Project

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Project
Author(s):	Aug Nishizaka (Chiba University, Japan) (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2565-0934)
To cite:	Nishizaka, Aug. (2023). Project. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: []

The term project (noun) is used in an imprecise way. It may or may not be used interchangeably with activity (see Robinson 2003, who distinguished both terms such that a project may include a series of multiple activities).

Schütz (1932) distinguished between an ongoing process of acting (Handelnsablauf) and an accomplished act (Handlung) to explore the meaning of action for the actor. Within the internal time-consciousness, an action becomes articulated as a meaningful action through the prospect (‘project’ or Entwurf) of its future accomplishment.

Schegloff (2007), in a way reminiscent of Schütz’s distinction, discussed the projective power of pre-sequences. A pre-sequence first-pair part question initiates a sequence as a course of action that leads to a specific recognizable action. The project (definable, in this context, as the prospect of the “successful” accomplishment of the sequence) provides for the directionality of the sequence as a course of action. The project is not lodged within the actor’s consciousness but is brought into interaction through the question. The project informs the design of the question; the question is formatted as a yes- or no-preferred question such that the agreeing, preferred answer to the question is the go-ahead answer for the project (e.g., the agreeing answer to “Are you free tomorrow?” is the go-ahead answer to the projected invitation). However, as Schegloff (2007) indicated, participants may orient to various levels of projects beyond a sequence.

Levinson (2013) introduced a general notion of a project as an action plan and claimed that such projects inform action formation and ascription. He provided numerous examples of projects that go beyond a sequence but remain within the boundary of the ongoing interaction, which, following Schegloff (2007), can be called 'interactional projects' (within a specific interactional situation).

Further, the following example illustrates that the visitor (VIS) treats the doctor’s (DOC) question format as adjusted to the occasioned project (within a specific social occasion beyond an interactional situation). The visitor has taken several tests of the radioactive dose. The example begins as the doctor asks the visitor if she has received the test result regarding her thyroid gland (line 1). the doctor changes the polarity of his question in line 3.

[Radioactive Dose]

01  DOC:    .h koo↑joo↓sen no hoo ↓wa moratte’run’ ↓desu↑ka?
            .h Have you received the ((test results of)) the thyroid gland?

02          (0.8)

03  DOC:    sore mo ma↓da:
            Those, not yet?

04  VIS:    hai_ $nannimo ↓de↓↓su$
            No, $nothing.$

05  DOC:    a [nanka-
            Oh, well-

06  VIS:      [kochira ni kite kudasai ’tte iware te-
               I was just told to come here, and-

07          (.)

08  DOC:    ↑↑#aa[:: aa:: 
               Ah:::::::

09  VIS:         [>ch'tto su’imasen=watashi mo kochira de

10          dooiufuuna nagare ni natte’ ↓ruka ga wakara naku ↓↓te<
            >I am sorry=because I don’t know how things proceed here.< 

The doctor’s question (line 01) may be considered a pre-request leading to requesting the visitor to show him the result. However, after offering an agreeing answer (line 4) to the doctor’s re-formatted question (line 3), the visitor does not only apologize for her possibly blocking the doctor’s supposed project but also provides an excuse, mentioning the procedure of the entire visit, thereby displaying her understanding that the doctor’s original question (line 1) was optimized (cf. Boyd & Heritage 2006) according to the project related to her entire visit (i.e., the current occasion; Goffman 1963; Schegloff & Sacks 1973)—such that the agreeing answer could let the doctor go ahead with the project, for which the visitor, in her official role “a visitor to the hospital,” might also be partially responsible (i.e., she might be supposed to be adequately attentive to it).

The fact that different participants pursue different projects may surface in their interaction. In the following example, two forestry excerpts (SN and JN) inspect the mountain trails for a planned hike with children. They agree that children tend to fall, but their constructions of doing being concerned about children are different: While SN discusses the tendency not specific to this trail, looking at JN and with laugh tokens and laughter, JN gazes at specific spots of the trail with pointing gestures without any laugh tokes or laughter; JN, who is in charge of the hike, pursues a distant project (how to secure the safety of the participating children at the planned hike) that embeds this occasion (the inspection) within it. In fact, he later returned to the tails to remove those spotted lumps (see Nishizaka 2021).

[Fukushima] (Nishizaka 2021)

01 JN:   .hhhhh hh .hh maa <kodomo:::h> .h|h <kooyuu  no  demo
         .hhhhh hh .hh Well <children>, .h|h <even over things
         like this                        |
   jN:                                    |points at a lump of grass
                                           on the ground -->>

02       korobimasu yo|ne:::>
         fall down, right.>
   jn:   ------------>|

03 SN:   ko(h)robu:.| .hhh heh heh |heh .hehh  hh |.h h
         ((They)) fa(h)ll down. .hhh heh heh heh .hehh hh .h h
   jn:              |has passed the|              |
                     lump of grass |              |
   sn:                             |looks at jn ->|

04       (2.2)

05 SN:   nande are kodomo tte kantanni korobun' kana?
         Why uh do children tend to fall down easily?
 
06       .hh heh heh hehh .hh ho(h)ntoni(h) .h
         .hh heh heh hehh .hh A(h)ctually(h).

07 JN:   .hh[h

08 SN:      [ha(h)|shinnakere(h)b(h)y(hh)mo(h)no o(h) .h 
             Eve(h)n when they do(h) not ha(h)ve to(h) ru(h)n,
   sn:            |looks at jn ------------------------->>

09       hashi(h)tte koronden|da. .hh hh .h [hh
         they ru(h)n and fall down hh hh .h hh

10 JN:                       |              [zettai u-u- ato
   sn:   ------------------->|

11       |kore o::_ .h|h hashitte oriru:-:-: kodomo mo
   jn:   |points at   |
          the slope ->|
 
12       zettai     imasu yo┌ne::┐:.
         Definitely, uh- And some children went down this
         by running, definitely, right. ((lines 10-12))

Additional Related Entries:

• Social action
• Project
• Multiactivity

Cited References:

Boyd, E. & Heritage, J. (2006). Taking the Patient’s Medical History: Questioning during Comprehensive History-Taking. In Heritage, J., Maynard, D. (Eds.), Communication in Medical Care: Interactions between Primary Care Physicians and Patients (pp. 151–184). Cambridge University Press.

Goffman, E. (1963). Behavior in Public Places. Free Press.

Levinson, S. C. (2013). Action Formation and Ascription. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 103-130). Blackwell.

Nishizaka, A. (2021). Seeing and Knowing in Interaction: Two Distinct Resources for Action Construction. Discourse Studies, 23(6), 759-777.

Robinson, J. D. (2003). An Interactional Structure of Medical Activities During Acute Visits and Its Implications for Patients’ Participation. Health Communication, 15(1), 27-59.

Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis (Volume 1). Cambridge University Press.

Schegloff, E. A. & Sacks, H. (1973). Opening Up Closings. Semiotica, 8(4), 289-327.

Schütz, A. (1932). Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Julius Springer.

Additional References:

EMCA Wiki Bibliography items tagged with 'project'