Harvey Sacks’ Conversation Analysis

This article is part 9 of the collection of articles on discursive cultural psychology. Go to the collection table of contents to read other articles. 

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Another element of discourse as joint activity is action sequence. Joint activity can be seen as an overarching project. This overarching project can be compared to A. N. Leontiev’s (1981) activity or to van Dijk’s (inter-)action macrostructure (van Dijk, 1980) in which an individual interlocutor’s action occurs in a certain place in the sequence of actions with certain goal that is derived from the goal of the overarching project itself. 

These actions are taken in sequence since one action would become a condition for the next. The later action is conditional on the undefective completion of the former. 

Deriving from telephone conversations, Clark provides an example of three broad actions in sequence:
I. A and B open the conversation
II. A and B exchange information
III. A and B close the conversation

These broad actions can be broken down further into smaller action sequences or projects, the minimum of which would consist of two or three actions. These minimum projects can be conceived of as building blocks of the overarching project. 

There has been many conversational analysis studies since initiated first by Harvey Sacks (Jefferson, 1989) that discover various such minimum action sequences in various activity contexts. Examples of such mini-mum sequences are question-answer (QA), summon-answer (SA), greetings (Hallo-hallo), pre-sequences, request-grant/rejection, invitation-acceptance/refusal, offer- acceptance/refusal (Silverman, 1998; Heritage, 1984). 

We shall now however discuss only one of such sequences that may be relevant for analyzing problem solving discourse, i.e. the question-answer sequence. The point is not that QAs comprise a large proportion of conversational activity in problem solving groups. What is intended is to show the form of analysis directed to these sequences.
Probably the most frequently discussed of these minimum action sequences is the adjacency pair of question-answer, usually abbreviated QA (Schegloff, 1972: Schegloff & Sacks, 1973; Sacks, 1989; Searle, 1979, 1992). 

Conversation in Transcript 9.1 below provides an example of such a QA sequence. What constitutes QA as an adjacency pair unit is what Schegloff (1972) termed ‘conditional relevance.’ The occurrence of the assertion 9.1.3 is conceived as an answer which is conditionally relevant to the question 9.1.2. This means that if A occurs, it occurs as a relevant response to Q; and if it does not occur, its non-occurrence will be conceived as an event. 

Transcript 9.1 Speech acts sequence in work-group discussion

Utt	Spk	Original utterances	English Translation
9.1.1	B	Ich habe da noch so eine generelle Frage.	I still have one general question
9.1.2		Geht’s nur um Produktion fürs Inland, oder geht’s auch um Export?	Is it about production only for local market, or also for export?
9.1.3	L	Im Moment geht das nur um Inlandprodukte..	Right now, only for local market
9.1.4		Aber das reicht	But that would be enough
9.1.5	C	Ja, genau.	Yes, exactly
9.1.6		Wir müssen uns erst mal hochbringen.	We must first of all bring ourselves higher

To illustrate this, let’s imagine, that after the speaker B utters the question 9.1.2 which is addressed to L, L does not utter anything. L’s silence would create questions as to why L does such an ‘inappropriate action.’ 

The QA adjacency pair may be explained by speech act theory (Searle &Vanderveken, 1985; Searle, 1979, 1992). In Searle’s speech act taxonomy, a question is categorized as a directive which is an action that attempts to get the addressee to perform a speech act (usually assertives). The answer which is an assertive conducted by the addressee would become a condition of satisfaction of the question. A question without answer then is an unsatisfied or unsuccessful speech act. 



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Discourse as conversational joint activity

This article is part 8 of the collection of articles on discursive cultural psychology. Go to the collection table of contents to read other articles. 

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In what follows, we shall discuss discourse conceived mainly as conversational joint activity. The framework is mainly derived from studies in microsociology in general, especially in conversation analysis (Sacks, 1989; Garfinkel, 1967; Clark, 1994). We shall now try to identify elements involved in conversational joint activity. Clark (1994) has pointed out that there are four elements of discourse as joint activity: personnel, accumulating common ground, action sequences, and contribution. For our purpose however discussions about common ground and contribution will be conducted in one part, since the two are closely related to each other.

Personnel and Participation Roles

In order for a conversation to occur, it requires at least two participants that change their par-ticipation roles from one action to the next along the conversation. At one time, a participant may become a speaker and the other an addressee; and at other times the reverse. In conversa-tions involving more than two participants, one would have more participation roles than just speaker and addressees. Schematically, participation roles are described in concentric regions as follows:

In terms of this scheme, the interlocutors of work-groups above (including the experiment instructor L) play roles as speakers, addressees, or side participants at one time or the other; whereas discourse analysts who analyze the conversation through video-tape recordings or transcripts would play the role of eavesdroppers.

Accumulating Common Ground and Contribution

How is joint activity coordinated? For any joint activity to be coordinated, the participants must have rather strong assumptions about each other. When these assumptions fail, it would lead to breakdowns. 

In conversations this may lead the addressees to ask what the speaker means by his utterance; or to bring the conversation to directions unintended by the speaker against which he may utter corrections. Participants take for granted or presuppose that they share certain knowledge, beliefs or desires, and they each presuppose that they presuppose them. 

To these presuppositions one important element may also be added, that is what Searle (1990; 1992) has termed we-intentions or collective intentionality. This totality of presuppositions is called common ground. There are two parts of common ground. The first is communal common ground that represents all the assumptions that are supposed to be shared universally among members of particular community. In contrast, the second is personal common ground that represents the assumptions that the participants have inferred from personal experience with each other. 

