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Garfinkel, Sacks and Formal Structures: Collaborative origins, divergences and the vexed unity of and

Michael Lynch, Cornell University Keynote address, IIEMCA 2017: A Half-Century of Studies International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis (IIEMCA) Otterbein College, Westerville, OH July 10-13, 2017

Abstract It is widely recognized that ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA) share a common origin. It also is widely recognized that in the past half-century they have developed along different trajectories, with CA establishing itself as a compact but robust science of talk-in-interaction and ethnomethodology remaining geographically scattered and epistemologically anarchic. In this presentation, I discuss the historical relationship between these two lines of research, with a focus on the collaboration between and Harvey Sacks that culminated in the publication in 1970 of the paper “On Formal Structures of Practical Actions.” From an examination of the paper and relevant archival materials, I argue that, contrary to what others have written, it was a genuine collaboration with lasting importance for both ethnomethodology and CA. I also argue that Garfinkel and Sacks’ paper exhibits divergent conceptions of ethnomethodology’s relation to “formal structures” as well as a remarkable and original effort to subordinate the privileges of academic analysis to an effort to describe and elucidate the critical implications of “members’ methods of sociological inquiry.”

…

On this occasion we’re celebrating two fiftieth and to invest hopes in the future, they also find anniversaries of the founding works in reason to return to the founders’ writings. ethnomethodology: Harold Garfinkel’s (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology and Harvey Garfinkel is of course credited for being the Sacks’ Lectures on Conversation (published in founding father of ethnomethodology. And 1992, and transcribed lectures from Fall 1964 it’s fair to credit him with that status, though through Spring 1972). Both of these he often joked that what he founded was a documents can, and should, be read by any of company of bastards. Sacks also is, of course, us who would want to gain insight into what credited – and fairly so – with being the we have been doing all along. They are not founder of conversation analysis, though only of historical interest, though they are that during his lifetime it was often called too. A half-century is not a trivial passage of ‘conversational’ analysis – which some of us time in the social sciences. Depending upon preferred as a way to highlight the way the social science and where one finds its ‘analysis’ was endogenous to the production origins, 50 years is a good chunk of its history. of conversation. So, ethnomethodology has a history, and that history is a significant part of the history of The notion of genius is not in vogue in social social science. Also, while the positive social studies, in part because it bypasses what is sciences like to celebrate their own progress often a collective achievement in favor of the

1 uncanny qualities of an individual. previous year and I signed up for a graduate Nevertheless, Garfinkel and Sacks were both seminar on ‘intentionality’ that he was often called geniuses. I recall a casual remark scheduled to teach – but he didn’t show up.) by to the effect that we were Garfinkel was on a one-year visiting very fortunate to have two geniuses in our appointment during a sabbatical from UCLA field: Harold and Harvey. She named a few at the time I entered the PhD program at others (including herself) saying, ‘the rest of Irvine, and I took the opportunity to take his us are just smart’. I think she was being seminar. He did show up, but before the end modest about herself, but in any event of the academic year he disbanded the seminar Garfinkel and Sacks were rare and strange out of frustration with students who didn’t do individuals, and both often exhibited a degree the work (a long story). However, he invited of self-fashioning as geniuses. several of us to take his seminars at UCLA in the years that followed, and we took him up At present, ethnomethodology and CA remain on that offer. linked, but tenuously so, and they have been on different trajectories for quite a long time. I had come to Irvine to study with Sacks, since (Of course, there are many exceptions to this I had heard he had developed an original way generalization – as many of us here respect of working in social science, though I had and deploy both approaches and attempt to use little idea of what he did. I got off to a bad them creatively.) My connection to these and start when I went looking for him at the other lines of work in and around beginning of my first academic year at Irvine. ethnomethodology does not go back for quite His office door was open and there were two 50 years, but 45 years ago when I first took up or three people standing inside talking with the study of them, there already was some one another. They looked like difficulty with maintaining compatibility undergraduates, and I turned to one of them – between ethnomethodology and CA. I began a small, long-haired guy wearing a blue-jean working towards the PhD in social sciences at jacket (the hippie uniform), and asked him if UC Irvine in 1972. Previously, I had been an Professor Sacks would be back soon. He uninspired (and uninspiring) student in announced “I’m Professor Sacks.” I then , and I went to Irvine on the recognized that the face that went with the recommendation of a professor who undergraduate look was not an undergraduate recognized that I was hankering for something face. After getting over the embarrassment, I different. Irvine was a new university – asked if I could attend his graduate seminar, founded six or seven years before I went there and he said that I could for one quarter (10 – and the School of Social Sciences at that weeks), but that it was a research seminar for university was non-disciplinary. The his serious students and I’d have to decide if I organization theorist James March had a hand wanted to pursue it after that. If it wasn’t for in that design, and one aim was to foster novel me, I should go elsewhere. Reflecting on that initiatives through the formation of clusters of incident now, it’s remarkable that Sacks was interested faculty and students from different so obviously indifferent to recruiting students fields. The School of Social Sciences also or ‘selling’ what he had to offer by provided a space for lines of work that were emphasizing its universal appeal and value. not widely recognized or welcomed in We could think of a slogan: disciplines – lines of work like “Ethnomethodology: it’s not for everybody; ethnomethodology. Sacks and David Sudnow take it or leave it.” (At around that time, held faculty positions there, and so did Craig Garfinkel would occasionally say, MacAndrew, who had done work in “ethnomethodology is for those who are into ethnomethodology some years before. (Carlos it.”) Casteneda had taught classes there the

