Elizabeth Stokoe: The art of conversation analysis

From Saturday Morning, 8:35 am on 19 June 2021

Nineties sitcom Friends has had far-reaching cultural impact over the decades, finding itself at the centre of rolling fashion trends and loads of scholarly analysis. But Elizabeth Stokoe found the popular television series intriguing for the way it subverted everyday conversation for the sake of comedy.

Stokoe, who is a professor of Social Interaction at Loughborough University, was inspired by the show to research “interactional breaches” in conversation to get laughs. Her ongoing work also involves the collection of conversations “in the wild”, like that of people on first dates or being questioned by police.

More recently Stokoe has been looking at how the Covid-19 pandemic might be affecting the art of conversation - especially as we increasingly communicate via digital means.

Elizabeth Stokoe

Elizabeth Stokoe Photo: Supplied