As presuppositions, common ground normally is not made explicit in conversations. It may come up to foreground however when there are breakdowns that lead the participants to reground their shared assumptions to recover the conversation; or when it is used for arriving at some conclusions. Transcript 8.1 below is an example of communal common ground about year-seasons that is made explicit and used for arriving at a decision.

The common ground knowledge about year-seasons and its relations to the production of mantels is made explicit in utterance 8.1.2-.5, and used for arriving at decision in 8.1.6.

The importance of common ground for comprehending a sequence of utterances has been shown also by Garfinkel (1967). He has pointed out that in conversations there are many matters that the interlocutors understand are understood on the basis not only of what is actually said, but on what is left unspoken. 

To show his point, Garfinkel provided an example below. The left side column consists of what was actually said; and the right side is what the inter-locutors understood from the conversation, written by themselves. 

Have we, as eavesdroppers not read the right side column that shows the unspoken back-ground, the wife’s utterances in 8.2.2 may seem to be incomprehensible and seem to be just like a discourse topic switch. Taken without its background, utterance 8.2.2 may seem to be irrelevant response to the husband’s utterance 8.2.1.

The conversation above illustrates also what Clark (1994) has termed accumulating common ground. Clark has pointed out that along the sequence of utterances more presuppositions are added on top of the initial common ground with every single action. 

In the husband-and-wife conversation above, it starts with an initial personal common ground story about their son who could not yet put a penny in the parking meter by himself. First, on top of this common background the husband adds that now he is already able to do it (8.2.1). 

Using their common knowledge about the matter, the wife comes to utter a question (8.2.2) to confirm her interpretation. Again the husband’s answer (8.2.3) adds more to the common ground story. So in each phase of the action sequence the common ground accumulates.

Accumulating common ground is made possible through what has been called the grounding process (Clark, 1994; Clark & Brennan, 1991). Grounding is a process whereby the partici-pants endeavor to get their knowledge, or beliefs shared among them. Common ground is said to have been accomplished if it has reached the grounding criterion. 

This criterion consists of mutual beliefs that the participants have understood  what the speaker meant to a point sufficient for current purposes. The grounding process is undertaken through what Clark has termed contribution to the conversation. In contributing normally a speaker begins with presenting a utterance for his addressees to understand; and then they would in turn give him evidence that they have understood enough for current purposes. 

The first is called a presentation phase; and the second is an acceptance phase. In fact all meaningful conversations would involve contribution process such that they are inconceivable without it. 

In the husband-and-wife conversation above, the husband’s utterance (8.2.1) is his presentation, asserting that their son succeeded in putting a penny in a meter without being picked up. The wife’s question (8.2.2) is her acceptance, providing a positive evidence that she has understood his utterance. The evidence lies in the fact that her utterance is not questioned and considered as relevant response, or in schegloff’s (1972) term, a relevant next turn. 

Simultaneously the wife’s question (8.2.2) can also be considered as a presentation phase, to which the husband’s answer (8.2.3) is the relevant next turn that gives her positive evidence that he has understood her question. This process goes on as long as each utterance is considered relevant and understood. 

There are cases however that an utterance is only partly understood. In such a case, interlocutor in the acceptance phase would give negative evidence of common ground. 

The negative evidence in transcript 8.3 can be seen in utterance 8.3.2. The fact that in response to utterance 8.3.1 L utters question 8.3.2, instead of uttering an answer, indicates that common ground criterion has not been reached yet on the L side. Question 8.2.2 then functions to ask A to uncover more of what he means or to make further account.

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Discursive Cultural Psychology: The concept of action

This article is an opening of a collection of articles on discursive cultural psychology. The collection is adapted from theoretical foundation of my dissertation work in 2001. At that time I was analyzing complex problem solving group conversations, both Germans and Indonesians to identify culture-general and culture-specific speech-act sequences that may lead to complex problem solving effectiveness. The summary of the research result can be read in my blog article CANONICAL SPEECH-ACT SEQUENCES IN COMPLEX PROBLEM SOLVING ACTIVITIES.

The collection table of contents:
1.  Discursive Cultural Psychology: The concept of action
2.  Parsons theory of action, and its critiques
3. Common-Sense World and Stock of Knowledge at Hand
4. Context-constitutedness of Action: Leontiev's Theory of Activity
5. Constitutive Rules and Action
6. Searle’s Speech Act Theory 
7. Approaches to Discourse
8. Discourse as conversational joint activity
9. Harvey Sacks' Conversation Analysis

The theoretical foundation part is basically a critique of positivist psychology, and more specifically of cross-cultural psychology. It is an effort to build a psychology that put the culture and practice at the center of the approach. I argue that the effort to build a psychological theory should start from understanding human practice as text in its cultural contexts.

We shall start with investigating the notion of action as it is used in cultural psychology (Boesch, 1990; Thomas, 1999; Cole, 1996; Wertsch, 1981, 1985), and in weberian sociology (Winch, 1958; Schütz, 1967; Parsons, 1949). The next step is to discuss the notion of speech as action (Searle, 1969; 1979; 1983; 1996), which is brought further to the notion of discourse (van Dijk, 1972; 1980; 1985; 1997), as sequence of action (Sacks, 1989; Garfinkel, 1967).