2 Garfinkel had a very different manner and Both Sacks and Garfinkel, in different ways, mode of dress. A fellow student who was were very demanding of their students, and studying linguistics at Irvine told me that they came down hard on them when they when he first saw Harold he thought he was thought they were being insufficiently careful the janitor. Aside from the seminar I took or dedicated. Garfinkel had very different from him, I shared an office near the men’s demands than Sacks did, and to try to satisfy room, and Garfinkel would often chat on his both of them would be a thankless task. way to or from it. My office mate was Garfinkel, though infamously capricious and studying visual psychology, and had some temperamental, was far more open to a variety interesting posters on the wall illustrating of ideas for projects. I had done a research unusual perspectives. Harold admired them assistantship with a survey analyst before and gave me credit for posting them, and moving to Irvine, and I didn’t enjoy being wouldn’t hear my disclaimers. He also assigned specific tasks and topics, such as tolerated my naivety when, following a performing the routines of coding discussion with other students in the seminar, I questionnaire results, analyzing the data, reported that we were having difficulty with performing statistical tests, and so forth. There his vocabulary. I suggested that perhaps we was a hint of such industry in Sacks’s research could have a glossary, and he gave me a look group, and it wasn’t something I wanted. It of awe at the question and said “Why don’t was unclear what Garfinkel expected of his you collect the shibboleths, and give them to students, but the field was wide open, if full of me.” Soon after starting the task I realized its land mines. (There were hazards with Sacks’ absurdity. approach as well – I recall a conversation with a student who had explored doing CA, but After ten weeks of Garfinkel and Sacks in decided for a more conventional approach to separate seminars, I decided to pursue linguistics; he forthrightly said that, while it Garfinkel’s line, and it was clear that it was interesting, he didn’t want to take the wouldn’t be compatible with getting more chance with an approach that had such unclear deeply involved in Sacks’ research group. At career prospects.) Although I decided not to the time, his group consisted of Anita stay with Sacks’ research group, I did take Pomerantz, Judy Davidson, JoAnne Goldberg, another seminar on video analysis a couple of and Alene (Kiku) Terasaki. Others such as years later, which Sacks opened up to students Gail Jefferson would drop in occasionally, beyond his small research circle, since it was another student who attended wasn’t yet (or new stuff. I did get to know some of his ever) fully admitted to the core group. (Gene students, particularly Terasaki, with whom I Lerner started a year or two later, and I shared had many long conversations about her thesis an office with him.) It was clear that these research, CA more generally, and the were very bright and dedicated students, and relationship between ‘Harold’s’ and that their research was organizationally ‘Harvey’s’ work. coherent: Pomerantz was completing a dissertation on second assessments and In the early 1970s, ethnomethodology in the compliments; Terasaki was underway with a USA was largely located in California, and study of announcement and pre-announcement mainly at four UC campuses: Irvine, UCLA, sequences; and others were investigating other Santa Barbara, and San Diego. There were sequences and sequential features. The clusters of faculty and PhD students at each seminar met in Sacks’ laboratory (in the social campus: Aaron Cicourel, Bud Mehan, Beryl science laboratory building), which had Bellman, and Benetta Jules-Rosette at UCSD; equipment for recording and playing back Don Zimmerman, Larry Wieder and Tom audio and videotape. Wilson at UCSB; Harvey Sacks and David Sudnow (and after Sacks died, Jefferson for a

