I~ANDBOOK OF LANGUAGE ANDSOCIAL INTERACTION

Edited by

Kristine L. FitchUniversity of Iowa

Robert E. SandersUniversity at Albany, SUNY

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERSMahwah, New Jersey London2005

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12

Reconstructing Communicativef~ractices: Action-Implicative

Discourse Analysis

Karen TracyUniversity of Colorado, Boulder

.How does a school board deal with dissension as it seeks to craft a policy about acontroversial ~sue?

.How do citizeIlS design calls to the police when they are reporting a problem witha close other?

.What dilemmas do academics face as they participate in departmental col-

loquia?.How is an org;anization's status as an alternative institution (e.g., hospice in the

medical system) displayed in its staff meetings?.How do the co:rnmunicative ideals used by negotiators during a crisis situation differ

from those that are espoused in its training documents?

These questions illl~strate the kinds of concerns action-implicative discourse analysis(AIDA) has been uSI~d to address. As a set, the questions make visible a focus that distin-guishes AIDA from other kinds of discourse analysis: attention to describing the problems,interactional strate~;ies, and ideals-in-use within existing communicative practices. AIDAis an approach that melds the analytic moves of discourse analysis by giving attentionto the particulars of talk and text, with the goal of constructing an understanding of acommunicative pral:tice that will be action implicative. It seeks to construct a view of theproblems, strategies, and ideals of a practice so that a practice's participants will be able toreflect more thoug}:ltfully about how to act. AIDA is rhetorical in thrust: It presumes thatpeople are choosin~~ how to act in order to achieve or avoid certain outcomes. It is alsonormative. AIDA takes usefulness (for thinking and acting wisely) as the most important

301

:JO2 TRACY

4:riterion for assessing an analysis, rather than, for instance, its descriptive adequacy OrI~lanatory breadth.!

The chapter begins by detailing AIDPO:.s parentage. I show how it is a child of thej:amily of approaches known as discourse analysis and practical theory, an approach toinquiry that has developed in the field of communication. Next, AIDA studies of particularpractices are introduced. The studies are organized to illustrate several distinctive featuresof AIDA, including its focal unit and aims, its methodological profile, and its rhetorical:md normative stance.

AIDA'S PARENTS

Discourse Analysis Approaches

1\8 many scholars have noted (e.g., Cameron, 2001; van Dijk, 1997a, 1997b) discourse isa term that gets used in quite different ways. My usage of it is similar to that foundin linguistics (e.g., Schiffrin, 1994) where "discourse" is paired with the term "analysis"~lI1d treated as an umbrella term that refers to a variety of approaches to the study oftalk or text. Whatever the differences among DA approaches, and there are significantones, discourse analysis always involves study of particular segments of talk or text wheret~cerpts are used to make scholarly arguments.

Besides this first meaning of" discourse," there is another one. The second meaning,informed by the work of Michel Foucault (1972}-what Gee (1999)2 refers to as big-D dis-c:ourse, to be contrasted with little-d discourse-refers to complex constellations ofbeliefs~lI1d actions that constitute social practices, as for example if we referred to the discourseof medicine or education. In some DA research (e.g., critical DA approaches such as Fair-clough, 2001; Wodak, 1996), there is a concern to connect the little-d discourse (particularsof talk and text) with the big-D discourse (larger social practices). However, many DA ap-proaches have other foci, and it is important to keep these two meanings of discourse clear.

To describe AIDN.s first parent as the DA community is a bit like characterizing thet:thnic national pedigree of a fourth- or fifth-generation American-part Irish, Mexican,Italian, and Vietnamese. AIDN.s first parent, discourse analysis, is a blend of multiplenationalities, quite difficult to characterize in her own terms without referring to featuresalssociated with grandparents or great-grandparents who themselves have intermarried.

IThe relationships among different criteria that could be used to assess research are complicated. Usefulness

demands some level of descriptive adequacy and explanatory breadth (see Tra~ 199.5), but these are not precondi-

tions. Much research that is descriptively adequate or that possesses explanatory breadth is not useful. Usefulness

guides a researcher's selection of discourse sites. It is at junctures where participants can choose that understanding

of possibilities is most useful. In addition, although usefulness requires being able to see connections beyond the

iJnmediate context in which something is Studied, it is facilitated by speaking in the language and unit of focal

practices. For instance, although attention to face may be a concern across many communicative practices, the

emblems and dangers are likely to be practice specific. When usefulness is the research criterion, it is this level that

~; pursued in analysis.2 A second set of terms that Conley and O'Barr (1998) use in their analysis of language and law is macrodiscourse

(:ideologies and larger institutional practices) and microdiscollrse (talk and text).

12. RECONSTRUCTING COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES 303

Over the years (sel~ Tracy, 1991, 1995,2001),1 have attempted to describe the intellectualimpulses that have shaped the development of AIDA. These descriptions, and to a certaindegree the discou1:se analyses themselves, have changed as AIDA has become a clearer,more distinctive practice. At this time 1 would describe AIDKs discourse analysis parentas equal parts con',ersation analysis, anthropologically influenced speech act traditions,discursive psychology; and critical discourse analysis. Let me say a bit about the featureseach ancestor con1ributes.

