Identity

Question 1

What is the “Membership Categorization Device”? (MCD)

Callen (1990:177)

Answer 1

Explains that membership is a socially categorized activity. We all fit in a category. E.g. student, mother, parent etc

Question 2

What are Sacks’s “category labels”?

Answer 2

“the X cried. The Y picked it up” (1992). Social knowledge indicates the labels are a baby and its mother.

catholic transcript (religion = catholic, death = executed, murdered, shot, description = innocent, student, 17 years old

Question 3

What are “category bound activities”?

Answer 3

‘crying’ would not be seen as strange if it was a ‘baby’ but there is great oddity and newsworthiness in a footballer crying

Activities may be heard as “tied” to different categories. “hijack ordeal” is not heard as tied to “mother”-“daughter” category

Question 4

What is the economy rule? in MCD

Answer 4

A single category may be sufficient. E.g. family

Question 5

What is the consistency rule? in MCD

Answer 5

If one person is identified from a collection, then a next person may be identified from the same collection. “Daughter” is from same MCD as “Mother”

Question 6

What is the difference between Exogenous and Endogenous categories?

Answer 6

Exogenous categories = external factors such as gender, age, social class, region

Endogenous categories = what CA uses (internal categories)

Question 7

What are stereotypes?

Answer 7

Sacks (1992:46) - various activities and likes point to certain categories (Public knowledge)