Over De Functionaliteit Van Conversatie-Analyse

In this article conversational analysis is criticised as to theory and practice. In terms of internal criticism it is argued that 1. there is a lack of theoretical starting points which makes observation less fruitful than possible; 2. the anti-structural attitude, however understandable, is counter-productive as to theoretical development; 3. the conversational analytic working method can be characterised as bottom-up in contrast to the cognitive principles of human mind that is organised top down to a large extent. This bottom-up approach denies the actual differences occurring in the mental activities of both participants and analyst. It, furthermore, neglects the proper questions of research as to how all kinds of information that the conversationalist has to his disposition and may put to usage when communicating, is organised mentally. Therefore, the discussion on rules, strategies, principles, etc. does not take place systematically in conversation analysis; 4. the inductive standpoint and approach of conversation analysis prohibits the formulation of generalizations. Furthermore, there is no methodology available to deal with deductive aspects of investigation; 5. the above discussed characteristics of conversational analysis lead to serious method-ological problems for the investigation of the human discourse capacity.As far as the external criticism of conversational analysis is concerned, it must be maintained, that conversational analysis isolates itself from other neighbouring disciplines, in such a way that it can but does not profit of related research findings of connected disciplines. Finally it is argued that conversation analysis is hardly interested in (or even ignores) the problem of application of research findings in every day practice.