From conversation analysis (for overviews see Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998; ten Have,1999), AIDA takes the commitment to study everyday interaction and the practice ofrepeatedly listening to exchanges that researchers have transcribed where they attendto many particulat,s, including intonation, abrupt word or phrase cutoffs, and repetitionand vocalized soWlds (uh, um, eh). Moreover, although not accepting the CA principle(Schegloff, 1992, 1998) that the building of an interpretation should use only what isvisibly displayed iJl1 a next response, AIDA does share the CA view that how an in-teractional partne:r responds is an important resource for anchoring proposals aboutparticipant meanitlg. In addition, the conversation analysis ideas of noticeable absence(culturally expected sequences can make visible certain actions as "not there"); conver-sational preference: (preferred kinds of responses such as accepting an offer can be donestraightforwardly ~vhereas nonpreferred ones, such as declining an offer, will be done withpauses, uhs and unlS, and accounts); and the membership categorization device (differentterms are used for referring to individuals and sets of people that produce different in-ferences) are particularly helpful resources in analyzing problematic practices (see Sacks,

1992).The second anCl~stor, anthropologically influenced speech act traditions, itselfinvolves

several strands. Afirstis Brown and Levinsons (1978) politeness theory; in which discoursepractices are desaibed in terms of how they function to support positive face (e.g.,presume common ground, "we need to. ..") or negative face (e.g., indicate reluctance,"I hate to ask this of you but. .."). From politeness theory, AIDA adopts the move ofarguing the possible. That is, AIDA studies frequendy argue that a specific discourse moveis a routine practic:e for attending to a more general interactional goal. Of note is thatsuch a claim does n:ot absolutely hinge on whether in an examined episode the move wasfunctioning in that manner. In addition, AIDA draws upon and extends politeness theory'sfocal interest in face to other identity issues. Other strands in the anthropologicallyfocused speech act traction include cross-cultural analyses of speech acts such as requestsand apologies (e.g., Blum-Kulka, House &: Kasper, 1989) and ethnographies of nationalor ethnically distinct communities with a focus on ways of speaking (e.g., Hymes, 1974;Philipsen, 1992). From this work, AIDA assumes the importance of recognizing thatevaluation of conversational action is always a culturally inflected judgment. Finally; inline with interactional sociolinguistics (Gumperz, 1982), AIDA is primarily interestedin studying mterac:tion between persons from different communities. But, rather thanattending to inter:ictions between different nationalities, AIDA is more interested ininteractions betwel~n persons of different institutional categories (e.g., citizens and police;parents and school board officials).

The third ancestor is discursive psychology (Billig, 1987; Billig et al., 1988; Edwards,this volume). DisCllrsive psychology contributes to AIDA in two important ways. First,

lEt

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30.~ TRACY

the notion of dilemmas as it has been articulated in this tradition (Billig et al., 1988) offersan especially helpful way to conceive of the character of the problems participants facein important social practices. Thinking is fundamentally dilemmatic; so too is much ofsol:iallife. People very frequently pursue aims that partially or strongly are in tensionwith each other. D~cursive action is all about navigating these competing commitmentsand concerns. In addition, discursive psychology offers guidance as to how rhetoric canbe adapted to the study of ordinary institutional practices. Edwards and Potter (1992),for instance, illustrate how a rhetorical approach can be taken to spouses' participationin family counseling or reporter-politician encounters in a news interview.

The final contributor to AIDA is the family of critical discourse approaches (for anov,erview, see Fairclough & Wodak, 1997). Similar to critical discourse approaches, AIDAhas a strong ethnographic component. Instances of transcribed talk are the focus of anal-ysis, but they are interpreted within an institutional frame that is informed by participantobservation, interviewing of members, and study of organizationally important docu-ments. Second, as is also true with critical discourse approaches, AIDA is interested incotmecting small-d discourse with the shape ofbig-D discourses. AIDA is committed todeveloping ideas that have the potential to improve the social practices that are studied.

Practical Theory

In a series of articles Robert Craig (1989, 1992, 1995a, 1995b, 1996a, 1996b; Craig &Tracy, 1995) has argued for the desirability of conceiving of the study of communicationas a practical rather than a scientific activity. Although his argument is addressed toth4~ discipline of communication, it has implications for scholars from other disciplines(e.g., sociology; psychology; linguistics) with interests in the study of communication,but especially those with a LSI focus. As Craig sees it, a major challenge for scholarsinl:erested in communication is how to unite the technical and productive (techne) sideof communication with its moral and political (praxis) aspects. Rather than assuming thatth4~ goal of inquiry is to produce general explanations of phenomena, as is the case whena cliscipline is conceived as a scientific one, a practical discipline takes its goal to be thedevelopment of normative theories. Normative theory is "centrally concerned with whatought to be; it seeks to articulate normative ideals by which to guide the conduct andcriticism of practice" (Craig & Tracy; p. 249). Toward this end, practical theorizing seeksto reconstruct communicative practices. Construction, or more aptly reconstruction, is ascl10larly activity in which a practice is redescribed in less context-specific terms. Thisredescribing has an idealizing component in which principles implicit in a practice arefoJ:mulated explicitly and standards are articulated for judging what is reasonable anddesirable in a practice.

The art of rhetoric, as it ha.s historically been conceived and practiced, provides an es-pecially useful analogy for thinking about communication as a practical discipline (Craig,1989). Similar to rhetoric, a practical discipline of communication would be interested indeveloping proposals as to what are practically and morally desirable ways for people toconduct themselves when engaged in certain activities. However, in contrast to rhetoric'sfo,cus on significant public events, a practical communication discipline would concern itselfwilth a broad range of practices, including intimate conduct, in addition to institutional

'1f

12. RECONSTRUCTING COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES 305

activities and actio:tlS in public life. Rather than anchoring itself centrally in Greek and Ro-man conceptions of social life, it seeks to take seriously beliefs about conduct and personsheld by members in the variety of speech communities being studied. Out of such studywould emerge proposals about reasonable conduct in the practices and "universalizedaccounts of the rational principles and values that undergird them, as well as argumentsamong these accolmts revealing their contradictions and penetrating ever more deeplythe inevitable problems and ultimate paradoxes of communication" (Craig, 1989, p. 101).