3 few years) at Irvine; Garfinkel, Schegloff, would sometimes make remarks about the way Mike Moerman, and Melvin Pollner at UCLA. the social sciences would welcome us back to There were, of course, other people and places the church if we showed sufficient contrition in the US and UK: Manchester, Boston and willingness to return to the fold. University, University of Colorado; Kendrick’s heresy is an abandonment of Goldsmiths College; York University ethnomethodological CA and a return to the (Canada) and University of York (England) mother church. The metaphor of heresy also etc., but California certainly was central for is objectionable in so far as it suggests a ethno and CA. There were internal departure from an orthodoxy whose differences and cross-cutting alliances. prohibitions and demands for purity ultimately Cicourel had already moved away from are groundless. ethnomethodology into cognitive science; Wieder was allied with Garfinkel in the … phenomenological wing; Zimmerman took to CA and began building a program of applied This move to embrace more conventional CA; and others became free agents and methods and conceptions of human science hybrids. has been going on for several decades, despite the fact that Manny Schegloff has written … numerous critical articles reminding others of the distinctive research agenda in CA as As I mentioned earlier, for decades CA and compared with the rest of sociology, socio- ethnomethodology have been heading on and psycho-linguistics, cognitive science, and separate tracks, though there remains a speech-act theory (see, for example, tenuous connection between them. The track Schegloff, 1984, 1987, 1992, 2010). that CA (or, at least, much of it) currently is on seems to be joining a main line that runs There also has been an effort to at least through linguistics, psychology and cognitive partially sever the historical linkage between science. Earlier this year, the journal CA and ethnomethodology, so that what CA Research on and Social Interaction has become is treated as entirely consistent (ROLSI) published a special issue that with what it was from the start. In such a proposed and exemplified attempts to merge Whiggish history, CA is a method of CA with experimental psychology. In his “ordinary inquiry” as Thomas Wilson introduction to the special issue, Kobin characterizes it in a 2012 article. Ordinary Kendrick observes that “[t]he question of inquiry is standard-fare science (as Wilson whether CA as a field should welcome puts it): “observing something and reporting experimental and laboratory studies of about it in such a fashion that other people can interaction and embrace or permit their in principle independently check up on it” methods may strike some as heretical” (Wilson, 2012: 219). Accordingly, CA makes (Kendrick, 2017: 2). Two years earlier, Tanya creative use of recording technology to Stivers of UCLA also used the word discover and describe details of actual “heretical” in the title of a paper: “Coding language-use in different settings in which talk social interaction: A heretical approach” is a major part of what participants do. In the (Stivers, 2015). Both of them also present recent issue of ROLSI proposing a CA and numerous caveats in their proposals, but as experimental psychology merger, new they point out they are announcing a fait technologies are deployed (including MRI) to accompli as well as advocating entirely novel mediate the effort to bring conversation under moves. technical examination.

I think this is an ironic situation. Garfinkel Wilson makes a particularly interesting move