The notion of culture will appear only later after we have discussed the notion of action and speech. One important notion that underlies the previous three notions (action, speech, and culture) is the notion of pragmatic meaning. Thus, as we shall later conclude, culture is the meaning system in which action and speech is constituted. Action and speech, being detached from the meaning system in which they occur is inconceivable.

The Concept of Action

The decision to start building cultural psychology with the concept of action is not accidental. One may wonder, why not start with the concept of culture that is more obviously an integral part of cultural psychology? There are two reasons. First, as is the case of the culture concept, the concept of action is an important part of cultural psychology.

Cultural psychologies make use of action (Handlung), in contrast to behavior, as their basic unit of analysis (Boesch, 1991; Wertsch, 1981; 1985; Leontiev, 1981; Straub, 1999). Some authors have even considered it constitutive in defining cultural psychology. This is expressed for example by Bruner (1990, p.19) who wrote:”A cultural psychology, almost by definition, will not be preoccupied with behavior but with action..” Moreover Eckensberger (1991, p.3) also wrote that ”there exists an intrinsic relationship between human subjects (agencies), actions, and culture... all of these aspects are essentially interdependent,...and they require each other’s existence.” From these quotes, it is obvious that the concept of action is considered as an important and integral part of cultural psychology.

Secondly, in contrast to the concept of culture, the authors of cultural psychology more or less agree in defining what action is. What differentiates action from behavior is that the former always involves intentional elements along with its occurrence (Straub, 1999; Leontiev, 1981; Bruner, 1990; Boesch, 1991; Harré, 1982; Searle, 1983). There are no actions without intentions. These intentional elements comprise mainly of the notions of directedness or in general, aboutness (Searle, 1983).

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Parsons’s Theory of Action and its Critiques

This article is part 2 of the collection of articles on discursive cultural psychology. Go to the collection table of contents to read other articles. 

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The notion of action in the discipline of psychology however is a recent one (Straub, 1999). This is especially true if one compares it with the discipline of sociology. Since Weber, the notion that action involves an actor’s subjectivity has entered sociology and has been discussed very extensively (Parsons, 1949). To integrate it into a discursive cultural psychological framework, we shall draw several important points from discussions in sociology. Talcott Parsons  (1949) presents a powerful analysis of major theorists such as Weber, Durkheim, Pareto and Alfred Marshall. Parsons noted that there is latent convergence among them, that is, in analyzing society they all proposed a  ‘voluntaristic theory of action’ that takes an actor’s subjectivity into account.

Parsons's Theory of Action

In analyzing human action, Parsons asserts that there is an indispensable logical framework that serves as a reference like axiomatic space-time framework in Newtonian mechanics as the a priori basis. This action frame of reference consists of four elements: an actor; an end; a current situation; and a mode of orientation. A current situation may be distinguished into two categories: the conditions which are beyond the actor’s control, and the means which the actors can control. A mode of orientation provides directions for actions. It consists of at least one selective standard, in terms of which the actor relates the end to the current situation. 

One may see that this conceptualization of action puts more emphasis on an actor’s subjective point of view. It is axiomatic that an ‘end’ can only exist ‘in the mind’ of the actor. Selective standards cannot be conceived as anything but subjective in character. What appears as ‘the conditions’ and ‘the means’ in the situation may exist objectively, but their characterizations as conditions and means would be determined by the actor’s ends and certain selective standards.

In sum, this conceptualization of action stresses the subjective direction of human effort to overcome real world obstacles. Action is viewed as a process of the alteration of conditional elements in the direction of conformity with norms and values. Thus, an end is viewed as expressing values of certain interacting community; and the selective standards in terms of which actions are oriented are either rational or normative (non-rational). Norms and values are internalized by the actor through interactions with other members of his community. The actor is seen as capable of reflection on his current situations but not on those norms and values that have been internalized. Thus, these norms and values, once internalized, become the causes of actions, which are external to the action themselves. One may conclude that in Parsons’s theory, the actor’s knowledge is only limited to circumstances, and is blind concerning norms and values, which motivate the action.

Central to Parsons’s theory of action is the distinction between rational and non-rational action. Rational action is taken to mean those actions that:

”....pursue ends possible within the conditions of the situation, and by means which, among those available to the actor, are intrinsically best adapted to the end for reasons understandable and verifiable by positive empirical science.” (Parsons, 1949, p.58)

Thus, an action is said to be rational if it is guided by a reference to accurate knowledge, possessed by a scientific observer. Implicit in this notion of rationality, is the neo-kantian correspondence theory of knowledge (see Rorty, 1979). It is assumed that the empirical world consists of externally given states of affairs, whose existence is entirely independent of the ways they may be known by human beings. Knowledge is said to be rational if it corresponds accurately to states of affairs in the empirical world.

This is not to deny human perspectives and practical interests which may bias human knowledge. Given scientific method however it is possible to make approximations to objective world. On the contrary, when an actor’s knowledge does not adequately represent an objective empirical world, or when the knowledge is a reflection of the actor’s sentiments or values, the action is said to be non-rational.  In this case an actor is potrayed as blind not only to the internalized norms and values, but also to the reasons that guide his action. In non-rational action, the actor is incapable of reflexivity.