Grounded pradical theory (Craig & Tracy; 1995) also provides methodological guid-ance for the doing of practical theory:3 Simply put, researchers seek to reconstruct com-municative practia~s at three levels. The first and most cri.1ciallevel involves the problemsthat stem from particular social practices. Within any complex practice, participants willexperience tensions and face problems about how they ought to act. Reconstructing theproblems, or dilemmas, would be the key first step in reconstructing a practice. Followingthis step, reconstruction would proceed both more concretely and more abstractly: Moreconcretely; reconstruction would seek to describe the specific conversational techniquesand strategies thalt were used to manage focal problems (the technical level). Moreabstractly; reconst1uction would seek to specify the ideals and principles that shapedrationales of how to address the problem (the philosophical level). In particular, thephilosophical level would be grounded in situated ideals, the beliefs about good conductthat could be infen-ed from patterns of praise and blame about actual situations made byparticipants in the :practice.

Grounded practical theory shares commonalities with other interpretive approaches(Craig, 1989; Craig & Tracy; 1995) and especially other practical theory approaches (e.g.,Cronen, 1995, 200J.; Pearce & Pearce, 2001; Penman, 2000; Shotter, 1993). A difference,though, between grounded practical theory and other practical theorizing approaches isthe focus on studyiilg actual practices to develop ideas to contribute to reflective thoughtabout the practice. This focus on reflection is a contrast to seeing practical theory as theintellectual work of applying a preexisting theory to a practice as, for example, Cronen(2001) does with therapy: It also contrasts with the view that regards practical theorizingas a kind of activis:m, a way for researchers, themselves, to intervene in and transform

practices (Barge, 2001).4In sum, AIDA is an offspring of its parents, adopting the goals of one, and pursuing

them in a methodlDlogical style that characterizes the other. It is a discourse analysisapproach that is av;mable for anyone who finds it useful. It is also a Tracy-inflected idea,the end product of my own reading, conversations, and research in which I have beenseeking to turn incl1oate intellectual concerns into a namable activity. The remainder of

I,' ~' ;i

3 Grounded practical theory has similarities with Glaser and Strauss' (1967) well-known approach of grounded

theory; Both approaches are committed to developing theory through immersion in the field and by working fromthe ground up. They differ, however, in what each counts as theory. The goal of grounded theory is to develop

explanatory theory, similar to what is tested in many behavioral quantitative traditions. In contrast, groundedpractical theory seeks to develop normative theories.

'Grounded practical theory is a metatheoretical stance toward inquiry that is compatible with interpretivemethodologies other than discourse analysis. For instance, see Ashcraft's (2001) ethnographic work and Goodwin's(2002) rhetorical criticisI11.

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this chapiter emphasizes AIDA as a Language and Social Interaction tradition of potentialinterest to scholars and students from a variety of backgrounds.

DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF AIDA

Focal Units and Analytic Aim

AIDA focuses on communicative practices in institutional sites, with an analytic aim ofreconstn:lcting the web of actor problems, conversational moves and strategies, and thesituated ideals in that practice. An obvious question becomes, then, what is a communicativepractice? Practice, I would suggest, is a usefully elastic term. It can be used to refer tocommunicative forms that cut across sites as, for instance, is true for "negotiation."Negotiation is a routine kind of work that attorneys do when they plea bargain, a focalactivity irtlabor-management discussion, or what law enforcement officers do in hostageor other t:risis situations. Practice is also a way of referring to activities that occur in anidentifiable place among specific kinds of people. That is, practice is another way to refer toaspeech~~nt(Hymes, 1974) or what participants take to be a situation's frame (Goffinan,1974; Tarmen, 1993). Ordinary names given to practices often call up a constellation ofsite-peop:le-purposes connections. School board meetings, departmental colloquia, andclassroom discussions are examples of easily recognized practices related to educationalsettings. Practice, then, is a way of unitizing the social world to enable analysis.

Practi<:es can be named in different ways, and the name that is chosen will be con-sequential. Although there is no single correct way to name, some names will directobservation and reflection into more useful channels. For instance, academic colloquiamight be thought of as instances of science talk, professional socialization, or intellectualdiscussion (Tracy; 1997a). School board meetings could be conceived as the practice ofpublic deliberation, or alternatively; as decision making among persons who have beenelected aJld others who have been appointed. Labeling a practice and its function oneway rath,er than another will suggest different interactional problems, conversationalstrategi~:, and situated ideals about conduct. Thus, a first level of reconstruction in AIDAis the unitizing and naming of a practice.

Institutional practices almost always involve multiple kinds of people who are posi-tioned differendy within the practice. An upshot of this rather obvious fact is that theproblems of a practice will differ with a participant's positioning in that practice. Gettinga handle on the interactional problems from the points of view of the main categoriesof partici]?ants is one aim of AIDA. Often this aim is pursued across multiple studies; onoccasion it may be the focus of a single analysis.

Tracy and Agne (2002), for instance, sought to label the problems and identify theconversational practices for both citiz~n callers and police call takers in domestic disputecalls (incidents involving verbal disagreements or physical fighting between intimates).The focus was on calls that did not involve serious violence, a quite common type ofcall to the police.s From the police call taker point of view, a problem in this kind of

SOur evidence for saying this arises from examining our call base (650 calls) and field notes of other observations

(another 350 calls). Serious violence reports occurred less than a handful of times; these hard-to-classify domestic

disputes occurred about three to four times more often.

