Abstract for A Tutorial on Membership Categorization

Schegloff, E. A. (2007). A Tutorial on Membership 
Categorization. Journal of Pragmatics, 39, 462-482

After setting Sacks’ work on membership 
categorization in its historical and analytical 
context, and suggesting some ways of reading the 
original texts, I sketch the major components of 
membership categorization devices (MCDs) – 
collections of categories and rules of 
application, and then the categories themselves 
and their features. These discussions lead to some
consequences for research practice – both for 
social science generally and for conversation- 
analytic practice in particular, and to an initial
treatment of some problems that arise in advancing
this line of conversation-analytic research.


Close window