Aaron Cicourel's contributions to language use, theory, method, and measurement
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Philip Davies
After serving as Director of Research and Evaluation in the UK Cabinet Office, became a Senior Research Fellow with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in Washington. He is developing AIR's operations in the United Kingdom. He has studied the social organization of the psychiatric treatment of alcoholism, therapeutic practices in outpatient clinics for patients with alcohol problems, and evidence-based decision making in healthcare and education. He has also been a leading figure in the use of social science research to improve policy making and professional practice.
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Hugh Mehan
Is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Research on Educational Equity, Access, and Teaching Excellence (CREATE) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). His studies of the discourse of war and peace and equity in education have appeared in major journals and six books. Elected to the National Academy of Education in 1997, he was presented the George and Louise Spindler Award for outstanding contributions to anthropology and education by the American Anthropology Association in November 2006
Abstract
Aaron Cicourel's contributions to sociology and other disciplines are discussed. Cicourel brought to sociology the philosophical and linguistic principle that language plays an active role in creating and sustaining social interaction and social reality; Cicourel and his colleagues pioneered the use of videotape as an analytic tool, which enabled them to vividly illustrate the importance of organizational and interpersonal constraints on social interaction and communication. His empirical studies of healthcare and schooling uncovered linguistic and organizational practices that contribute to the assembly of steps on students' academic careers and patients' diagnoses, treatments, and healthcare outcomes. Cicourel's work provides a wealth of empirical evidence for the argument that there is a reflexive relationship between social structure and social action as displayed in language use.
About the authors
After serving as Director of Research and Evaluation in the UK Cabinet Office, became a Senior Research Fellow with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in Washington. He is developing AIR's operations in the United Kingdom. He has studied the social organization of the psychiatric treatment of alcoholism, therapeutic practices in outpatient clinics for patients with alcohol problems, and evidence-based decision making in healthcare and education. He has also been a leading figure in the use of social science research to improve policy making and professional practice.
Is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Research on Educational Equity, Access, and Teaching Excellence (CREATE) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). His studies of the discourse of war and peace and equity in education have appeared in major journals and six books. Elected to the National Academy of Education in 1997, he was presented the George and Louise Spindler Award for outstanding contributions to anthropology and education by the American Anthropology Association in November 2006
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial: The anatomy of interpretation: Coming to terms with the analyst's paradox in professional discourse studies
- Introduction: Aaron V. Cicourel and the emergence of critical perspectives on social scientific inquiry
- Aaron Cicourel's contributions to language use, theory, method, and measurement
- Discourses of collaborative medical work
- Distributed knowledge, distributed power: A sociolinguistics of structuration
- Discourses in European Union organizations: Aspects of access, participation, and exclusion
- The Gallup poll, democracy, and the vox populi: Ideologies of interviewing and the communicability of modern life
- Global markets as global conversations
- A personal, retrospective view of ecological validity
- Bibliography: Aaron V. Cicourel
- Index of articles in Volume 27 (2007)
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial: The anatomy of interpretation: Coming to terms with the analyst's paradox in professional discourse studies
- Introduction: Aaron V. Cicourel and the emergence of critical perspectives on social scientific inquiry
- Aaron Cicourel's contributions to language use, theory, method, and measurement
- Discourses of collaborative medical work
- Distributed knowledge, distributed power: A sociolinguistics of structuration
- Discourses in European Union organizations: Aspects of access, participation, and exclusion
- The Gallup poll, democracy, and the vox populi: Ideologies of interviewing and the communicability of modern life
- Global markets as global conversations
- A personal, retrospective view of ecological validity
- Bibliography: Aaron V. Cicourel
- Index of articles in Volume 27 (2007)