RECONSTRUCTING COMMUNICA11VE PRACTICES 307

call is how to be he:lpful to citizens, reflecting their institutional mandate, but how to doso quickly and witt lOut violating other policies, such as the requirement to avoid givingadvice in matters of civil and criminal law; It is also the case that the kind of help thatpolice call takers CaJl provide for citizens is circumscribed by a complex set of institutionalcommitments. In rllese not highly violent domestic dispute calls where intimates are inthe midst of a conflict and the help they are seeking is for the police to take their side,being helpful is esp1~cially difficult. At a more general level, the police call taker dilemmacan be reconstructl~d as how to be helpful to citizens while adhering to the complexinstitutional commitments.6

Evidence that call takers experience this dilemma is seen in their responses. Analysisof this type of dom~~tic dispute calls show that police call takers tend to honor one or theother horn of this dilemma: Either call takers avoid giving legal advice and do so quickly;but their responses seem unhelpful. Or call takers display a good amount of interactionalconcern, but they take a long time and the calls are peppered with moments of discomfortas the conversation:al help gets close to what might be seen as legal advice or taking oneperson's side. For irlStance, in response to a man who had called about his common-lawwife returning to rlleir apartment to steal his wallet, checkbook, and food stamps, thecall taker said, "what you need to do is cancel those documents if you don't want to usethem, get new ones. Call the bank, go to motor vehicle, get some new ID, get somenew checks, get a lawyer. You need a property settlement." Telling a person living onthe financial edge tI:> get a lawyer and property settlement is unlikely to be helpful, butit does address the problem quickly and it does attend to the policy of not giving legaladvice.

Contrast the pre~ous response to another call taker's in which a caller was asking foradvice about how tI:> deal with her drinking and sometimes physically abusive husband.This call involved rtlultiple indicators of call taker concern. The call taker allowed thecaller to tell her story in detail as the caller desired without redirecting her talk. Thecall taker also, used multiple continuers (13 mm hmms) and other tokens that markedappreciation of the caller's difficulty (e.g., "owowo," "it's a hard one"). On the other hand,the call was long by institutional standards (7 minutes and 10 seconds). Furthermore,within the call taker's comments were a large number of restarts, other kinds of repairs,and multisecond within-turn pauses, all typical markers of discomfort. In addition, thecall taker repeatedly referenced in her talk the other institutional goal of avoiding thegiving of inappropriate advice:

ExcerRt 1 <TaRe 8. Call 359. 1461ines)Line 33: "the only think 1 can say is the police. .".Line 37 "but as far as, 1 mean 1 can't really give you advice on (.) going homeLine 60 "cause we can't give any advice out like that urn"Line 62 "I mean you are putting yourself into a danger and if you go back andhe's drunk, 1 can s:ay that"

6'fhis dilemma has a !'ami1y resemblance to one Erickson and Shultz (1982) described for academic advisors incommunity colleges. BeiJ.1g fair gatekeepers and being helpful and mendly pull communicative action in differentdirections.

308 TllACY

Many domestic disputes do not readily fit the police intervention script. The categoriesof viCtiIrl, wrongdoer, and crime are difficult to apply and this makes police call takers'managiI:lg of these calls challenging.

At thl~ same time, although for different reasons, domestic dispute calls of this typeare problematic for the citizens who place them. Describing police-relevant trouble inone's 0"'11 close relationship. whether the speaker is the victim or the instigator, makesinferable an array of identity-negative implications about the kind of person that a speakermay be (Bergmann, 1998). Additionally; citizens themselves often recognize that the helpthey are requesting from the police may not be help that can be provided. Consider howthe woman in the previous call began.

~)t 2 (Tape 8. Call 359. female C. female CT)CT: Citywest police Agent PhillipsC: uh yes I just need to ask somebody some questionsCT: uh huhC: u::m I'm like in, like a domestic!bmg here?

Of note in this opening is how it differs from most calls to the police (Zimmerman,1984, 19~~2). Rather than straightforwardly labeling the problem that motivated the call,the caller refers to the problem as a "domestic thing." In formulating her trouble as, "I'mlike in a domestic m!!!g here" the caller's vague label ("thing"), where a more explicit onewould b,~ expected, cues that the situation she is calling about is too complicated to namestraightforwardly. Her emphasis on "!h!!!g" further highlights this. As the call unfolds, itbecomes apparent that the domestic thing is a dilemma the caller is facing about the bestway to ,teal with her drinking husband who is presently in a different location from herown. Furthermore, her initial comment ("I just need to ask somebody some questions")preview:; that a complicated situation needs to be described. From the opening moment,then, usmg a variety of strategies, citizens (see Tracy & Agne, 2002) calling about domesticdisputes make visible that their call will not be business as usual. In their call openings.citizens display that they need to tell a complicated, not-straightforward narrative beforethey can make their request for help.

In addition to the problem of setting up a not-typical problem, callers also are con-cerned to manage the moral and self-presentational implications of what they are saying.They do this through the descriptive details that are provided or omitted. At one point inthe previous call, for instance, the woman says of her husband, "I mean he-he ~ed meor hit me whatever the hell you wanna call it." In problematizing what the husband's actsshould be labeled, the caller makes visible the nontransparent nature of any description.Her difficulty in selecting a label is understandable when we consider the potentiallynegative: implications of each description. Putting up with hitting frames a speaker asa viCMl, not a desirable identity; on the other hand, calling the police for a slap mayimplicate a person as vindictive and seeking police intervention when it is unwarranted.

To stLInmarize, one distinctive feature of AIDA is the attention it gives to identifyingthe problems of a practice and the conversational moves that reveal or manage the prob-lem for :key categories of participants. Other AIDA studies have investigated the dilemmaand conversational practices used by (i) staff in hospice team meetings as they work to

RECONSTRUCTING COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES 309

live up to an altem~ltive holistic philosophy; while also being competent heath care pro-fessionals (Naughton, 1996; Tracy & Naughton, 2000); (ii) college teachers committed tostudent discussion and student learning (Muller, 2002); and (ill) academic colloquia (Tracy;1997a).7 In the study of academic colloquia, interactional problems were reconstructedfrom the point of vi,~w of presenters versus persons doing the questioning, graduate stu-dents versus faculty members, and individual participants versus the group as a whole.

