Abstract
Drawing on drafts and other material from the Harvey Sacks archive this paper examines the development of one of the defining papers of Conversation Analysis, A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation (Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974). The discussion examines four drafts of the paper along with correspondence between the authors and with William Bright, the editor of the journal Language where it was to be published. The four drafts trace the development of the paper from a 13-page draft to the final 106-page final draft submitted to the journal. By exploring the drafts as they evolved the discussion highlights the development of the central ideas in the paper, the distinctive style of the paper as it is revised, the changes of authorship, and the role of the editor of Language, William Bright, in helping to shape the paper through his own detailed reviews.
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Notes
That the paper is often regarded as the founding paper of Conversation Analysis is discussed by Jefferson in correspondence between members of the Harvey Sacks Memorial Association and Schegloff around the late 1980’s. In a letter to Schegloff dated March 15th 1988, Jefferson acknowledges the tendency to equate this paper with ‘the field’ of CA, as foundational. She also relates how she is uncomfortable with the idea of her being seen as a ‘co-founder’ of CA based on her co-authorship of this paper because it was based on work that Sacks had already done. See footnote 6.
In their paper titled “In support of conversation analysis’ radical agenda’ Button and Sharrock (2016: 611) Button and Sharrock relate how Garfinkel described conversation analysis as the ‘jewel in the crown of ethnomethodology’.
This also meant that many of the earlier publications appeared in edited collections.
The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organisation of Repair in Conversation. Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks (1977) remain the 4th most cited paper.
It is important to note that the original ideas for the Simplest Systematics paper are contained in several of Sacks’ lectures from 1964, Spring 1966 and Fall 1967 which were circulated freely at the time, (correspondence contained in Box 6, Harvey Sacks Papers), as well as in a draft produced in 1970 as the manuscript Aspects of the Sequential Organization of Conversation (Box 19, Harvey Sacks Papers). Also, in Box 18, there is a very detailed 17-page outline of a chapter designated ‘Chapter One’ on storytelling which was to be 72 pages long (Box 18, Harvey Sacks Papers). While indicating this was to be part of a larger project or book it is not clear from this document which project or book this was to be.
Despite the archives relating to Sacks, there is a large amount of material that is not his work such as books, theses, reports as well as writing and collaborative discussions and transcriptions where it is not clear the speaker or speakers. To reflect this, and in consultation with UCLA archivists, the documents are referred to as from the ‘Harvey Sacks Papers’ rather than attribute authorship except where this is clear. Also, the date reference is the date of accessing the archives as the files in the boxes are loose and so can be moved and reordered. If the archive is subsequently catalogued by the library more boxes may be added to spread out the files across boxes.
The establishment of the archive was not without controversy, not only in relation to the time spent between Sacks’ death in establishing an archive but also its location and rules of access. The perceived delay by Schegloff in establishing the archive resulted in the formation of the Harvey Sacks Memorial Association in the late 1980s’ by David Sudnow and others, including Gail Jefferson.
With thanks to Terry Au-Yeung, Wu Xiaoping and Rachel Chen for their work in helping produce a partial catalogue of the Harvey Sacks Papers.
This is the draft published in Lerner 2004 (Sacks 2004) under the same title but with the original pencilled edits on the draft incorporated into this published version. The published chapter also has Sacks as the sole author but in the footnotes (pp. 10, n. 8) mentions that the draft originally included Jefferson as co-author.
In a letter addressed to Schegloff, also shared between members of the Harvey Sacks Memorial Association, Jefferson writes that she actually had nothing to do with this draft and that Sacks put her name on it due to having some overlapping ideas.
Prior to the mid-1970s external peer review was not a common practice and that it was the decision of the editor or associate editors whether a paper would be published (see also Bright’s comment in the letter dated 17th December 1973 discussed below). It was only during the 1970s that external peer review became common practice and so this may have changed after Bright’s editorship.
It is not clear from the materials examined why Schegloff was chosen as the corresponding author, but this may have been because Bright and Schegloff were both at ULCA and would likely have known each other in some capacity. Indeed, in the letters Schegloff is addressed as ‘Manny’, along with ‘Harvey’ and ‘Hal’ and in the letter dated 6th May 1974 to Schegloff Bright writes, “I now have some queries… which are in some cases complicated enough that I would rather handle then in writing,” suggesting they also met and talked about the paper.
Presumably, this refers to Schegloff’s 1968 paper ‘Sequencing in Conversational Openings’.
The difficulty in Sacks ‘style’ referred to by Bright may well be that it was difficult to read because ‘as a linguist’ (Bright to Schegloff, 6th, May 1974) he considered a number of the sentences ungrammatical, that some of the words did not make sense, were even ‘grating’, such as ‘situatednesses’ (point 6), and that some of the writing was akin to ‘German syntax, not English’ (points 29, 42). This ‘style’ would seem to be attributed to Sacks rather than the other authors.
As mentioned above, Jefferson, in a letter to Schegloff and shared with the Harvey Sacks Memorial Association, relates how Sacks had persuaded her to accept the change in authorship and suggested she use her unmarried name, Ziferstein, to make the change appear as alphabetical.
While it is not clear which of the authors has written which annotations besides the comments it might be reasonable to posit that the annotations here were made by Schegloff who would have received the letter and so possibly gone about making the first round of revisions and editing comments before sending the annotated letter to Sacks as this letter was from the Sacks’ archive.
The ‘e’ appears upside down in the letter and schwa [e] refers to the phonetic alphabet for unstressed syllables.
In correspondence contained in the archive, Sacks writes about getting ‘swiftly rejected’ from the British Journal of Sociology (Harvey Sacks Papers, 2017, Box 6).
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Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their extensive comments and suggestions, but more so for their engagement with the spirit of the paper which has benefited significantly from their contribution. It is also fitting to thank the editor, Martin Endress, for his support in publishing the paper. Finally, I would like to thank the archivists at the Charles E. Young Research Library UCLA for their generous assistance during research visits.
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Fitzgerald, R. Drafting A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation. Hum Stud (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-023-09700-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-023-09700-7