ABSTRACT
Conversation Analysis can be understood to be primarily interested in sequences in talk. However, the early work of Harvey Sacks also displayed a concern with categories, talk and interaction. Levinson (1994) notes how members' talk can be understood as an interactional management system within which categories in talk are sequentially managed through turn taking, extended sequences recipient design and so forth. Levinson also notes how the analysis of talk-in-interaction is understood both in terms of the paradigmatic (categorial) and syntagmatic (sequential) dimensions of conversation. However, I do not wish to pursue Levinson's observation at this stage per se. Rather I wish to explore the approach of Membership Categorisation Analysis (as it relates to analysing knowledge-in-interaction), recent developments within this methodological approach and outline the concern with both sequence and category that will inform my analysis of knowledge and knowledgeability in multidisciplinary team meetings. It is my assumption that the interactional dimensions of knowledge in terms of talk-in-interaction within 'meetings' demands a concern with categories (Atkinson, Cuff and Lee 1978), turn taking (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974), topic organisation (Sacks 1992a,b, Coulthard 1977) and the sequential downgrading and upgrading of utterances in members' praise recognition work (Pomerantz 1978).
