What's It All About?
Ethnomethodology focuses on the interactions that are occurring in the present. It does not seek
to change these interactions, but rather merely observe the ways in which they
do occur.
Within the reading, ‘The Morality of Cognition’ by J. Heritage, I was intrigued by the concept of underlying patterns and the use of ‘documents’,
social facts that can be pieced together to arrive at a conclusion. In most
interactions, the ‘documents’ point to underlying patterns that are expected
and drawn from prior experiences and knowledge. However, when the ‘documents’
do not follow socially constructed norms, confusion can occur. Dennis (2011)
explains this concept simply as being a process through which both a problem
and solution are established and that through the course of the interaction,
the contributions of all parties involved helps to clarify what is actually occurring,
the problem and the solution. The concept is definitely something that I’ve
never really considered, but it seems to be quite obvious in its manifestation when
I think about it!
Some of the concepts within the set reading seem to be a
little over complicated and a bit wordy, but as with the Goffman readings, the
inclusion of examples helps to clarify things to a reasonable extent.
Example Time!
When the ‘documents’ found within a certain situation don’t
actually point towards an expected underlying pattern, people often give others
the benefit of the doubt in order to try and understand what is happening and help 'save face' for all involved. This is evident when it comes to text
messages that contain more than one possible meaning or a response that is
otherwise unexpected. Sometimes it is possible to determine what is trying to
be said, but otherwise it just gets really awkward and very confusing for all
involved.
The main culprit in these interactional confusions
is almost always the auto correct function found on almost all mobile phones. Whilst helpful
for the majority of the time, it can cause some problems in altering what is
communicated and the ‘documents’ to be observed during the interaction. It's happened to us all!
Take
for example the text message conversation depicted in the image below. As auto correct changed one word, the entire
meaning of a response has, as a result, been altered in a negative way. The situation has led the victim of auto correct to try and 'save face' by attempting to send more text messages to clarify the intended meaning of his message, but in the end, it pretty much turned out to be a massive fail...
Dennis, A 2011, 'Symbolic Interactionism and Ethnomethodology', Symbolic Interaction, vol.34, no.3, pp.349-356, accessed 02/09/2012, http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/docview/894710587
The documents concept in Heritage's reading was rather difficult to wrap my head around, but the examples were useful. I never thought about this concept in relation to text messaging, but your explanation of how messages can become awkward makes sense. There are multiple meanings that a text can convey, and we are constantly relying on previous knowledge to help them make sense. While reading your blog, I realized that the same could be said for some conversations as well. Sometimes people begin a conversation expecting the listener to already know one’s train of thought. The listener then has to scramble to remember previous conversations in order to make sense of what is being said now. For example, I have a friend who is notorious for changing topics mid-sentence. She somehow expects that others will follow her logic, which rarely happens. Since I know this, I listen carefully while she speaks, and then when she says something that does not really make sense, I hide my confusion and try and piece together previous comments and conversations in order to understand what she is saying now. Who would have thought that this process has been studied and been given a name. It is fascinating to see how people use logic and reason in order to make sense of everyday interactions.
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