Anita Pomerantz is one of the pioneers of Conversation Analysis (CA), a field that has grown from a small and marginalized subfield into a significant, international, multidisciplinary field of inquiry. CA now enjoys widespread acceptance and appreciation, thanks in large part to Pomerantz's contributions. Asking and Telling in Conversation collects Pomerantz's most influential articles across the span of her career, focusing on the complexities of asking and telling something to another person. The actions of asking and telling may seem straightforward, but speakers deal with a number of complexities when they ask and tell. Pomerantz's work focuses on the ways in which the performances of asking and telling are shaped by, and shape, the identities of the participants, the activities in which they are engaged, what was said and done prior to the actions in question, and the anticipated reactions to their talk and action. Each of the volume's nine chapters is framed by original pieces by Pomerantz which discuss the significance and contribution of the article to current studies in CA. In addition to the new introductions and closing commentary for each work, this book includes full introductory and concluding chapters that draw out the connections across the author's work. Pomerantz also shares her reflections on preference organization, which she first analyzed in her foundational research nearly fifty years ago. Bringing together seminal works of CA with contemporary analysis in the field, this book sheds new light on important questions-and answers-in communication studies. A collection of work from a foremost scholar, Asking and Telling in Conversation is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of Conversation Analysis.

Few conversational topics can be as significant as our troubles in life, whether everyday and commonplace, or more exceptional and disturbing. In groundbreaking research conducted with John Lee at the University of Manchester UK, Gail Jefferson turned the microscope on how people talk about their troubles, not in any professional or therapeutic setting, but in their ordinary conversations with family and friends. Through recordings of interactions in which people talk about problems they're having with their children, concerns about their health, financial problems, marital and relationship difficulties (their own or other people's), examination failures, dramatic events such as burglaries or a house fire and other such troubles, Jefferson explores the interactional dynamics and complexities of introducing such topics, of how speakers sustain and elaborate their descriptions and accounts of their troubles, how participants align and affiliate with one another, and finally manage to move away from such topics. The studies Jefferson published out of that remarkable period of research have been collected together in this volume. They are as insightful and informative about how we talk about our troubles, as they are innovative in the development and application of Conversation Analysis. Gail Jefferson (1938-2008) was one of the co-founders of Conversation Analysis (CA); through her early collaboration with Harvey Sacks and in her subsequent research, she laid the foundations for what has become an immensely important interdisciplinary paradigm. She co-authored, with Harvey Sacks and Emanuel Schegloff, two of the most highly cited articles ever published in Language, on turn-taking and repair. These papers were foundational, as was the transcription system that she developed and that is used by conversation analysts world-wide. Her research papers were a distinctive and original voice in the emerging micro-analysis of interaction in everyday life.