Citation2012), where the recordings are made for purposes other than scientific research, may be an exception.