Catalog Search
 
Advanced Search

My shopping cart cart icon
Your cart is empty
My wish list wishlist icon
Your wish list is empty



Last update:
9 February 2010

© John Benjamins
Home

Blurb Table of contents Quotes Subjects

Telephone Calls

Unity and diversity in conversational structure across languages and cultures

Cover image
Edited by K. K. Luke and Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou
University of Hong Kong / Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 101

2002. x, 295 pp.
Publishing status: Available

Hardbound – In stock
978 90 272 5341 5 / EUR 115.00
978 1 58811 219 4 / USD 173.00
Add to shopping cart

e-Book – Available from e-book platforms
978 90 272 9622 1 / EUR 115.00 / USD 173.00
Ordering information

Add to wish list

Telephone conversation is one of the most common forms of communication in contemporary society. For the first time in human history, some people are spending as much time, if not more, talking on the telephone as they are on face-to-face conversations. The aims of this book are: to bring together in one volume research on telephone conversations in different languages, to compare and contrast people’s methods of handling telephone conversational tasks in different communities, and to explore the relationship between telephone conversational practice and cultural settings. The papers are based on first-hand, naturally-occurring data obtained from a variety of languages, including Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, and Persian. Theoretical and methodological issues pertaining to research on telephone conversations are discussed.

Table of contents

Notes on the contributors
vii
Acknowledgments
ix
Introduction
Studying telephone calls: Beginnings,developments,and perspectives
K. K. Luke and Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou
3–21
Part I. Opening telephone calls
Recognition and identification in Japanese and Korean telephone conversation openings
Yong-Yae Park
25–47
On the telephone again! Telephone conversation openings in Greek
Maria Sifianou
49–85
Telephone conversation openings in Persian
Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm
87–109
Language choice in international telephone conversations
Gitte Rasmussen and Johannes Wagner
111–131
Part II. Problem solving, topic management and closing
Reporting problems and offering assistance in Japanese business telephone conversations
Lindsay Amthor Yotsukura
135–170
The initiation and introduction of first topics in Hong Kong telephone calls
K. K. Luke
171–200
Moving towards closing: Greek telephone calls between familiars
Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou
201–229
Part III. Theoretical and methodological considerations
Comparing telephone call openings: Theoretical and methodological reflections
Paul Ten Have
234–248
Reflections on research on telephone conversation: Issues of cross-cultural scope and scholarly exchange, interactional import and consequences
Emanuel A. Schegloff
249–281
Subject index
283–287
Name index
289–290

“[...] this is a first-class volume, representing an important contribution to the study of language in use, and to the contrastive study of telephone calls in particular. The editors should be credited for a very well edited volume not only on the level of style and format, but also of content, the overall coherence achieved by a commendable focus and extensive cross-referencing between papers. All contributions are well-written and comparatively easy to read, making the volume accessible to a wide range of audiences.”
Anne Barron, University of Bonn, Germany, on Linguist List 14.1666, June 2003

“The volume, which represents the state of the art in research in telephone interaction, adds a significant contribution to this line of inquiry and is of great value to those interested in language in action.”
Bingyun Li, Fujian Normal University, China, in Language, Vol 80:3 (2004)

Subject classification

Linguistics
Discourse studies
Pragmatics