Critiques of Parsons's Theory of Action

As Heritage (1984) has pointed out, this conceptualization of rational and non-rational action is problematic when confronted by actors who, despite their non-rationality from the scientific point of view, can account for their actions by citing particular aspects of their circumstances as relevant to their decisions, and take them to be ‘rational’ decisions. Parsonian theorists would now be faced with conflicts between the scientist’s rational account and the actor’s ‘rational’ account for their own action. Moreover there are also facts that ‘lay’ actors in certain interacting communities may treat one another’s account as intelligible and real. Heritage has called this problem as the problem of rationality in Parsons’s theory of action, that is, ‘the problem of what kind of significance to accord to actors’ account of their reasons for action.’

Another problem is the problem of reflexivity. It has been noted above that in Parsons’s theory of action, the actor is said to be blind to norms and values which have been internalized. His action motives are portrayed as driven by various normative processes. Thus, the actor is conceptualized as incapable of exercising moral choices, and cannot, but act in accord with internalized norms. Heritage asserted that one of the reasons why the reflexivity of the actor is denied is the fear to fall into earlier version of rationalistic positivism. If the actors are capable of reflection on their own internalized norms and values, then normative foundations would be theoretically treated as part of conditions of the actions which can be ‘rationally’ analyzed, just as in positivism they were conceived as adjusting to the constraints of the physical environment.

The third problem with Parsons’s theory of action is what Heritage called the problem of intersubjectivity. If the elements of one’s actions are subjective, how are we to account for the fact that it is understood and considered intelligible by other individuals? Parsons deals with the problem of intersubjectivity of knowledge by proposing that, in the case of rational action, actors attend to identical empirical states of affairs in the objective world. Provided that they employ scientific methods and construct adequate representations, they would arrive at similar knowledge of the world.

Thus for Parsons, intersubjective knowledge is identical to objective one. This portrait however is very narrow and cannot account for the fact that intersubjective knowledge may also exist in non-rational action. To account for this fact, as before, Parsons used his institutionalization of norms theorem. Members of certain interacting communities may have shared knowledge since there are common value and norm standards, that are established and institutionalized prior to social interactions. Again, in this view the problem is that actors are portrayed as merely following shared rules that govern members’ actions.

The Parsons’s theory of action has provided a useful framework for analyzing action. For our purpose to make an account for analyzing cultural differences in problem solving group discussions however, it is not adequate. Some part of his theory and its assumptions, such as the action frame of reference and his rejection of rationalistic positivism may still be useful and may become the basis of our framework. We shall continue to build the basic tenets of our discursive cultural psychology by following the path provided by Garfinkel’s (1967; Heritage, 1984) critique of Parsons’s theory of action which is based mainly on Schützian phenomenology of the social world.

There are three main points of critique of Parsons’s theory of action that Garfinkel has made (Heritage, 1984). First, he rejected the assumption of the neo-kantian correspondence theory of knowledge. It is not denied that actors have knowledge in the form of representations of states of affairs both in the social and natural world. Along with Rorty (1979) however, it is denied that knowledge should, or need, or even is able to accurately represent an actor’s world. Constructing accurate representations may be possible in very limited areas such as natural sciences. As a consequence, the notion of rational action which is based on such theory of knowledge has also lost its relevance, or at worst, is impossible.

Secondly, Garfinkel rejected the view that normative rules determine human action such that an actor cannot, but act in accord with such rules. Related to this, he also rejects that institutionalized and prior-to-interaction established rules are the only base of intelligibility of actions and social understandings such that communication is possible only through following them.

Thirdly, Garfinkel asserted that lay actor’s reasoning cannot be treated as irrelevant and evaluated against scientific positivistic reasoning. On the contrary actor’s common-sense reasoning is subjectively real such that it becomes the base of one’s decisions to choose certain courses of action; and also intersubjectively real such that the actions may be intelligible and accountable to others.

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Common-Sense World and Stock of Knowledge at Hand: Schützian phenomenology of the social world

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In the following we shall discuss important concepts of Schützian phenomenology of the social world that are relevant for the concept of action. 

To understand the Schützian approach to action, it would be necessary here to use one of its important concepts, that is, the concept of common-sense world. Common-sense world is the world of daily life of people that is believed to exist before one’s birth, have its history, and be given to members in an organized fashion. It is primarily the scene of one’s action and the locus of resistance to action. Thus, it is the arena of social action, within which human individuals come into relationships with each other, and try to come to terms with each other, as well as with themselves. This common-sense world is typically taken for granted. It is experienced by the members’ common-sense through implicit typifications and recognized based on typified constructs or thought objects of what is familiar. These thought objects exist as a combination of hypothetical and actual sense presentations of the world (Schütz, 1967).

The common-sense world then is experienced as unique, and forms certain biographical situations for every human individual. One important feature of biographical situation is what Schütz has called the ‘stock of knowledge at hand.’ It is the stock of knowledge that an individual has in certain moments of his life. This stock is made of typifications of the common-sense world, which consists, for example, of knowledge that the world already exists before one’s birth, that it is inhabited by one’s fellows, but is interpreted by them in typical ways, or that it includes animate beings as well as inert objects. These beings and objects are from the outset perceived typically and within a horizon of familiarity. What is new and different is recognized as unusual since it is contrasted against a background of the ordinary.

Especially relevant for our discussion of action is a kind of knowledge at hand about course-of-action types. Just as knowledge of beings and objects, knowledge of course-of-action is the result of typifications of the common-sense world that is derived from one’s encounters with other beings. Thus, as one may recognize an object as ‘chair,’ he may also recognize, for example, the course-of-action typical in seminars such as presenting opinions, discussing certain topics, raising one’s hand to ask questions, or intending to speak, etc. Such typified course-of-action may be conceived as recipes for handling things, and other people, in order to come to terms with typified situations. Just as one may encounter unusual objects and perceive them typically within a horizon of familiarity, one may also be in unusual situations, and not have any course-of-action at hand to deal with it and act in accord with typifications best approximate to such situations.

