The relevance of interactions in functionally differentiated society: the contribution of conversation analysis to the theory of social systems

While social systems create and enhance cultural presuppositions and expectations which are reflected in interactions, interaction can, in its turn, affect cultural presuppositions by promoting contributions which can sometimes redefine what is expected. Conversation analysis has elaborated a method to study interaction which seems to be particularly interesting in complementing a theory of society and in explaining reciprocal influences between interaction and social systems. Our paper explores connections between the Social System Theory and Conversation Analysis. Our thesis is that the integration of SST and CA can help in explaining the interrelatedness between different types of social systems. In our contribution, we analyse complementary aspects of SST and CA in explaining interaction as a social system and we focus on ways in which the structures of interaction are embedded in functional subsystems of society. We suggest that the possibility of interaction to introduce novel contributions by participants makes it possible for interaction to produce social changes.