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Last update:
9 February 2010

© John Benjamins
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Conversation Analysis

Studies from the first generation

Edited by Gene H. Lerner
University of California, Santa Barbara

2004. x, 302 pp.
Publishing status: Available

HardboundIn stock
978 90 272 5367 5 / EUR 115.00
978 1 58811 538 6 / USD 173.00
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PaperbackIn stock
978 90 272 5368 2 / EUR 55.00
978 1 58811 539 3 / USD 83.00

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e-BookAvailable from e-book platforms
978 90 272 9528 6 / EUR 115.00 / USD 173.00
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This collection assembles early, yet previously unpublished research into the practices that organize conversational interaction by many of the central figures in the development and advancement of Conversation Analysis as a discipline. Using the methods of sequential analysis as first developed by Harvey Sacks, the authors produce detailed empirical accounts of talk in interaction that make fundamental contributions to our understanding of turntaking, action formation and sequence organization. One distinguishing feature of this collection is that each of the contributors worked directly with Sacks as a collaborator or was trained by him at the University of California or both. Taken together this collection gives readers a taste of CA inquiry in its early years, while nevertheless presenting research of contemporary significance by internationally known conversation analysts.


Table of contents

Introductory remarks
Gene H. Lerner
1–11
Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction
Gail Jefferson
13–31
Part I: Taking turns speaking
An initial characterization of the organization of speaker turn-taking in conversation
Harvey Sacks
35–42
A sketch of some orderly aspects of overlap in natural conversation
Gail Jefferson
43–59
Part II: Implementing actions
Answering the phone
Emanuel A. Schegloff
63–107
Investigating reported absences: 'Neutrally' catching the truants
Anita Pomerantz
109–129
“At first I thought”: A normalizing device for extraordinary events
Gail Jefferson
131–167
Part III: Sequencing actions
Pre-announcement sequences in conversation
Alene Kiku Terasaki
171–223
Collaborative turn sequences
Gene H. Lerner
225–256
The amplitude shift mechanism in conversational closing sequences
Jo Ann Goldberg
257–297
Index
299–300


This is a long-awaited book with previously unpublished CA manuscripts, each of which is destined to be a classic contribution to the field. For conversation analysts and more broadly anyone who is interested in the organization of talk and social interaction, this is a must-have book, a set of intriguing, compelling, and utterly useful investigations.
Douglas W. Maynard, University of Wisconsin

The papers in this collection were being passed around among those of us who wanted to learn more about Conversation Analysis in the early days, and they played a seminal part in the development of the field. Somehow or other they never were published — so they've continued to be passed around, and I still use the original mimeo copies of all these papers in the course I teach. I'm pleased to have them in published form at last, and to be able to recommend this book, to students and interested researchers alike, as essential reading.
Paul Drew, Professor of Sociology, University of York, UK

This outstanding collection contains a number of papers which long ago achieved the status of 'mimeo classics.' They are just as important today as when they were written. This book tells us just how strong the 'first generation' of conversation analysts was and is. As a contribution to conversation analysis, it is inspiring, revelatory and indispensable.
John Heritage, UCLA

This volume is a long-awaited treasure, gathering together for the first time a core group of unpublished papers which played a pioneering role in the early years in establishing Conversation Analysis as a distinct discipline. With their exuberant insistence on close analysis of masses of data from talk-in-interaction, these papers not only reveal the radical theoretical and methodological innovations which shaped and defined this new discipline, but they also provide 'case studies' of remarkable contemporary relevance in their own right.
Sandra A. Thompson, Dept. of Linguistics, UC Santa Barbara, USA

[...] This volume presents a unique collection of early influential studies in conversation analysis by leading scholars in the field. [...] The book is highly recommended to conversation analysts as well as to other scholars interested in the empirical investigation of language in interaction. The volume is not only a reference source for important works in the field, but also an inspiration for much further research.
Galina Bolden, University of California, Los Angeles, on Linguist List Vol.16-1007 (2005)

This volume is an outstanding contribution to converstaion analysis. The importance of the book is not merely historical. [...] These studies remain just as relevant and significant as they were when they were written.Of course the history is here - and it is fascinating - but the book is much more than a collection of 'golden oldies'. These studies are no less contemporary for being 30 years old.
Jack Sidnell, University of Toronto, in Language in Society, Vol. 35, 2006

This book is long-awaited collection of studies into the organization of talk in interaction. [...] this volume presents a unique collection of early influental studies in conversation analysis by leading scholars in the field. The editor's introduction clearly summarizes the chapters and explicates their relevance to researchers interested in social interaction. It also contains interesting personal commentary that conveys the pioneering spirit of the late 1960s and early 1970s, during which this line of research started to develop. Other features of the collection - the comprehensive glossary of the transcript symbols and the subject index - contribute to its value to students and researchers interested in conversation analysis and language use more generally. [...] the book is highly recommended to conversation analysts as well as to other scholars interested in the empirical investigation of language in interaction. The volume is not only a reference source for important works in the fiels, but also an inspiration for much further research.
Galina B. Bolden, Rutgers University, USA, in Discourse & Society, Vol. 17:5