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Discourse Studies
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Cognitive activities without cognition? ethnomethodological investigations of selected ‘cognitive’ topics

Michael Lynch

Cornell University, MEL27{at}cornell.edu

Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (ethno/CA) investigate many of the activities that are featured in the cognitive sciences. These include memory, learning, perception, and calculative activities. However, for ethno/CA such activities are not necessarily ‘cognitive’, and their investigation as activities does not necessarily require observation or speculation about what goes on within the mind or brain. This article briefly discusses three examples of nominal ‘cognitive’ activities: looking-for/seeing; failing to recall; and counting things and people. The discussion suggests how these examples can be understood and elucidated in a way that has little to do with any existing program in cognitive science. The modest aim of the article is not to persuade readers that ethno/CA can contribute to cognitive studies. Instead, I argue that ethno/CA offers a path not taken in cognitive science: a viable research program for investigating nominally ‘cognitive’ themes without trading in mentalistic notions of cognition.

Key Words: action • cognition • counting • ethnomethodology • forgetting • looking

Discourse Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1, 95-104 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1461445606059559
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