Stuff You Should Know – “You’re So Good At Conversation!”
Podcast by iHeartPodcasts
Hosts: Josh & Chuck
Airdate: September 11, 2025
Episode Overview
In this engaging episode, Josh and Chuck dig into the fascinating world of conversation analysis—the study of how ordinary talk works, from turn-taking in dialogue to why we so rarely say what we actually mean. They trace the roots of this social science, break down its key terms (like "turn construction units" and "repair mechanisms"), and share surprising findings about what governs our conversations. The episode is peppered with the hosts’ trademark humor and personal takes, making a deeply academic topic accessible, relatable, and even laugh-out-loud funny.
Key Topics & Insights
1. Opening Banter and Approach to Conversation Analysis
[01:19–05:18]
- The hosts start with a playful meta-demonstration, intentionally “messing up” the flow of conversation to highlight what conversation analysis studies.
- Josh admits: “I step on you a lot.”
- Both hosts discuss their personal relationship to self-awareness in conversations—Josh overthinks every exchange, Chuck prefers to “not think about it at all.”
- Josh: “That's almost a hundred percent of what goes on in my mind when I'm talking or when someone else is talking. I can't help but do that.” [04:49]
2. The Birth of Conversation Analysis
[05:18–09:58]
- Roots: Emerged at UCLA in the 1970s, heavily influenced by sociology, ethnomethodology (how people make sense of the world together), and sociolinguistics.
- Key Figures:
- Harvey Sacks—“the grandpappy” of conversation analysis, whose lectures still influence the field.
- Gail Jefferson—noted for her system for transcribing conversations and studies on laughter.
- Emanuel Schegloff—took over after Sacks, contributing major work on phone call analysis and turn-taking.
- Josh: “People like to try to push it into a typical social science ... and conversation analysis says, no, we’re not going to do that. Instead, we are purely about observation, noticing patterns...” [02:21]
3. Turn-Taking and Transcription (Including Jefferson System)
[09:58–12:54]
- Early work involved phone calls: how do people know when to talk when they can't see visual cues?
- The Jefferson Transcription System records not just words, but pauses, interruptions, laughter, etc., to fully capture the rhythm of conversation.
4. Patterns and Scripts: How Conversation “Works”
[12:54–16:42]
- Patterns: Sacks identified “composites” (e.g., “May I help you?” always prompts certain responses).
- Adjacent Pairs: Greetings (“How are you?” — “Fine”) and the universal “lie” of saying you’re okay.
- Josh: “Everybody has to lie... Everybody essentially does not want to know how you’re actually doing.” [14:57]
- True intimacy is when you can honestly answer how you’re doing.
5. The Evolution of Conversation Analysis: From Phone Calls to Video
[16:17–18:05]
- Technological advancements (VCRs) allowed analysts to finally see gestures, posture, and non-verbal cues—not just hear voices.
6. Core Components of Conversation
[22:34–35:19]
- Turn Constructional Unit (TCU): The building blocks of talk—might be a word, phrase, gesture, or full sentence.
- Transition Relevance Place (TRP): Points where it is possible for another to take a turn, i.e., natural pauses.
- Repair Mechanisms: How we correct ourselves or each other in real-time.
- Gaps: Those “awkward silences” (conversation gaps).
- Adjacency Pairs: Set structures, e.g., offers and acceptances: “Would you like cake?” / “Thank you.”
- Discourse Markers: “Oh” or “because,” which organize talk.
- Laminated Actions: Actions and speech together (like rolling eyes to change the meaning).
- Overlap and Interruption:
- Overlap = two people talking at once unintentionally.
- Interruption = taking over deliberately (which could be “cooperative” or “competitive”).
- Josh: “We’re really good at conversation. We don’t even realize it.” [09:58]
7. Cultural and Group Differences
[37:17–39:23]
- Deborah Tannen's research: Shows how conversational “rules” differ by region and culture. New Yorkers overlap enthusiastically with each other but can overwhelm speakers from elsewhere.
- Japanese, Samoan, and Italian-American cultures show similar patterns.
