John Heritage

Who is John Heritage?

John Heritage is Professor of Sociology at University of California at Los Angeles. He is one of the key figures in the approach known as conversation analysis.

He came to prominence in 1984 with the publication of his book on Ethnomethodology, the sociological tradition pioneered by Harold Garfinkel. This book overviewed, integrated and introduced the highly technical field of ethnomethodology to a broader audience. It has now received more than 2,000 citations. Soon after the publication of this book he was appointed to the chair in UCLA where Garfinkel had worked before his retirement. At UCLA he joined Emanuel Schegloff, one of the founders of conversation analysis.

In that same year he co-edited one of the definitive collections of conversation analytic studies - many of which have gone on to become classics in their own right. His own contribution to that book analysed the use of the particle 'oh' in conversation. This showed how 'oh' performed important conversational functions in displaying the speaker's change of state, from not knowing to knowing something.