Verstehen and Typification of Action: a Schützian Account

Discussions concerning action center around the issue of treating action, as belonging to either the subjective or the objective world. The dilemma is that, on the one hand, if action is to be treated as purely subjective reality, it is impossible for other individuals to access the actor’s intention. As a consequence, it cannot be studied scientifically, and communication between human beings would not be conceivable. On the other hand, if action is to be treated as purely objective, then almost all human higher functions such as consciousness, intentionality and reflexivity would be denied, and human action would be portrayed as being caused by some natural processes.

Parsons’s proposal is to treat action as being caused by some normative processes. Schütz’s theoretical position in this controversy would be to treat action as experientially meaningful and intelligible in terms of social categories and constructs, both for the actor and his fellows. For Schütz, that action is meaningful is axiomatic. Action is constituted (but not caused in a positivistic sense) by social processes in which those meaningful constructs are negotiated and concurred. Action is constituted by how it may be understood (Verstehen) both by the actor and his fellows in certain contexts.

Schütz takes action (Handeln) to mean ‘human conduct as an ongoing process that is devised by the actor in advance, that is, which is based upon a preconceived project.’ (1967, p.67). Implied in this notion is an actor that is capable of reflection on his situations, possible actions, and ends. That means, action is purposive and projective, and has its source in the consciousness of the actor. An end is not merely given by internalized values and norms of community like in Parsons’s action, but instead, results from one’s phantasying, from one’s forethought, or projected state of affairs.

One important feature of action, in Schützian account, is that the action has certain meanings for the actor himself. He subjectively interprets the meaning of his own action. This subjective Interpretation of meaning however is, above all, a typification of the common-sense world, the actual way in which human individuals in daily life do interpret their own and each other’s behavior. Schütz treats this understanding (Verstehen) of one’s own and other’s action as axiomatic. Verstehen here is taken to mean simply that human individuals in daily life interpret their world from the outset as a meaningful one. Movements of one’s own and the other being’s body are understood or treated as the conduct of purposeful creatures that have motives and goals.

 Intersubjective World and Understanding of Social Actions

The Schützian notion of action may seem to be purely subjective. One may raise questions concerning how understanding of social action is possible. Indeed, we have started to discuss the notion of action as if it is purely subjective; as if ‘the world were my private world.’ Such is not the case. On the contrary, action is, from the outset, embedded in an intersubjective world of culture. Schütz (1967) then continues to explain that:

It is intersubjective because we live in it as men among other men, bound to them through common influence and work, understanding others and being understood by them. It is a world of culture because, from the outset, the world of everyday life is a universe of significance to us, that is, a texture of meaning which we have to interpret in order to find our bearings within it and come to terms with it. (Schütz, 1967,  p.10).

Intersubjective world is a world consists of webs of meaning that simultaneously constitute and are constituted by social actions intended and interpreted by members of certain interacting communities. This process of intending and interpreting actions can be conceived also as a form of negotiation of meaning. An actor A, who performs an action with certain intended meaning, can be conceived as proposing certain meaning. His fellow actor B, then, also proposes an interpretation of A’s action meaning through his action which is in turn interpreted by A.

Through such process of intending and interpreting meaning of action, the intersubjective world is constantly maintained and becomes the taken-for-granted background of human activities. The meaning, and the intersubjective world, that results from meaning negotiation process, supersede the private experiences of both A and B such that they are conceived to be ‘objective’ and anonymous.  

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Context-constitutedness of Action: Leontiev's Theory of Activity

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One remarkable thing in the efforts to analyze action is that it is very difficult to conceive of any action without its contexts. Just imagine an action of throwing a ball into a basket in basket ball game. One may analyze this action by breaking down its movements into smaller parts, such as holding the ball, raising it above one’s head, then throw it into the basket. It is even still possible to break them down into various smaller muscle's movements.

A question can be raised at this point: Do these movements constitute the action as playing basket ball? Something essential that constitute the action is missing when one analyzes it only in terms of its movements. An action should be put into its context if it is to be meaningfully analyzed. This context-constitutedness of action may be best formulated by Rosnow and Georgoudi (1986, p.6) who write, ‘an act or event cannot be said to have an identity apart from the context that constitutes it; neither can a context be said to exist independently of the act or event to which it refers.’

Leontiev (1981) has conceptualized contexts in unit of analysis that is termed activity. Thus action and activity are units at different level of analysis. Such analysis level is characteristic of Vygotskian activity theory (Wertsch, 1981; 1985). At each level, different criteria are used to define the units. Activities (Tätigkeiten) are the unit analysis at higher level which are distinguished on the basis of their motive and the object toward which they are oriented; actions (Handlungen), at a lower level, on the basis of their goals; and operations, at still lower level, on the basis of the conditions under which they are carried out.

Activities are the ”larger” unit that become the contexts in which actions retain their meaning. Actions that are detached from their activity context are devoid of meaning. Furthermore, action without operation would be a hollow concept since operations are what make them concrete. Operations are the particular modes in which actions are undertaken. Leontiev (1981) has formulated the concept of activity as follows:

Activity is the nonadditive, molar unit of life for the material, corporeal subject. In a narrower sense (i.e., on the psychological level) it is the unit of life that is mediated by mental reflection. The real function of this unit is to orient the subject in the world of objects. In other words, activity is not a reaction or aggregate of reactions, but a system with its own structure, its own internal transformations, and its own development (Leontiev, 1981, p.46).