- Josh: “Whereas American English speakers, you are done speaking, then the person starts speaking, or else you have transgressed on that person's turn, for sure.” [39:20]
8. Conversation "Families": Types of Dialogue
[42:29–43:49]
- Reconstruction: Remembering past events.
- Projection: Talking about the future.
- Moralizing: Communicating approval/disapproval—“We tend way more toward negativity, tearing people down rather than building people up.” [43:15]
9. Real-World Implications & Applications
[43:49–46:53]
- Conversation analysis is used in corporate consulting, medical settings, customer service, and even training chatbots.
- Subtle language changes (e.g., “anything else?” vs. “something else?”) can dramatically impact the responses you receive.
- Josh: “One of the sterling examples of how conversation analysts help things change for the better.” [45:22]
- Should bots act more human? Current consensus: no, they should be clearly bots.
10. Gender, Generational, and Social Trends
[47:26–52:25]
- Gender: Men may interrupt (especially competitively) more often, particularly in groups. Women’s interruptions are typically cooperative.
- Chuck: “When men are interrupting, it is definitely more intrusive, maybe mansplainy... and women interrupt maybe just as often, but it's much more of the cooperative type.” [48:23]
- Generation Z: Changing scripts—unbothered by silences, the “Gen Z stare” at the end of a story, and new phone etiquette (answering without “hello”).
- Chuck: “Apparently there's a Gen Z thing where they just answer the phone like this...” (stares silently) [51:11]
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
- Josh: “Our entire human civilization is based on the fact that we're able to converse pretty much effortlessly, even though in a lot of times it just does not make sense.” [03:14]
- Chuck: “The last thing I want to think about is, did I say that right, did I interrupt somebody, did I act interested enough?” [04:17]
- Josh: “Harvey Sacks... the grandpappy of conversation analysis... He figured it out. He laid this down.” [06:28]
- Chuck: “If someone says, ‘may I help you?,’ what they're then obviously is asking you for a response to let you know what's going on... it needed to be taken at face value like that.” [13:35]
- Josh: “One of the unsung parts of human interaction and conversation is that we have to have ways of correcting and adjusting misunderstandings.” [27:19]
- Chuck: “That’s just you taking another turn, basically, and having two turn constructional units in a row.” [24:44]
- Josh: “If you find somebody who actually does want to know how you're doing, you hang on to that person.” [16:02]
- Josh: “We're also so good at this whole thing that we can interrupt while someone's telling a story without taking away from the story.” [35:53]
- Chuck: “Should we take a break?” (Repeated “meta” joke about conversation’s structural habits.) [16:42], [39:23], [33:44]
Useful Timestamps
- [01:22] — Introduction to topic, hosts demonstrate conversational stumbles
- [05:30] — Roots in ethnomethodology & sociolinguistics
- [06:28] — Harvey Sacks, Gail Jefferson, Emanuel Schegloff overview
- [09:58] — The “genius” of studying phone calls & transcription methods
- [13:35] — "Composites", adjacency pairs, and how expected responses work
- [16:42] — VCRs transform the field by allowing non-verbal analysis
- [22:34–33:08] — Core definitions: TCUs, TRPs, Repair, Gaps, Adjacency Pairs, Discourse Markers, Laminated Actions
- [37:17] — Deborah Tannen’s crossover cultural analysis
- [42:29] — Three big “families” of conversation
- [43:49] — Real-world applications (call centers, doctors, bots)
- [47:26] — Gender differences and interruption research
- [50:02] — Generational differences—Gen Z changes the rules
Tone & Style
Engaging, humorous, and conversational (naturally!). Full of friendly jabs, relatable anecdotes, and pop culture references—Chuck and Josh keep things light, but thoughtfully unpack the fascinating mechanics that make everyday communication possible.
For New Listeners
This episode offers a deep but accessible dive into how conversations actually function, why we’re better at it than we think, and what happens when we break the “unwritten rules.” You’ll leave with a new appreciation for the invisible choreography of our daily talk—and probably catch yourself analyzing your own conversations, even if, as Chuck says, “the last thing I want to think about is how I’m conversing with somebody.”