Conversation analysis: An ELI5 overview

Conversation analysis (CA) is an important tool for the understanding of interactional competence as well as the discursive nature of verbal interactions especially in contexts where power is negotiated. In spite of its potentials, CA has not received due attention in studies of discourse in Iran partly due to (a) its intricacies, (b) the complexity of its symbols, and (c) the precision with which conversation analysts have to perform the transcription of corpora. This paper revisits CA and aims to present a short ELI5 description of it especially for bachelor's students who aspire to continue their studies in areas of pragmatics and discourse analysis. After a review of some of the important research studies that have employed CA as their main drive, this paper revisits the system of symbols that EFL learners need to master to be able to conduct CA.