Interpretive Conversation Analysis

Interpretive conversation analysis (ICA) examines how meaning is co-constructed turn by turn in talk, combining the micro-sequential rigour of classic conversation analysis with an explicitly interpretive stance. Rather than treating sequential organisation as the sole analytic object, ICA asks what participants are doing socially and discursively through their turns — what identities, institutional agendas, and power relations are built and contested in interaction. It draws on naturally occurring or recorded talk from social, institutional, or interview settings.