Category partitioning as a practical method to daily task accomplishments

This talk will focus on a particular version of Harvey Sacks’ categorization analysis, which he termed “category partitioning” (Sacks 1995:I:590), i.e., a process of ‘triage’ where participants orient to a variety of actions and incumbencies that go beyond the simple notion of category sets or rules of application (which is part of Sacks’s MCD architecture). Therefore, the definition of category partitioning proposed here is more praxeologically oriented, as the focus is on activities not on categories (as a pre-established term). In this talk, I will describe how members in a variety of activities in different contexts rely on category partitioning to accomplish their daily tasks. We will be looking at how (i) players categorize themselves and their opponents in specific ways to solicit positive responses in online gameplay contexts; (ii) astronomy guides talk to groups of young and senior visitors in specific ways during sky observation events; (iii) diners orient to pre-turn positions to anticipate next moves of other diners and change trajectories if necessary when sharing a meal with chopsticks; and (iv) food delivery drivers offer/receive help to successfully take pre-ordered meals to their final destination. I will conclude this talk by discussing how category partitioning sensitizes us to the specificities of ‘activity contexts’, and why categorization and sequentiality should be seen as parts of the same operative Gestalt (Garfinkel, 2021; Gurwitsch, 1964).

• Garfinkel, H. (2021). Ethnomethodological misreading of Aron Gurwitsch on the phenomenal field, Human Studies 44(1): 19–42.
• Gurwitsch, A. (1964). The field of consciousness. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press
• Sacks, H. (1995). Lectures on Conversation [Volumes I and II], Jefferson G. (ed). Oxford: Blackwell.

Ricardo Moutinho is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Macau. He explores issues in the field of Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis focusing on the “Sequential and Categorial Analysis of Interaction”; “Gestalt Phenomenology and Coordinated Actions in Social Events”, “Human-Machine Interaction”, and “Learning Moments in Formal and Informal Educational Environments”. His papers have appeared in a variety of journals, such as ‘Science Education’; ‘Educational Philosophy and Theory’; ‘Computer Supported Cooperative Work’; ‘Journal of Pragmatics’ and ‘Learning, Culture and Social Interaction’.