4 in his historical account. Like many others, he substantiated and greatly strengthened its acknowledges that CA was an offshoot of weak empirical support with a large body of Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, and that Sacks studies that built upon one another. If we initially drew upon ethnomethodology and his were to draw an analogy with Darwin’s relationship to Garfinkel in the 1960s. I think diagrams, according to this genealogy CA it is becoming more common, especially as split off from ethnomethodology during its CA draws interest from students coming out ‘classical’ period, and then evolved and of linguistics, psychology and cognitive thrived as a robust social science, whereas science, to begin a history of CA with the Garfinkel’s ‘radical’ program was maladaptive 1974 publication of the turn-taking paper by and became a dead-end. A problem for Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson, and to place Wilson’s chronology is that Garfinkel and alongside Garfinkel (or even Sacks collaborated on a series of draft papers to displace Garfinkel) as predecessors. “On ‘setting’ in conversation,” for a Wilson doesn’t erase Garfinkel from that presentation at the 1967 ASA meeting, which history, but instead divides him in two; or, later was published in 1970 under the title “On rather, he divides Garfinkel’s formal structures of practical actions.” The ethnomethodological project into two phases. paper thus was drafted, redrafted, and The first phase Wilson calls “classical” published several years after the alleged split. ethnomethodology, which consisted in a series Wilson acknowledges this anomaly, and of substantive studies (of Agnes, clinic addresses it in a long footnote (n. 18, p. 231). records, jurors’ reasoning, and the In the footnote, he points out, correctly, that documentary method of interpretation) that the Formal Structures paper developed out of were published in Studies in the earlier (‘settings’) draft prepared for the Ethnomethodology in 1967. Wilson points out 1967 ASA meeting. He also says, correctly, that, with the exception of the first chapter of that the paper incorporates and builds upon a Studies, the chapters that made up the rest of lecture that Sacks gave earlier in that year the book were largely completed (and in (February 16, 1967). Wilson then makes a several cases published) before 1962. As claim that I will contest: “the treatment of this expressed in the first chapter of Studies in material in ‘Formal Structures’ is Ethnomethodology, and in his writings during incompatible both with Sacks’s substantive the years that followed its completion, ideas and his way of proceeding as evidenced according to Wilson, Garfinkel entered a throughout his work.” He cites Schegloff’s “radical” phase, a move that represented a introduction to Sacks’ lectures, in which return to some of the phenomenological Schegloff (1992: xlix) mentions that according interests expressed in his 1952 dissertation. to Sacks, ‘Formal Structures’ was Garfinkel’s The “radical” program, Wilson (2012: 220) paper (interestingly, Schegloff mis-cites the argues, abandoned “ordinary inquiry”. A title of the publication as “Formal properties decade earlier, in a review essay on of practical actions,” and gives the date as Garfinkel’s 2002 collection entitled 1972 [they are correctly listed in the Ethnomethodology’s Program, edited by Anne references of his introduction]). Wilson also Rawls, Wilson (2003) made a similar supports this claim with an interpretation of argument about the “radical” program the paper (which I will turn to shortly). John expressed in that book. (For now, hold on to Heritage (2016), in a forthcoming paper what this “radical” program might have published online echoes this claim: “In involved; I’ll return to it later.) referring to this as ‘Garfinkel's paper’, I follow Schegloff, Wilson and evidence from According to Wilson (2012: 224), CA, and recordings of conversations between Garfinkel Sacks’ work in particular, drew upon and Sacks regarding the paper, all of which Garfinkel’s “classical” phase, and converge in suggesting that Sacks played little

5 role in its creation.” Heritage agrees with obscured and Sacks was made to appear as Wilson that CA was established before aligned with Garfinkel's developing radical Garfinkel’s radical turn. views” (Wilson, 2012: 231).

These recent histories bring CA into alignment The paper in which Heritage echoes this claim with current developments in the field. This is is a rebuttal to a special issue of Discourse far from unusual in disciplinary histories, and Studies in which Doug Macbeth, Jean Wong, to an extent such historicizing is unavoidable. Jonas Ivarsson, Oskar Lindwall, Gustav However, in this case, I had strong reasons Lymar, and Wendy Sherman-Heckler and I and motives to doubt what Wilson and critically examined his writings (some of Heritage were saying. I have long regarded which are co-authored by Geoffrey Raymond) the formal structures paper as the most on ‘epistemics’ in conversation (Lynch and important single published paper in Macbeth, 2016). Like Wilson, Heritage was ethnomethodology. It’s also one of the most attempting to disaffiliate Sacks and CA from challenging to read. I don’t know how many any connection with the ‘radical’ times I have read it, but every time I read it I ethnomethodology that we were associating am rewarded with a different sense of its them with. Fortunately, I was able to pursue arguments and implications, as well as a Heritage’s claim that evidence from different set of residual puzzles and recordings indicate that Sacks played little role confusions. The paper explicitly presents a in the paper’s creation. With generous help radical argument to the effect that from Anne Rawls and Jason Turowetz, I was ethnomethodology and what later was called able to examine tape recordings and conversation analysis take a different documents in the Garfinkel archive in analytical stance toward ordinary language use Newburyport Massachusetts. The documents – and indexical expressions and indexical included six drafts of the paper in the weeks actions in particular – than the rest of before the 1967 ASA meeting in which sociology; a stance that, as Garfinkel and Garfinkel and Sacks presented the “setting” Sacks point out, also differs from traditions in paper, as well as audiotapes and transcripts of linguistics and logic dating back to the ancient sessions in which the two of them were Greeks. preparing the paper.

Wilson, in part, directs his argument about the It seems fitting for this 50th anniversary to formal structures paper to correct Wes discuss a collaboration between Garfinkel and Sharrock and me on a point we had made Sacks that took place almost exactly 50 years some years ago to the effect that Sacks and ago, in the summer of 1967. I’m still in the Garfinkel actively collaborated on the paper process of going through this material (a tiny (Lynch and Sharrock, 2003: xix). For portion of the vast collection of materials in Sharrock and me, Garfinkel and Sacks’s Newburyport), but one tape of a Garfinkel and collaboration provided an original, and to an Sacks meeting is especially telling. It is a extent continuing, point of departure for recording of working session in which ethnomethodology and CA that differs Garfinkel for the most part remains silent. profoundly from the way the social sciences After some preliminary conversation, in which tend to handle human actions. Wilson Sacks offers to provide a way to link two ‘corrects’ us by asserting that “Garfinkel substantive sections of the previous draft, he unilaterally appropriated and idiosyncratically begins to dictate potential material for the transformed material from Sacks, but instead paper while Garfinkel takes notes. The paper of citing Sacks as a source Garfinkel named had already incorporated arguments and him as coauthor. Thus the fundamental examples from Sacks’ lectures in February difference between their approaches was and March of the same year. I would not be

6 surprised if those lectures drew from earlier practices. We are going to describe discussions with Garfinkel, though I presently the practices that do make up those have no evidence documentary of this. ensembles of practices as order accomplishing practices. … The material that Sacks dictates is an The formal structures paper defies easy argument that elaborates and bridges two summary, but some things are clear enough major sections of the paper. One section, and widely recognized. One obvious thing is which he refers to as the ‘critique’, has to do that it is an elaboration on the phenomenon of with the history of troubled interest in indexical expressions. The phenomenon is of indexical expressions, and Sacks offers an interest in the paper in two related ways. One instance from an ancient Greek fragment (the way it is of interest is that indexicals – Dissoi Logoi) that provides the example “I am linguistic expressions whose sense depends an initiate” to illustrate a statement whose upon the immediate context of use and truth varies depending on who says it and understanding – present trouble for a broad when. He also elaborates upon the persistent range of analytical programs. Indexicals ‘obsession’ (as he calls it) in Western present trouble for philosophical philosophy and social science with translating preoccupations with reference, for logical indexical expressions into analytically efforts to stabilize grammar and meaning, for tractable propositions. He then offers ways to sociological and anthropological attempts to connect that section with the paper’s establish the equivalency between actions and discussion of the use of formulations in events on different occasions, and for efforts ordinary conversation, making the point that to devise machine translation programs. For for the most part indexicals are used without such programs one ‘remedy’ is to translate apparent need for formulations to clarify their indexicals to ‘objective’ expressions: to reference, and that a procedure of substituting substitute spatial coordinates for ‘here’; clock ‘precise’ terms for indexicals does not recover time specifications of ‘now’; proper names for how they are used in situ. ‘me’; and referential nouns for ‘it’ or ‘that’. Another is to invent technical terms, logical A small sample from a recording in August symbol systems, indexes, and standardized 1967 occurs after Garfinkel invites Sacks to codes. The other way indexicals are of dictate the bridging section. My transcription interest in the paper is as an investigable is rough, and does not include notations for phenomenon. The ‘problem’ that analytical the long pauses between dictated phrases: programs in linguistics, philosophy, and Artificial Intelligence have had with Sacks: Okay. We’ll begin (off) the paper indexicals is closely related to by noticing what amounts to an ethnomethodology’s incommensurable interest obsession. Uhm, which, we would in that phenomenon. Indeed, the relationship figure pretty much any researcher in between the two itself is deeply integrated sociology has. And then, uh, offer with the point the paper. As stated at the start some initial reflections on that. And of a draft (August 15, 1967): then consider it much more extensively. If you take the case of The heart of the argument: although members’ talk, of producing members are omniprevalently doing sociological research turning on, based [formulating for settings], that work on, about members’ talk, then what the does not make up what those obsession initially consists of is the ensembles of activities consist of as concern, a concern that in various orders and as order-accomplishing ways (is) satisfiable to clarify that talk

