Bio: (1935-1975) American sociologist. Harvey Sacks received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and taught at the University of California, Irvine. He is best known for creating a socio-linguistic approach which he named conversational analysis. Sacks began collaborating with Erving Goffman and Harold Garfinkel in the late 1950s. Sacks and Garfinkel, who developed their approach known as ethnomethodology, jointly published an article "On Formal Structures of Practical Action" (1970). In this article, they argue that the division into "indexical" expressions (the meaning of the statement comes from the context in which it is given) and "objective" statements (meaning is free of context) is wrong, because, even supposedly objective expressions always depend on situations in which they are used. It is necessary to introduce "ethnomethodological indifference", meaning that in the process of the analysis of speech, we should not assess the status of objective expressions, in the context of their adequacy, value, and consequentiality. They believe that the "orderliness" - the practical means that are used in order for those expressions to attain their sense - of all human expressions should be explored.

Over the next few years, Sacks and his collaborators Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson developed an approach to speech analysis that differed in several significant respects from the ethnomethodological approach. Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson called this approach "conversation analysis," and the first paper to lay the groundwork for this new approach was "Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation” (1974). Sacks died a year after the article was published, but Schegloff continued to develop conversational analysis, and, years later, he published and edited Sacks' lectures in the book Language Lectures on Conversation (1992).

Conversation analysis rejects the idea of ​​using pre-composed categories to codify social meaning in conversation, but focuses on the structure of conversation, to arrive at meaning. This approach rejects the existence of a universal intersubjective meaning of words and symbols. The goal of conversational analysis is to develop a methodology for analyzing conversations through a sequential approach. Everyday conversations should be analyzed through “membership categories”, as means by which verbal interaction is made meaningful. The method developed by these authors consists of compiling detailed transcripts of recorded conversations, which are then analyzed in detail by recording each aspect of the conversation: intonation, pauses, taking orders in the conversation, moments when two or more interlocutors speak at the same time and other details. Using this method of analysis researchers obtain sequential organization of talk in interaction.

The goal is to determine how the participants in the conversation relate to the speech of other interlocutors, and how that relationship changes at every moment of the conversation. Every part of the conversation is essential, from the way the conversations start and end, the turns of speakers, to the interaction problems that need to be overcome in the conversation. Nonverbal communication (body language) is also analyzed. In the end, there are rules, patterns, and structures that form a dynamic (because the situation is constantly changing during the conversation) "sequential ordering" of the conversation. The mechanisms that speakers use to organize a conversation are independent of the cognitive disposition and motivation of any speaker, but also of the broader social context of the conversation or physical limitations. In addition to the organization of the conversation itself, this approach seeks to determine how intersubjective understanding occurs in the conversation.

The most critical sequences in a conversation are called "adjacency pairs", and are composed of two speaking activities, in which the first activity, performed by the first speaker, directly invites the second actor to respond with complementary speaking activity. Examples of adjacency pairs are: question-answer, greeting-greeting, request-grant/refusal, and invitation-acceptance/declination, etc. adjacency pairs very often serve as a basis for further expansion of conversations. The turn of speakers in the conversation, and the rules that regulate that change, are also very important fields of analysis. Usually, each speaker is entitled to one “constructional unit” of conversation (the smallest unit of speech that can be considered as a whole – one turn). When one such speech unit is completed, other speakers can start their own, or if no one steps in, the first speaker can continue with the next speech unit. The mechanism that controls the turns (who speaks) is called "recipient design". The ability of speakers to recognize and respect the rules of turns is the basis of intersubjective understanding. 

Main works

„Sociological Description”, in Berkeley Journal of Sociology (1963);

„On Formal Structures of Practical Actions”, in McKinney, J. D. (ed.) Theoretical Sociology (1970);

„An Initial Investigation of the Usability of Conversational Data for Doing Sociology”, in Sudnow, D. (ed.) Studies in Social Interaction (1972);

„Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation”, in Language (1974);

„The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation”, in Language (1977);

Language Lectures on Conversation, 2 vols. (1992).