Examples of the so-defined activities are games (chess, basket ball, soccer), lectures at universities, classes at schools, problem solving discussion in work groups, etc. An operation of throwing a ball into a basket cannot be conceived as action and would be meaningless if it is detached from its context, i.e. the activity of playing basket ball. Forming a clay pot would be meaningful if it is put into the context, for example, of handicraft business enterprise. One may readily observe that the action of forming a clay pot can be put into another context, for example, the activity of an artist who has certain aesthetic values.

The same action may have various functions in various activity contexts (Leontiev, 1981, p.61). This way, activity as a molar unit functions to orient subject’s actions in the world of objects. Actions, however, are not only ‘parts’ of activity. As expressed by Leontiev (1981, p.61) human activity exists only in form of an action or a chain of actions. The existence of activity is also constituted by its relevant actions. Without them, activity would be only an abstract notion. 

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Constitutive Rules and Action: Winch’s Discussion on Wittgenstein and Weber

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Questions may be asked if it is said that action is rule-governed: in what sense is action governed by rules? What is it for an action to follow a rule? How is one to conceive the concept ‘rule?’

Wittgenstein’s Language Game

Winch (1958) provides us with a framework to conceive of action as rule-governed. In his discussion he starts with a Wittgenstein account on how, using a word, an act of referring is rule-governed. His question first is ‘how is it for a word to have a meaning or a function of referring?’ How is it, for example, ‘that one, using the word ‘Everest’ is able to refer to certain peaks in the Himalayas’ (p.25). A natural answer to this question would be that it has been defined to him before. The Everest has been pointed out, and he has been told that its name is ‘Everest.’ By virtue of those actions in the past he is now able, using the word ‘Everest’ to mean certain peaks in Himalayas.

The rule that governs the act of referring above is that words are to be used in the same way. In this case the act of referring using the word ‘Everest’ is governed by the rule that they should be used only to refer to certain peaks in Himalayas. In a more formal expression, the word ‘Everest’ counts as ‘certain peaks in Himalayas.’ Thus, if it is used to refer to peaks in Austria, one may say that the act of referring is wrong.

The rule that words are to be used in the same way however would depend on the context. Suppose, in learning English, instead using the word ‘Everest’ the teacher uses the word ‘mount’ and points to the peaks in Himalayas. The students would be said to be correct in using the word ‘mount’ to mean or refer to both the peaks in the Himalayas and the peaks in Austria. Thus, in order to decide whether or not one action is following a rule, one would have to know the context in which the rule is applied.

One other important element of rule that is discussed by Winch is its distinction from mere regularity and its social nature. Suppose an individual uses the word ‘Alps’ to mean the peaks in Himalayas in all similar occasions consistently. His action can be said to have regularity since he uses the word in the same way, in similar occasions, but he cannot be said to act in accord with the rule of using the word ‘Alps.’ Despite its regularity, other people are able to recognize that the action is wrong.

What makes some regularities of action rule-following, is the reactions of other people (p.30). One’s action can be said to follow certain rules only when it is possible for someone else to grasp what he is doing. In contrast to mere regularity, the notion of following a rule is logically inseparable from the notion of making a mistake. This notion is also made possible through interpersonal agreement. Thus establishing a standard (right or wrong) is not an activity which makes sense to ascribe to any individual in complete isolation.

Weber’s Meaningful Behavior

Winch brought this discussion further as a frame work to give an account on rule-governed action in general outside the act of speech. He pointed out that all meaningful behavior is rule-governed. Just as words, actions have meanings in accordance with certain rules as well. Thus Winch spoke of those behaviors of which one can sensibly say that they have a meaning, a symbolic character. In this area he follows Weber’s account of meaningful behavior. In this account, behavior is meaningful in so far the agent or agents associate a subjective sense (Sinn) with it. The subjective sense of behavior means that it is subjectively intended. This sense is related to its motive, that is, a meaningful configuration of circumstances which, to the agent or observer, appears as a meaningful reason (Grund) of the behavior.

Just as word meaning refers to its referent (Everest-certain peaks in Himalayas), the meaning of behavior refers to its motive structure in accord with some rules that are socially constituted. As a paradigm case of actions that are performed for a reason, Winch provides an example. Suppose A has voted Labor at the last General Election because he thought that a labor government would be the most likely to preserve industrial peace. Prior to voting he has discussed the pros and cons of voting Labor and as a conclusion he said that he would vote Labor because that is the best way to preserve industrial peace.

In this example, the behavior of marking slips of paper and dropping them into boxes that counts as ‘to vote’ is a symbol or representation of A’s motive structure and the political structure in which he lives. A’s behavior would not make sense if there does not exist and he does not know the rules that symbolically relate his behavior and the government which comes into power after the election.

At this point, one may argue that the rule described above may be better termed definition but not rule. It may be argued that a rule must take an imperative form that regulates behavior, for example, ‘Drive slowly’ (Do X), or ‘On highway, one should not drive faster than 100 Km/h’ (If Y, do X). As such, not all meaningful behavior is rule-governed. It may be argued that actions that are the result of one’s reasoning are not governed by such rules.

