In this volume, the author develops and warrants prosodic categories and analyses within the framework of an 'interactional phonology of conversation'. Major chapters deal with the role of prosody in the constitution of turn-constructional units and turns, the signalling of conversational questions, and the design of story-telling and arguing in conversational interaction. The author shows that and how participants make use of prosodic categories as constitutive cues in the construction and interpretation of verbal activities in natural discourse.

The first textbook dedicated to interactional linguistics, focusing on linguistic analyses of conversational phenomena, this introduction provides an overview of the theory and methodology of interactional linguistics. Reviewing recent findings on linguistic practices used in turn construction and turn taking, repair, action formation, ascription, and sequence and topic organization, the book examines the way that linguistic units of varying size - sentences, clauses, phrases, clause combinations, and particles - are mobilized for the implementation of specific actions in talk-in-interaction. A final chapter discusses the implications of an interactional perspective for our understanding of language as well as its variation, diversity, and universality. Supplementary online chapters explore additional topics such as the linguistic organization of preference, stance, footing, and storytelling, as well as the use of prosody and phonetics, and further practices with language. Featuring summary boxes and transcripts from recordings of everyday conversation, this is an essential resource for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses on language in social interaction.

The essays in this volume are all original contributions dealing in one way or another with the analysis of prosody - primarily intonation and rhythm - and the role it plays in everyday conversation. They take as their methodological starting point the contention that the study of prosody must begin with genuine interactional rather than pre fabricated laboratory data. Through close empirical analysis of recorded material from genuine English, German, and Italian conversations, the prosody emerges here as a strategy deployed by interactants in the management of turn-taking and floor-holding; in the negotiation of conversational activities such as repair, assessments, announcements, reproaches, and news receipts; and in the keying of the tone or modality of interactional sequences.

The essays in this volume are all original contributions dealing in one way or another with the analysis of prosody - primarily intonation and rhythm - and the role it plays in everyday conversation. They take as their methodological starting point the contention that the study of prosody must begin with genuine interactional rather than pre fabricated laboratory data. Through close empirical analysis of recorded material from genuine English, German, and Italian conversations, the prosody emerges here as a strategy deployed by interactants in the management of turn-taking and floor-holding; in the negotiation of conversational activities such as repair, assessments, announcements, reproaches, and news receipts; and in the keying of the tone or modality of interactional sequences.