Organizing sociable group communication: a conversation analytic study

• 67th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology

This study examines the organization of small group conversational interaction with the goal of developing technology to support communication among social, mobile groups. The data consists of audio- and video-recordings of 13 one hour long sessions featuring mundane conversational interaction among eight to ten friends between the ages of 18-30. Using conversation analysis, the findings reveal similarities between participants' methods for organizing their sociable group talk and the cocktail party effect; participation is fluid and multiple conversations co-occur. We discuss how conversations start, merge and end, as well as how these findings are relevant for technology design.

citation

Szymanski, M. H. ; Plurkowski, L. Organizing sociable group communication: a conversation analytic study. 67th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology; 2007 March 27-31; Tampa; FL.