Searle’s Constitutive Rules

So what kind of rule is it that governs such actions? Searle (1969) has pointed out that there are two kinds of rules, that is, regulative and constitutive. Regulative rules regulate antecedently or independently existing forms of behavior. The behavior of driving a car on the highway can exist independently, whether or not there is a regulative rule that regulates it. One can in principle ignore such a rule and still he can drive his car on the highway. In contrast, constitutive rules do not merely regulate, they also create or define new forms of behavior.

The behavior of throwing a ball into a basket cannot be said to exist without the rules of basket ball. The behavior of uttering ‘Everest’ cannot be said to mean ‘certain peaks in Himalayas’ without the constitutive rules that govern the use of the word ‘Everest.’ The behavior of ‘marking slips of paper and dropping them into boxes’ cannot be said meaningful without the constitutive rules that create the symbolic relations between the action ‘to vote’ and the government. Constitutive rules take a form ‘X counts as Y’ or ‘X counts as Y in context C.’

Thus uttering the word ‘Everest’ counts as ‘to mean certain peaks in Himalayas’; the behavior of ‘marking slips of paper and dropping them into boxes’ counts as ‘to vote’ in the context of a democratic political structure; in contrast, the same behavior ‘marking slips of paper and dropping them into boxes’ does not count as ‘to vote’ in the context of a patriarchal political structure. Applied to action in general, this formula may be described as follows ‘a behavior counts as intending certain meanings (thus, action) in certain contexts.’

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Searle’s Speech Act Theory

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Winch (1958) conducted his discussion from Wittgenstein’s analysis of rule-governed word use and applied the framework to analyze Weber’s meaningful behavior in general. Here we shall take a route back from action that has been discussed above to language use in general. The unit of analysis we shall use however is not words; instead sentential speech and sequence of utterance will be analyzed as a form of action.

Speech as Action

Searle (1969) has pointed out that a theory of language is part of a theory of action since just like action in general, speaking a language is a form of intentional, rule-governed behavior. As action should be distinguished from mere movements or behaviors, so should speaking a language be differentiate from mere utterance or sound.

In supporting his hypothesis, Searle (1971) pointed out the fact that when one takes a noise or a mark on paper to be an instance of communication, as a message, one of the things that is involved in his so taking that noise or mark is that he should regard it as having been produced by a being with certain intentions. He cannot just regard it as a natural phenomenon like a stone or water fall.

The natural feature of a noise or a mark that is produced does not constitute its meaning. Rather, the intentions that are expressed in accord with certain rules constitute the noise or the mark as a message. This argument makes it quite clear that speech is a kind of intentional, rule-governed action.

Any speech such as commanding, criticizing, requesting, etc. have at least three distinct kinds of acts that must be performed simultaneously: performing utterance acts as in uttering words; performing propositional acts as in referring and predicating; and performing illocutionary acts as in commanding, promising, questioning etc.

In performing speech, for example, (1) ”Sam smokes habitually.” and (2) ”Does Sam smoke habitually?” one, first of all, utters words by producing sounds through his mouth (utterance act). Secondly, he refers to the fact that Sam smokes habitually (propositional act). Thirdly, the illocutionary acts in these two sentences are different. In the first sentence, one is asserting that; whereas in the second one is questioning whether Sam smoke habitually.

According to Searle’s (1979) taxonomy, there are five basic categories of illocutionary act: assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations. These categories can be classified based on twelve dimensions, the three most important of which are (1) the point or the purpose of the act; (2) the ”direction of fit” between words and the world; and (3) the expressed psychological state.

 

Table 6.1 Searle’s (1979, p.12-20) Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts

	Purpose	Direction of fit	Psychological state	Paradigm case
Assertives	To commit the speakers to the truth of the expressed propositions (p)	Word-to-worlds	Belief that p	Suggesting that p; Insisting that p; Hypothesizing that p
Directives	To attempt to get the addressee to do something (p)	World-to-words	Want/ wish/ desire	Ask (question); order; request; invite to p
Commissives	To commit the speaker to some future course of action (p)	World-to-words	Intention	Promise to p
Expressives	To express the psychological state of the speaker	No direction of fit	Specified in propositional content	Thank; congratulate; apologize; condole
Declarations	To bring a state of affairs (specified in p) into existence	word to world and world to word	0	‘You are fired’; ‘I appoint you chairman’

Source: Searle (1979, p.12-20)

The first and the most important dimension based on which illocutionary acts are classified is the purpose or the point of illocutionary force. Illocutionary point becomes the main element of illocutionary acts. The second dimension is direction of fit. This is taken to mean the part of an illocutionary point that consists of the attempts to get either words to match world or world to match words.

Thus, assertives are an attempt to match the word to the world. If an assertive does not match the case which it asserts, it is wrong. In directives and commissives, the direction of fit is the reverse. They are attempts to get the world to match the word. Thus, if one says ‘close the door’ (directive) and his interlocutor does not follow the order, the speech act cannot be wrong, but unsatisfied, since the world does not match the words. The third dimension is the corresponding psychological state that is represented by illocutionary acts.

Meaning

The meaning of speech act resembles very much to Wittgenstein’s word meaning and Weber’s meaningful behavior. It is rule-governed. Here we shall describe what is involved when a speech act has meaning. First of all, as has been pointed out in Searle’s taxonomy, the most important element of an illocutionary act is the illocutionary point. When a speaker says, ‘Close the window, please!’, what he means is to get his addressee to close the window (directive). This indicates, what a speech act means refers to its intention or purpose.