7 in the interest of the research. So, for significance as a way to analytically and example, if someone were- if- if a functionally integrate concrete actions (in this member were to say, “It’s nice to have case the recorded actions of participants) with you here with us.” A researcher stable institutional orders. would find himself engaged in doing such things as giving that statement a At this point in the February 16 lecture, Sacks name, telling us where “here” is, who breaks some new ground. He doesn’t offer a “us” are, and things like that. solution to the structural-functionalist problem of integrating individual actions with social In the published paper, and in their prior drafts structures, nor does he deliver a critique of and conversations, Garfinkel and Sacks (1970) established theories of reference. He points contrast their approach to previous analytical out that the problem of specifying which efforts to ‘fix’ indexical expressions by aspects of the thing (or the time, place, etc.) characterizing their stable meaning. They that the indicator term references – the object, observe that participants in ordinary property, aspect, measured time or location – conversation sometimes use formulations: may obscure what the parties are doing with “saying-in-so-many-words-what-we-are- the term. It not that “What are you doing doing,” as though the speaker is characterizing here?” can be replaced by “What are you the action in an ‘aside’ from that action. But doing in group therapy?” Or, rather, were the then Garfinkel and Sacks make an interesting latter expression to be used, it would not be an and original move. Here is where they draw equivalent utterance, even if it is ‘correct’ heavily on examples from Sacks lectures, referentially. The point Sacks develops is that particularly Sacks’ February 16 lecture from these indicator terms may have “stable use as earlier in that year. In that lecture, Sacks a means of invoking an unformulated setting, discusses the use of “indicator terms” to speak and referring to uncategorically identified of the “setting” but without naming it as such. persons, and noticing uncategorized activities” He was doing a study of recordings from a as “their specific business” (Sacks, 1992: series of group therapy sessions, and was 520). To substitute “group therapy session” puzzling over the omnirelevance of the setting for “here”, though perhaps defensible, is to (group therapy) to the recorded exchanges miss what the parties are doing with “here” among the participants. He presents this specifically, and not as a proxy for “group puzzle in relation to the obsession that therapy session”. This is related to what linguists and logicians have had over the years Garfinkel, Livingston and I in the pulsar paper (indeed for millennia) to translate indicator discuss as the use of the pronoun “it” in a way terms to proper names in order to establish that suspends the reference to, e.g., a pattern their intended reference and truth: “… they’re on a screen, an artifact, or an astronomical concerned to find, for the indicators, a source – until later (Garfinkel et al., 1981: formulation of ‘some object,’ ‘some time,’ 157). etc., where that the use of the indicator in its sentence intends such a formulation goes Briefly, I take the following points from without saying” (Sacks, 1992, Vol. 1: 518). Sacks’ lecture (as well as other writings and In this case, Sacks was interested in whether lectures in and around 1967 and 1968), the or how references to “here” referred to the drafts of the collaborative paper and Sacks’ “setting” – group therapy session. He adds verbal input into it, and the final publication of that the “whole business” – the obsession with the ‘formal structures’ paper: referential specification – “was exploded by Wittgenstein” (ibid.). Aside from the (1) There is an incommensurable preoccupations with reference in logic and relationship between linguistics, “setting” is of prime sociological ethnomethodology’s interest in

8 indexical expressions and actions, and “actions” that otherwise occur, but are standard analytical procedures in themselves actions that, in any given sociology, linguistics, and traditions in case, may come across as gratuitous, logic, ancient and modern. Pivotal embarrassing, pedantic, etc. topics for elucidating this difference are: ‘understanding’ (of language); Somehow, and I’m genuinely at a loss as to ‘meaningful talk’; and how, Wilson reads Sacks’s lecture and the (methodologically) the problem of formal structures paper to be contradicting characterizing the setting in which each other. Referring to the difference such talk and action take place. In between what is said in the paper and what brief, Garfinkel and Sacks are Sacks says in a transcribed lecture, Wilson proposing a radical difference between asserts: their analytical treatment of indexicals and that of the Western philosophical The difference is especially apparent heritage. in the discussions of formulations [in the formal structures paper]. Sacks (2) Garfinkel and Sacks take a persistent noted that a formulation concerning a problem that logicians and conversation made by a participant in methodologists attempt to bypass or the course of that conversation is not a resolve – how to formulate a setting; neutral observation but rather, a move how to adequately specify what the within the conversation itself: "there's agent of an action is doing – and no room in the world to definitively instead of trying to solve it, they treat propose [without consequences] it as a phenomenon to be investigated formulations of activities, in quotidian circumstances. (This is identifications, and settings" ([Sacks] what I understand 1992a: 516). Consequently, he argued, “ethnomethodological indifference” to participants use what he called involve.) In the case of “saying-in-so- "indicator" terms and deictic many-words-what-we-are-doing,” a expressions, as a way of drawing key analytical feature of the attention to features of the current phenomenon is the way it is embedded setting without having to make direct in the course of interaction. formulations (see also 1992a: 544- Accordingly, the ethnomethodological 546). In contrast the claim in "Formal interest in the phenomenon is in how it Structures" (353, 359) is that members is woven into a particular way of use formulations as attempted hearing, responding to, and exploiting remedies for such expressions. In opportunities that arise in the short, in "Formal Structures" Sacks's temporality of talking together. argument is stood on its head and his central point is missed entirely. Other (3) Sacks’ “findings” about formulations aspects of "Formal Structures" are two-fold. First, he observes that incompatible with Sacks's work indicator terms are used without the include Garfinkel's emphasis on need to translate or remedy the "ethnomethodological indifference" properties that linguists and others find and the invisibility of members' unanalyzable until given stable practices to ordinary inquiry. (Wilson specifications of location, time, 2012: 231: n. 18) person, object, etc. Second, he argues that formulations are not simply Especially puzzling is Wilson’s claim that the representations of “settings” and Formal Structures paper “stood on its head”