To complement this conceptual overview, I consider now how AIDA research proceedsmethodologically; E~xactly how does AIDA go about the process of reconstructing apractice's problems, conversational strategies, and situated ideals?

AIDA's Methodiccll Profile

Having identified arl important practice, a next question becomes how to study it. AIDAis a type of discours4~ analysis that is also ethnographic. To reconstruct a communicativepractice well demaJlds that a researcher have extensive knowledge about the routineactions and variation in it. This requires the analyst to do sustained observation of thepractice. It also requires analysts to develop an understanding ofbothhowparticipants talkwith each other in the practice (the focal discourse) and how they talk (or write) about eachother and themselvc:sas a group (metadiscourses). The specific necessary ethnographiccomponents will depend on the practice being studied. Consider three examples.

In the study of dc,mestic dispute calls reported earlier and the other analyses that havebeen done on these citizen-police exchanges (Tracy; 1997b; Tracy & Anderson, 1999;Tracy & Tracy, 1998:), the focal discourse data were 650 telephone calls made to the policeand 911. These calls were selected from a several-month time period and were down-loaded from police call archives. Analysis of these calls was informed by approximately100 hours of field observation carried out by a two-person team over a 10-month timeperiod.8 Field obsenrations were primarily focused on police call takers at one emergencycenter while theywc,rked on the telephone and with their computers. Also included, how-ever, were observations of police dispatchers and other emergency personnel workingin the center (firefigJ1ters and paramedic dispatchers), informal outside-of-work social-ization, a stress marlagement workshop for staff, a ride-along with a police officer, andobservations at othe:r emergency centers. Field observations included the kinds of notetaking that are a standard part of ethnographic fieldwork (e.g., Lindlof & Taylor, 2002;Spradley, 1980). In addition to observations, a small set of interviews was done with calltakers, and institutional documents (training and policy and procedure manuals) werecollected and studie:d. Much of this background information remained purely that-background-but some particulars became important pieces of evidence for anchoringproposals about the practice's problems or recurring conversational strategies (see par-

ticularly Tracy, 1991b)..' .

7Reports on the colloqL1iUIn research may be found injournal articles (Tracy &: Baratz, 1993; Tracy &: Carjuzaa,

1993; Tracy &: Naughton, 1994; Tracy &: Muller, 1994) or in an expanded form in a book (Tracy; 1997a).8 Sarah Tracy, at the time a graduate student, was the other person of the team beside myself. She is an

Organizational communicition ethnographer, and elsewhere (S. Tracy &: K. Tracy, 1998) the fieldwork part of the

project became the central data to examine issues of emotion labor.

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A second quite different combination of materials is seen in Driscoll's (2002) study ofthree 30-minute cockpit conversations recorded during aviation accidents. Besides thefocal e;tchanges (transcripts from the voice recorders), Driscoll's analysis was informedby knowledge about standard cockpit practices that she developed through involvementas a colnmunication trainer at a major airline, through ongoing conversations with a pilotinformant, and by studying the aviation reports released by the federal aviation agency.

The third example, a project on which I am currently working, is a study of thepractice of school board meetings. For this project, the focal discourse data are 250 hoursof one community's school board meetings recorded from a local cable broadcast andcollect,~d over a several-year time span. In addition to the focal discourse, only a smallproportion of which will be transcribed, are the following kinds of data: notes taken fromviewing the televised meetings; several observations of the meetings on site; agendas,minutf~S, and other documents related to particular policy discussions; local newspaperarticle1; and editorials about Board activities; and interviews with a variety of participants.Moreover, because all of these materials come from one community, and my interest isin schclol board meetings in general, a final activity will be to observe meetings in othercommLmities.

ThtLS, a first step in action-implicative discourse analysis is to develop extended knowl-edge of a focal practice. This is accomplished by taping (or getting access to tapes of)a goocl number of hours of the central discourse activity and by building up a portraitof the scene, the people, and the practice, drawing on whatever additional materials arerelevaIlt and accessible. A next step for AIDA is to identify the segments of a focal practicefor traQscription and analysis.

At Ihe selection and transcription stage, AIDA differs from conversation analysis intwo ways. First, AIDA would never begin with discourse moments that before analysis,as Harvey Sacks would advocate, seem to be "utterly uninteresting data" (1992, p. 293).Although there is no dispute that such analyses can be valuable, for AIDA not all mo-ments of interaction are equally promising places to start. In AIDA, selecting stretchesof disc:ourse to be transcribed is a theoretically shaped activity. Because one goal is tounder:;tand the problems of a practice, moments in which participants seem to be experi-encin~~ discomfort, tension, or conflict are especially likely for focus. In other words, AIDAbegiru: with materials that do seem interesting, such as moments in which participants'emoti,:>ns are being displayed. Because another goal is to understand the situated idealsof a practice, instances where participants express evaluation of other people's actions isa second type of talk likely to be selected. Finally, segments of interaction that seem atodds ,vith how an institution describes its aims and practices, or how different categoriesof participants characterize their intents or actions, is yet another criterion that guides

sel~ctj,on.Second, AIDA studies typically work with relatively l~ng segments of interaction and

give limited attention to timing and prosody. The reason for this choice flows from theAIDA commitment to develop ideas that contribute to participants' reflection about apractice. It is certainly the case that small changes in prosody; the length of a pause, andthe e)[act point at which overlapping speech occurs shape interactional meanings. Atthe same time, these kinds of action are not easily controlled or strategically used; thesekinds of actions are difficult to reflect about and change. For this reason, action-implicative

12. RECONSTRUCI'ING COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES 311

discourse analysis ~~ives primary attention to the aspects of communication about whichpeople are most a1ble to reflect: choices about wording, speech acts, arguments, andspeech or story orl~ations. Positively stated, in transcribing AIDA seeks to capturefull words and those that are cut off, repetitions and restarts, and urns, uh hubs, andother vocal sounds. These talk particles are treated as important resources for buildinginterpretations of a practice's problems.