An illocutionary act is said successful only if the addressee recognizes the speaker’s intention by uttering the words. This account of meaning as intention corresponds to Grice’s (1957). To say that A meant something by x is to say that ”A intended the utterance of x to produce some effect in an audience by means of the recognition of this intention.” This account is useful for our purpose here since it relates meaning and intention. In speaking a language, one attempts to communicate things to the hearer, by means of getting them to recognize his intention to communicate just those things.

This account, however, fails to give an account of the relation between the utterance of speech act and its intention. In accord with Grice’s definition of meaning, the intention of the speaker is the only condition that constitutes the meaning of speech act. Searle (1969) has criticized this account. Using the example above, say, the speaker says ‘Close the window, please!’ This must mean that he gets his addressee, but cannot mean that he commits himself  to close the window. The relation between the utterance act, and speaker’s intention cannot be just arbitrary. He cannot say ‘Close the window!’ and mean to commit himself to close the window, however consistent he does this.

This would lead us back again to the notion of constitutive rule, and thus the second element of speech act meaning. The relation between speech act and speaker’s intention is governed through constitutive rules. Why the utterance ‘Close the window’ is taken to mean to get the hearer to close the window, is because it is constituted by rules or conventions that are socially constructed. Applying the constitutive rule formula above, the rule would say: the utterance of ‘Close the window’ counts as ‘to get the hearer to close the window’ in the context C.

Pitfalls of Searle’s Speech Act Theory

The significance of Searle’s speech act theory lies in its assertion that speech is a kind of action. Thus in principle we may describe conversation as sequence of action or interaction and as negotiation of constitutive rules that constitute their meaning, instead of just information exchange. This theory may even also give new insights when applied to conceptualize action in general. It however is still inadequate for explicating how conversation as sequence of action can be meaningful. Consider now an example from a German work-group conversation in Transcript 6.1 below.

Transcript 6.1 Speech acts sequence in work-group discussion

Utt	Spk	Original utterances	English Translation
6.1.1	B	Ich habe da noch so eine generelle Frage.	I still have one general question
6.1.2		Geht’s nur um Produktion fürs Inland, oder geht’s auch um Export?	Is it about production only for local market, or also for export?
6.1.3	L	Im Moment geht das nur um Inlandprodukte..	Right now, only for local market
6.1.4		Aber das reicht	But that would be enough
6.1.5	C	Ja, genau.	Yes, exactly
6.1.6		Wir müssen uns erst mal hochbringen.	We must first of all bring ourselves higher

B’s utterance (1.2) is a question addressed to L. In term of Searle’s taxonomy this utterance would be classified as directives, that is, to get L (the addressee) to perform an assertion concerning the propositional content of the question. To this question L responds properly (in accord with speech act theory) by performing an assertion (1.3) that may be specified as an answer.

The problem is how are we to conceive utterance 1.4-1.6 as meaningful? According to Grice’s (1991) principles of cooperative conversation, one of which is relevance, any utterance in a conversation must be meaningful in a sense that an utterance must be relevant to other utterances in the sequence. L’s utterance in 1.4 must be a relevant respond to B’s utterance. This however cannot be conceived in question-answer framework. Utterance 1.4 is not an answer to B’s question (1.2).

Searle (1979) might propose that L’s utterance (1.4) responds not to the literal meaning of B’s question, but to its illiteral meaning. That is, B’s question may be conceived as an indirect speech. To explicate this, he provides an example as follows:

Student X: Let’s go to the movies tonight

Student Y: I have to study for an exam

In this example, X’s utterance constitutes a proposal in virtue of its literal meaning, to which a conventional response would be either to accept or to reject the proposal. Y’s utterance, in virtue of its literal meaning, is neither an acceptance nor a rejection. It is a statement about Y. The question is how are we to conceive Y’s utterance as a relevant or meaningful response to X’s proposal.

To answer this, Searle proposes that Y performs two illocutionary acts: primary and secondary. The primary illocutionary act, that is, to reject X’s proposal, is undertaken by way of uttering the secondary illocutionary act, which is simply a statement about Y. In other words, secondary illocutionary act is direct, the meaning of which is literal; and the primary is indirect, the meaning of which is not literal.

One may apply this indirect speech act framework to the conversation in Transcript 1 above. B, by uttering question in 1.2, may be said to perform both primary and secondary illocutionary acts. L’s and C’s utterances then may be said responding to B’s primary illocutionary act. The secondary one is easy to be specified as a question. The problem, again, is how are we to specify B’s primary illocutionary act, such that L’s and C’s utterances may be relevant responses to it.

Moreover it is more likely that B’s utterance is not meant to be an indirect speech act since, unlike student Y’s assertion in Searle’s example, B’s question is meant as a question not indirectly. It is more likely the case that, instead of B performing an indirect speech act, C and L interpret B’s question more than just ‘to get L to perform an assertion.’ Thus on the side of the hearer, one may speak of primary and secondary interpretation of a speech act.

In order to give a more coherent account of a conversation, one would need a framework. The problem of how a series of actions or speech acts may form meaningful sequence, cannot be dealt with by the theoretical accounts so far discussed. Boesch (1991) and Leontiev (1981) may speak of chains of action and goal. However, they do not, so far, provide an account of how meaningful chains may be formed and distinguished from any meaningless, random chains. This is the reason why we need to discuss on discourse. 

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