9 Sacks’ observation that “there’s no room in Another way of putting this point is that the world to definitively propose [without “formulations” do not comprise a well- consequences] formulations of activities, bounded category; they are continuous with, identifications, and settings.” Far from and provide elaborations of, the inter-actions standing this observation on its head, the they formulate. Consequently, if you search published paper explicitly and prominently through transcripts of “everyday includes it: “It seems that there is no room in conversations” in order to build a collection of the world definitively to propose formulations formulations, you will find many or few of activities, identifications, and contexts. depending on how you look. Persons cannot be non-consequentially, non- methodically, non-alternatively involved in Although Garfinkel and Sacks explicitly [saying in so many words what we are doing]” propose indifference to the matter of whether (Garfinkel & Sacks 1970: 359, brackets in the formulations they discuss are done by original; also see p. 353). “professional” or “lay” members, they make clear that formulations are frequently Following what Garfinkel and Sacks (1970) deployed in social science research to clarify, say about formulations, it is not surprising that explain, characterize, translate, interpret, and it turns out to be difficult even to identify what summarize questionnaire and interview is or is not a formulation. They begin the responses, written and oral testimonies, and section of their paper on formulations in recorded conversations. They also emphasize conversation by noting that “it is an that ordinary conversations are formulate-able immensely commonplace feature of by competent masters of a natural language; conversations that a conversation exhibits for that is, actions in conversation are intelligible its parties its own familiar feature as a ‘self- and explicable even when the parties on a explicating colloquy’” (p. 350). They add that particular occasion proceed without explicit a member (a master of natural language) “may commentary or inquiry about what they are treat some part of the conversation as an saying and doing. This ordinary competency occasion to describe that conversation, to provides social scientists with a vernacular explain it, or characterize it, or explicate, or resource for collecting and analyzing talk as translate, or summarize, or furnish the gist of “data”. The problem, as Garfinkel and Sacks it, or take note of its accordance with rules, or further point out, is that when social scientists, remark on its departure from rules” (ibid.). In logicians and philosophers (and, now, apparent contrast, Heritage (2016: 46, n. 21) conversation analysts) rely upon formulating asserts that formulations are “vanishingly (coding, paraphrasing, writing ethnographic infrequent in everyday conversation,” though descriptions, and various “glossing practices”) perhaps not in more specialized or to produce and aggregate collections of “institutional” circumstances. But, whether equivalent cases, their data have an “formulations” are frequent or infrequent in unexamined relationship to the vernacular everyday conversation, or in interrogations, competencies that generate them: “In a search interviews, etc., the larger point is that for rigor the ingenious practice is followed conversations are “self-explicating.” As whereby [indexical] expressions are first Garfinkel and Sacks go on to say, such self- transformed into ideal expressions. Structures explication is produced in and as ordinary are then analyzed as the properties of the conversation, and not necessarily by means of ideals, and the results are assigned to actual formulations. And, as they also emphasize, expressions as their properties, though with when formulations are done they are disclaimers of ‘appropriate scientific occasioned, and to this it could be added that modesty’” (p. 339). Garfinkel and Sacks then their identity as formulations is itself provide a long list of professional sociological contingently tied to the circumstances of use. methods and summarize them under the

10 heading “constructive analysis” (p. 340). through the operations of constructive analysis. …