One example oflhis approach is seen in an analysis of a faculty member's (FM) questionto a graduate student (GS) presenter in the study of departmental colloquia (Tracy; 1997a,

pp. 52-53).

Excernt 3

FM: Uhni.. this j,s a kinda follow up. I guess on the perceptions thing. Did you,are you aware, I would assume that, that studies looking at selfattributions and other attributions of competence generally show a prettyhigh correlation?

GS: hmm mmFM: That. that is generally true? That the person's own self rating of

competence correlates pretty highly with ratings of those surrounding?

I"

In analyzing this eJrcerpt, attention was drawn to the fact that the faculty questionerbegins the question in two different ways before settling on a third and final version(see italics). Each formulation of the question projects different assessments of whatthe graduate student presenter should reasonably be expected to know: The strongestexpectation is projected by the first formulation ("Did you"). If FM had continued withthis initial formulation, he is likely to have asked something like "Did you look at therelationshipr' To as]~a speaker if she did something, with no mitigating details such as "Byany chance did you" or "I was wondering if you" carries a strong implication that it is anactivity she should have done. FM's second formulation suggests that he wants to avoid thisimplication. In saylllg, "are you aware" FM makes more reasonable a response in whichGS has not done thj~ additional statistical analysis. Nonetheless, his second formulationstill projects that th,e information he is after is a kind of information that well-informedothers should posse;;s. FM's last formulation ("I would assume that") conveys the weakestimplication that GS "will have done or knows about a particular finding. Rather than askingher for a particular :piece of information, FM's "question" became a comment to whichthe presenter could offer a wide variety of appropriate responses.

Analysis of this f::KCerpt was used to help build a picture of the identity sensitivitiesthat are routinely present in the questioning period of academic colloquia. Questionsmake visible an asker's expectation of whether a presenter should know, may know; orreasonably ,will not know a particular piece of information (see also Pomerantz, 1988).In the academic setting where being smart, knowledgeable, and "good with questions"is valued, the diffiC1Jlties that questioners face in selecting the right implication becomes

apparent when we look at their online editing of questions.A final methodological point about AIDA: Communicative practices vary in the degree

to which they are interactive or monologic, and AIDA is equally useful for analyzing eitherkind. Events that include a fair frequency of minispeeches (academic colloquia, schoolboard meetings) are as suitable practices for AIDA as those that are more interactive such~

312 TRACY

as divorce mediation (Tracy & Spradlin, 1994) or interviews (Agne & Tracy; 1998). Forexam]ple, one study (Tracy, 2003) sought to reconstruct the communicative sensitivitiesat stake during a public meeting in which an elected official resigned as a matter ofconscience and the implicated officials responded to the announcement. To understandthe discursive actions at this kind of meeting-an event that is rare within any particularcornnlunity but quite commonplace when we look across them-requires considerablescene setting. Suffice it to say that at the time of the resignation in this particular group,the board routinely divided into voting blocs in which four members voted the oppositeof the other three members. The resigning member, Marine, was one of the three-personminority. The resignation speech, whose intent was not obvious until its conclusion, wasoffere:d at the first meeting of a new academic year in a slot in the meeting where Boardmembers were expected to speak for up to 5 minutes about concerns and goals. Marinebegarl her comments framing what she was to say as the "concerns" she brought at thebeginning of the school year. Following her 13-minute speech in which its conclusionwas a resignation, the other Board members offered responses.

To illustrate how AIDA works with lengthy comments and speeches to develop adiscourse analytic claim, consider one segment of Marine's speech and how two ofthe majority Board members countered her description of events. As background, it isimportant to note that besides Marine's dissatisfaction with the changed educationalpolic:,,! direction of the then-current board, in previous meetings she had repeatedlymade~ evident that she did not like the way the board was conducting itself. In herresigJlation speech, an accusation that the majority was undemocratic, dictatorial, andnoncollaborative was constructed through a variety of language formulation choices.This lack of democratic procedures, in fact, was offered as the key reason for why she felt"forced" to resign. Consider Marine's initial description of a pair of events and how twomem,bers of the majority redescribed them:

fu:cemt 4 (Marine's description. lines 926-932)Some changes have been rationalized under the term of "hands-on style." Indeed,these four don't know when to keep their hands off. Changes being made now extenddown to the level of drastically cutting back on what is contained in official minutes ofboard meetings. Briefer minutes would make it easier to avoid further accountability.Power is being abused in many ways that do not serve the public.

fu:cer t 5 Shonkwiler's Redescri tion Lines 1178-1185AJ.ld I really didn't want to do this but I will. And I guess that I would, would uh closewith that if the just disclosed waste of nearly a half a million dollars in this district whenwe're cutting librarians, teachers, and, and the counselors is any indication of what acollaborative style of, of uh management in this board is, that I absolutely accept theaccusation that we are a hands-on board: ~d I accept it with great pleasure.

gtC t 6 Sa orito's Redescri tion Lines 1063-1069]lJst a few things I'd like to clear up. It's my understanding, the minutes the way we'vebeen recording them have taken one person full-time, a full-time job to do it, and I forone worked very hard to make these meetings live, to if anything expose what goes onhl:re more rather than less. So I think having a videotape and an audiotape is enough. I

mean I don't want to get into all the little details.

