• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
SRI logo
  • About
    • Press room
    • Our history
  • Expertise
    • Advanced imaging systems
    • Artificial intelligence
    • Biomedical R&D services
    • Biomedical sciences
    • Computer vision
    • Cyber & formal methods
    • Education and learning
    • Innovation strategy and policy
    • National security
    • Ocean & space
    • Quantum
    • Robotics, sensors & devices
    • Speech & natural language
    • Video test & measurement
  • Ventures
  • NSIC
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • 日本支社
Search
Close
Speech & natural language publications August 1, 1980

Interpreting Discourse: Coherence and the Analysis of Ethnographic Interviews

Citation

Copy to clipboard


Agar, M., & Hobbs, J. R. (1982). Interpreting discourse: Coherence and the analysis of ethnographic interviews. Discourse processes, 5(1), 1-32.

Abstract

The data we analyze is from a series of life history interviews with a career heroin addict in New York, collected by Agar (1981). We analyze this data in terms of a combination of two AI approaches to discourse. The first is work on the inferencing that must take place in people’s comprehension and production of natural language discourse. The second approach to discourse applies work on planning to the planning of individual speech acts and to the plans speakers develop for effecting their goals in larger stretches of conversation. In this paper we first outline how we apply these approaches to the ethnographic data. We discuss three kinds of coherence in terms of which we analyze a text, and then describe our method more generally. We next give an example of the method of microanalysis on a short fragment of an interview, and then show how the beliefs, goals and concerns that the microanalysis has revealed are tied in with the rest of the corpus. Finally, we discuss the significance of this work for ethnography.

↓ Download

Share this
Career call to action image

Work with us

Search jobs

How can we help?

Once you hit send…

We’ll match your inquiry to the person who can best help you.

Expect a response within 48 hours.

Our work

Case studies

Publications

Timeline of innovation

Areas of expertise

Institute

Leadership

Press room

Media inquiries

Compliance

Careers

Job listings

Contact

SRI Ventures

Our locations

Headquarters

333 Ravenswood Ave
Menlo Park, CA 94025 USA

+1 (650) 859-2000

Subscribe to our newsletter


日本支社
SRI International
  • Contact us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookies
  • DMCA
  • Copyright © 2023 SRI International
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}