involves looking at the "way" an instance of apparent communication demonstrates the social strategies that may be at work on or the social processes that may influence what is said or what is meant. What this comes down to is that meaning in communication is "accomplished" by means of interaction strategies, which include but are not necessarily limited to, spoken conversation, and which involve the social context in which conversation or other communication takes place.
Goodwin explores "the power of coding schemes to control perception" (1994, p. 616), making the case that the vocabulary and practices of a given professional discipline can have the effect--indeed, must have the effect, in some cases--of affecting the manner in which phenomena can be understood or interpreted. If one considers that an expert communication analyst's vocabulary and practices constitutes a method of creating a context in which communication can be accomplished, then there appears to be a significant resonance between the work of Goodwin and the work of Sacks. Indeed, this is what Goodwin seems to be showing, with one example from the context of archeological pedagogy and the other example from the context of expert-witness testimony in a highly publicized trial in California (the Rodney King case, in which Los Angeles city policemen were tried but also acquitted for beating King, a private citizen).
Goodwin explains that the function of understanding or interpreting is a social function and not an entirely intellectual or psychological function. The social basis from which interpretation takes p
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