12. RBCONSTRUCI1NG COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES 313

Of note is how Shorlkwiler verbally expressed reluctance ("I really didn't want to do this"),while nonetheless proceeding to formulate a criticism. Expressing reluctance is a way topositions elf as merl~ly responding to criticism rather than initiating an attack. Shonkwileralso offered a positi'le meaning (saving a half million dollars) for the term "hands-on style"that Marine had u:;ed as an accusation. Similarly; in the particulars Saporito suppliesabout the minute-t;lking practice, a rather different motivation is implied than the publicdeception motive implicated in Marine's description. By emphasizing the practice ofvideotaping meetitlgs-something that had not happened in the previous boards towhich Marine was comparing the current one unfavorably-and by noting the districtexpense when money was tight, Saporito's description reframes the moral meaningof the action that has occurred. Description and redescription, then, are central waysparticipants in publlc meetings navigate morally loaded moments. Through the specificssupplied or omittecl, and in the words and phrases selected, different assessments aboutthe reasonableness of a resignation are built. Highlighting how description does moralwork is not a novel move; discourse analysts of a variety of stripes have made this point(e.g., Drew; 1992; Potter, 1996). One contribution that AIDA makes is to draw out thesignificance of emb(~dding identification of a context -general move (e.g., descriptio1lS thataccuse and deflect bJame) within the purposes and problems of the focal communicative

practice.For simplicity's sake, 1 have referenced these school board meetings as "a practice."

A more apt description, though, would be to refer to this occasion as containing a setof different practices, albeit overlapping ones, with each cued by the name that is given.In this instance, for example, the practice is simultaneously a resignation event, a schoolboard meeting, and a community group seeking to work together democratically:

Moreover, when practices have lengthy monologue activities such as speeches, AIDAseeks to understand these events as well as the practice's more conversational moments.This interest in, and ability to analyze, social practices that are not conversationallyformatted arises from AIDXs focus on language choice, speech act construction, andargument design, as well as its ethnographic infrastructure. The information about apractice that is gleatled from observation, interviews, and study of documents allows anAIDA researcher to build discourse interpretatio1lS that go beyond the meanings partic-ipants may be orienting to in interactional moments. Thus, an interest in institutionalevents that feature extended speech tur1lS separates AIDA from conversation analysis andother discourse approaches.9 Consider now a final distinctive feature: AIDXs rhetorical-normative stance.

AIDA's Rhetorical-Normative Stance

AIDA is one among several discourse analysis approaches that takes a normative stance.Studies of argument discourse in the normative pragmatics tradition (for a review, see vanEemeren & Houdosser, 2002) and critical discourse analyses (see Fairclough & Wodak,

9This statement is a ~;eneralization and there are exceptions. Hutchby and Wooffin (1998) showed how thespirit of CA could be adapted to analyze lengthy stories; Atkinson (1984) showed how applause during speechescan be used as evidence ofrecipent responses.

~

314 TRACY

1997 for a review) are also normative. Similar to normative pragmatics, AIDA has fre-

quently selected communicative sites for analysis (e.g., community meetings and aca-denlic colloquia) in which the activity of arguing is and should be central. In addition,botJ!l approaches seek to develop rational moral principles for the critique ofinteraction.

But, instead of beginning with a priori, philosophically derived principles about rationalaction, as normative pragmatics does, AIDA begins by examining actual exchanges infoc~l1 sites, seeking to take the legitimate, often contradictory; aims of the practice seri-

ously: AIDA does not presume that there are known principles of good conduct that are

~rersally applicable.Similar to critical discourse analyses, AIDA works to make visible unfairne~s and prob-

lems in existing communicative practices. However, AIDA differs from critical discourse

approaches in the normative principle that guides its critique. Critical discourse analysesare I:entrally committed to exposing social inequality and the invisible practices of power.

Altl:lOUgh recognizing that power inequities are frequently problems in situations, AIDAdoes not regard power differences and lack of equality, in and of themselves, as problem-atic. Power and status differences are a reasonable, often desirable, part of institutional

life. It is only when these differences are used to support morally or practically unreason-able processes and outcomes, that they are wrong. AIDA:s normative stance, therefore,is more complicated or, one could say; messier than either critical discourse analysis or

normative pragmatics. What, then, does AIDA use to judge?

}uDA draws on the Aristotelian idea of phronesis-good judgment, prudence, prac-ticaJ. wisdom, sound and thoughtful deliberation, reasonableness-as its key concept.

AdI:rrittedly; phronesis is not an abstractly definable, self-contained judgment principle.As J:iSinski (2001, p. 463) notes, phronesis is "not a simple process of applying principles orrules to cases that leaves the principles or rules unchanged; in prudential practice, thereis a negotiation between the case and the principle that allows both to gain in clarity:"

Within AIDA the central starting point for development of normative proposals is to

identify the practice's situated ideal(s).

Situated ideals are participants' beliefs about good conduct that can be reconstructedfror:a discursive moments in which they praise and criticize. Situated ideals capture the

conlplex prioritizing of competing concerns and values that not only will but shouldbe part of actual practices. In school board meetings, for instance, we might expect

participants' situated ideals to recognize that every citizen's voice should be heard andthat those who are elected representatives or who possess certain kinds of expertise

des(~rve more of a say: That meeting talk should be shaped by norms of clarity andrational expression, and by a corimlitment to speak respectfully to and about individualsand the groups they represent.

}. practice's situated ideals may be reconstructed in several ways. One way is to

mterview participants and ask them explicitly to describe their notion of appropriateconduct (their espoused ideals) as well as to reflect about good and bad things that

happen in ordinary parts of the practice. Although participants' espoused ideals are

rarely the same as their situated ones, having a sense of what they espouse can aid ananaJ.yst in focusing attention on stretches of talk that capture the more complex weighingof multiple principles that is the hallmark of situated ideals.

