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largely anecdotal evidence from which the research questions for this study
have emerged. Further, I feel that any omission of my own 'extra-thesis'
observations would be a waste of good data, and possibly unethical.
These additional perspectives - at least as peripheral methods - will add
to the overall picture that will emerge in later chapters, providing contextual
information (alongside conversational through the continuous recording
procedure, both situational through my own personal knowledge of the setting,
its participants, and relations between them, and cultural through consultation
with my wife). This is in line with what is commonly termed 'Ethnography of
communication' (see Hymes 1974), and has successfully been employed in
previous seminal cross-cultural work (e. g. Moerman 1988)9.
4.3 Management and Initial Analysis of Conversational Data
After recording, an initial note was made as to when and where the recording
took place, the nature of the gathering (e. g. domestic birthday gathering,
informal meal, general 'get-together), who was present, any missing data (e. g.
if the tape / mike was accidentally turned off for any period), and any other
observational notes or contextual information not manifest in the talk itself. Each
tape was given a code (Gl; G2 etc. for German tapes and El; E2 etc. for
English tapes). Labels were attached to all tapes and the plastic 'record' tabs
removed.
The initial analysis of the conversational data involved several stages.
The first of these was essentially a combination of 'close listening' and 'ear
auditing'. As soon as possible after each recording, I played back each cassette
in full. As well as giving me an idea of what I had actually recorded, this initial
listening allowed me to 'audit' each tape by identifying episodes of focused
conversational interaction and of those, episodes that were a) of some length,
b) audible, and c) clear enough to allow later transcription. Essentially I was
looking for episodes where I heard some theme or topic to be collectively taken
up and developed by the group; something that I assumed could have been
referred to after the interaction as 'having been talked about'. Using the tape
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