Using Conversation Analysis in the Lab

In this introduction to the special issue of Research on Language and Social Interaction on “Experimental and Laboratory Approaches to Conversation Analysis,” I make the case that while naturalistic observation should take precedence over other methods, Conversation Analysis as a field should embrace a methodological pluralism that includes not only quantification but also experimentation and laboratory observation. Before I introduce the contributions to the special issue, I discuss the prohibition against such meth- ods in the field, situate naturalistic and laboratory research on a methodologi- cal continuum, and develop a series of arguments in favor of experimental and laboratory studies of interaction.