Allow me to draw this to a conclusion. References First a caveat. I am not saying that there was no difference between Sacks’ and Garfinkel’s Garfinkel, Harold (1967) Studies in orientations, or between the programs they Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, initiated. From the outset, Sacks envisioned NJ: Prentice Hall. the possibility of a science of practical actions Garfinkel, Harold (2002) Ethnomethodology’s that would elucidate formal structures Program: Working out Durkheim’s exhibited in actions that are recognized and Aphorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & used by participants to constitute social orders. Littlefield. Sacks also was attracted to ‘machine’ Garfinkel, Harold, Michael Lynch, and Eric metaphors, and he construed systems of rules Livingston (1981) The work of a as ‘machineries’. Garfinkel treated the discovering science construed with possibilities for achieving formal analysis – materials from the optically discovering and analyzing structures or discovered pulsar. Philosophy of the machineries – as a phenomenon rather than a Social Sciences 11(2), 131-158. goal for ethnomethodology. He was less Garfinkel Harold and Harvey Sacks (1967) concerned to build a distinct science that "On 'setting' in conversation." Paper would develop its own program of formal presented at the American analysis. Instead, he envisioned Sociological Association Annual ethnomethodology as a novel program that Meeting. San Francisco, 1967. would examine the situated production and use of formal analysis in situ, in distinct Garfinkel Harold and Harvey Sacks (1970) On instances of lay and professional activity. The formal structures of practical actions. collaboration between the two that occurred Pp. 337–366 in J.D. McKinney and 50 years ago was an instance of a fragile E.A. Tiryakian, eds., Theoretical convergence between the programs that Sociology. New York, NY: Appleton- Garfinkel and Sacks were in the process of Century Crofts. Republished in H. inventing. Garfinkel, ed. (1986) Ethnomethodological Studies of Work Revisiting that collaboration can provide (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), insight into the current ‘heresies’ that are pp. 157-189. being promoted in the name of CA. The Heritage, John (2016) Epistemics, problem with coding and quantification of conversation analysis, and ‘post- linguistic and interactional objects is not one analytic’ ethnomethodology: A of “ecological validity” – providing rebuttal. Discourse Studies categorical representations of collections of (forthcoming, 2017), available at: similar objects that correctly identify their https://www.academia.edu/29528487/ “naturally occurring” counterparts. Instead, Epistemics_Conversation_Analysis_a the problem is that such a program misses the nd_Post- phenomenon – the phenomenon being the Analytic_Ethnomethodology_A_Rebu locally organized achievements that give rise ttal (accessed 25 October 2016). to more or less stable settings, meanings, and Kendrick, Kobin H. (2017) Using so forth. The problem is not one of inaccurate Conversation Analysis in the Lab. representation but of obscuring phenomena Research on Language and Social Interaction 50(1): 1-11.

11 Lynch, Michael and Douglas Macbeth, guest Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1992) Introduction. eds. (2016) “The epistemics of Pp. ix-lxii in Harvey Sacks, Lectures Epistemics,” special issue of on Conversation, vol. 1 (Gail Discourse Studies, Vol. 18, No. 5. Jefferson, ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Lynch, Michael and Wes Sharrock (2003) Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1993) Reflections on Editors’ introduction. Pp. vii-xlvi in quantification in the study of M. Lynch and W. Sharrock (eds.) conversation. Research on Language Harold Garfinkel, Sage Masters of and Social Interaction 26: 99-128. Social Thought (4 Vol. Set). London: Schegloff, Emanuel A. (2010) Commentary Sage. on Stivers and Rossano: “Mobilizing Sacks, Harvey (1992) Lectures on response”. Research on Language and Conversation, vols. 1&2 (Gail Social Interaction 43(1): 38-48. Jefferson, ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Stivers, Tanya (2015) Coding social Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and interaction: A heretical approach? Gail Jefferson (1974) A simplest Research on Language and Social systematics for the organization of Interaction 48(1): 1-19. turn-taking in conversation. Language Wilson, Thomas P. (2003) Wilson, Thomas P. 50(4): 696-735. (2003) “Garfinkel's radical program.” Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1984) On some Research on Language and Social questions and ambiguities in Interaction 36(4): 487-494. conversation. Pp. 28-52 in J.M. Wilson, Thomas P. (2012) Classical Atkinson, J. Heritage (eds.) Structures ethnomethodology, the radical of Social Action: Studies in program, and Conversation Analysis. Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Pp. 207-238 in H. Nasu & F. C. Cambridge University Press. Waksler (eds.) Interaction and Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1987) Between macro Everyday Life: Phenomenological and and micro: contexts and other Ethnomethodological Essays in Honor connections. Pp. 207-234 in J. of George Psathas. Lanham, MD: Alexander, et al. eds. The micro- Lexington Books. macro link. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press:.

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