,

12. RECONSTRUCnNG COMMUNICATIVE PRAcrICES 315

An example of this is seen in one interview (see Tracy; 1997a) with a faculty mem-ber about academi(: colloquia. When asked what role she saw for praise in intellectualdiscussion, she responded, "If you define praise as reinforcing people for ideas, uh, thenI would say none." About 30 minutes later in the interview she was asked to describethe differences she saw in colloquia where the focus was discussing a common readingversus discussing tile research of a member of the group. To this other question she

responded,

Excerpt 7 (EXternl: 138, Tracy 1997a. E. 143)You discuss the id(:a in a way that allows the person to save face. ..it's alsoimportant to do praising at some point. It was a good paper and an interestingargument. Or what a well par- well-crafted paragraph. Because there is so much atstake in presenting; your own work that the absence of praise would be noticed evenif it's perfunctory;

These two excerpts, then, along with others become the grounds on which a situatedideal for academic colloquium was constructed. Participants' situated ideals, as thesetwo examples begUl to show; reflected that colloquium participants should take ideasseriously;separatin~; them from their speakers and examining them on their merit. At thesame time, participants recognized that intellectual discussion was talk among people, anactivity in which it was reasonable and right that discussion gives attention to participants'desires to be appreciated and approved of (Brown & Levinson, 1978). Participants' situatedideal for intellectual discussion involved navigating a dilemma-ideas matter and peoplecount. This situated ideal for colloquium, I would argue, requires phronesis and is agood normative principle to guide conduct. Faculty and graduate students should usethis dilemmatic ideal to reflect about future participation, and to critique past interactivemoments. AIDA, th.en, seeks to build ideals for a practice that will honor the multipleaims that underlie D10st practices.

Situated ideals may be reconstructed from analysis of participant interviews, as wasseen in the analys~ of academic colloquia, or they may be developed from study ofinteractive moment:s in conjunction with institutional documents or other segmentsof interaction. In studying negotiations at Waco, Agne (2003), for instance, examinednegotiation texts used in law enforcement crisis training, the after-the-fact documentsreporting FBI next-clay strategies, and actual negotiation episodes to identify differencesbetween the participants' situated and espoused ideals. To provide a second example,Tracy and Ashcraft 1:2001) showed how; in controversial value conflicts, such as a schooldistrict developing its position toward sexual orientation, a group's espoused principleof communicative conduct, "avoid arguing over words," was in fact the opposite of itssituated ideal. That is, through its regular discursive actions the group treated word argu-ments as serving valuable functions. In subtle and sophisticated ways, group membersused arguments ove:r document language to manage the group dilemma of advancingthe value to which the majority of members were committed-in this case, advocatingunderstanding and acceptance of gays-while building acceptance with other membersof the group commltted to a contrary value.

316 TRACY

CONCLUSIONS

Wittl the understanding of the problems of a practice, the conversational moves thatreveal them and the strategies that manage them, and the practice's situated ideals, anAIDA scholar is ready to tackle the final step-developing implications for action. Thefinal step, not necessarily present in any individual study, is to propose ideas about howparticipants might better reflect about a focal practice so that they act in a more effectiveand morally reasonable manner. This final normative step, requiring phronesis, takesaccount of and prioritizes among the multiple aims of the focal institutional practice.Without a doubt, this judgment process is difficult; at the same time, making this kind ofjud!~ent is just what participants do all the time. Developing ideas to aid participants'jud!~ent making, then, is the action part of AIDA.

luthough implications for action tend to be practice specific, two conclusions canbe !~leaned from AIDA studies of different practices. First, one important implicationobsl~rved across several practices is that naming of problems is especially consequential.Pro'blems are often treated as obvious and self-evident, not requiring reflection abouthovr they ought to be named. Yet, as John Dewey (1989, p. 123) noted, "the nature of theprolblem fixes the end of thought." Problem formulations carry blame pointers, directingattention toward certain things and away from others. In the school board project (Tracy &Muller, 2001) the community's naming of the problem occurring in its school boardmel~tings- "poor communication"-led to a focus on the board president's actions. Atthe same time, it led to ignoring how meeting structures and routine expressive patternsduring public participation and board discussion also contributed to the group's difficul-ties. Similarly; in the FBI negotiations at Waco (Agne & Tracy; 2001), it was shown howthe FBI's labeling of the trouble they were experiencing-dealing with Koresh's "Biblebabble"-made invisible the FBI's own conversational practices that were contnoutingto problematic exchanges.

j\ second implication is to be cautious about dismissing recurring communicativeacdons as dysfunctional. Conversational practices that are common may serve valuableancl hard-to-name functions. Folk theories about what is bad communication, such asarguing about words, are often at odds with what folks actually do. It may be thatpeople are failing to do what is best and need to try harder. However, it may also bethat people's choices are wiser than they have explicitly realized. People may keep doingthiJ.lgs, such as arguing about words, because it is the only way to manage a difficultdil~~mma. Speaking in platitudes during public debate, another conversational practicethat is routinely derogated, is an activity that under some circumstances is not only aneff~~ctive move but is a morally reasonable one. As I argue elsewhere (Tracy, 1999), when~ d.eliberative group's issue is some particular member's conduct, the speaker's ownconduct in expressing that concern can become an issue. In delicate situations, platitudesare useful. In public argument contexts, proposals such as "it's important to listen,"and "we need to respect each other" enable participants to render evaluation of theirfeU ow members' conduct, to mean considerably more than they explicitly say; and to doso without being nasty and attacking. In sum, reconstructing communicative practicesusing AIDA is a way to develop useful ideas that can aid communicators as they reflectabout how to conduct themselves more wisely in the practices about which they care.

J

12. RECONsrRUcrING COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES 317

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