Die phänomenologischen Wurzeln der Gesprächsanalyse und das Politische bei Hannah Arendt: Ein Kombinationsvorschlag zur Analyse sprachlicher Interaktionen

Abstract

Abstract Hannah Arendt's political theory remains influential in both the Humanities and the Social Sciences, including in sociology, educational sciences and political education. Arendt's works are utilized in different ways in these contexts. Within sociolinguistics and conversational linguistics, however, this does not seem to be the case. The present article aims to overcome this shortcoming by exploring opportunities for analytically integrating Arendt's understanding of the political and the conversation analysis point of view. Combining these two perspectives results in the added value of expanding the interpretive framework to include Arendt's dimensions of subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and access to the world. In line with this goal, the respective phenomenological influences of both approaches, Arendt’s political theory and the phenomenological precursors of conversation analysis, are considered separately. After providing an overview of the phenomenological roots for socio- and conversation analysis (Edmund Husserl, Alfred Schütz, Harold Garfinkel), Arendt's concept of the political is discussed. Subsequently, the analytical nexus of the approaches are elaborated on in the form of three theses. It is argued that Arendt developed an innovative phenomenological concept of plurality which has the potential of forming the basis for an interpretive tool for the analysis of oral interaction (in line with Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology).