'Rescuing motives' rescued: a reply to Sharrock and Watson.

Ethnomethodologists and conversation analysts have based their claim to a status superior to that of conventional sociology on their supposed ability to avoid the problems of attributing motives to actors by concentrating on the 'scenic properties' of social action. In all earlier paper we argued that a close inspection of the practice of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis revealed considerable motive attribution. Two ethnomethodologists have criticised our argument. In this: rejoinder we demonstrate that our critics have conceded our main point. Ethnomethodologists may have a particular research focus but their methods are similar to those of conventional sociologists in the matter of imputing motives to social actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]