This book is a study of how people collaboratively interpret events or experiences as having paranormal features, or as evidence of spiritual agency. The authors study recordings of paranormal research groups as they conduct real life investigations into allegedly haunted spaces and the analyses describe how, through their talk and embodied actions, participants collaboratively negotiate the paranormal status of the events they experience.By drawing on the study of the social organisation in everyday interaction, they show how paranormal interpretations may be proposed, contested and negotiated through conversational and embodied practices of the group. The book contributes to the sociology of anomalous experience, and explores its relevance to other social science topics such as dark tourism, participation in religious spaces and practices, and the attribution of agency. This book will therefore be of interest to academics and postgraduate researchers of language and social interaction; discourse and communication, cultural studies; social psychology, sociology of religious experience; parapsychology, communication and psychotherapy.

This collection extends the conversation beginning with Gail Jefferson's seminal 1996 article, "On the Poetics of Ordinary Talk," linking the poetics of ordinary talk with the work of poets to bring together critical perspectives on new data from talk-in-interaction and applications of Jefferson's poetics to literary discourse. Bringing together contributions from Conversation Analysis and literary scholars, the book begins by analyzing the presentation which served as the genesis for Jefferson's article to highlight the occurrence of poetics in institutional talk. The first section then provides an in-depth examination of case studies from Conversation Analysis which draw on new data from naturally occurring discourse. The second half explores literary poetics as a form of institutional talk emerging from the poetics of ordinary talk, offering new possibilities for interpreting work in classics, biblical studies, folklore studies and contemporary literature. Each chapter engages in a discussion of Jefferson's article toward reinforcing the relationships between the two disciplines and indicating a way forward for interdisciplinary scholarship. The collection highlights the enduring influence of Jefferson's poetics to our understanding of language, both talk-in interaction and literary discourse, making this book of particular interest to students and researchers in Conversation Analysis, literary studies, stylistics, and pragmatics.

Every week thousands of people in Europe and the USA consult psychic practitioners. Communication is crucial to the performance of psychic powers in a range of settings. Psychic practitioners use language to demonstrate their powers, whether they are reporting the words of their spirit contacts or interpreting the spread of Tarot cards. Their clients also accept or reject this information through talk. This book presents the first sustained study of the verbal interaction between the various kinds of psychic practitioners and their clients. Using conversation analysis, Robin Wooffitt examines the structure of the interaction, focusing on the ways in which psychic practitioners and their clients establish the authenticity of the claimed paranormal powers. Adopting a neutral standpoint towards the status of the claims of psychic practitioners, the book raises important issues about the role of social science in understanding the activities of psychic practitioners and other kinds of parapsychological phenomena. This highly original study will appeal to students and scholars of discourse studies, and to sociologists interested in conversation analysis. It is written in a style accessible to non-specialists, and will also interest parapsychologists and social scientists studying psychic phenomena and the paranormal.

Computers are increasingly able to mimic abilities we often think of as exclusively human - memory, decision-making and now, speech. A new generation of speech recognition systems can make at least some attempt at understanding what is said to them and can respond accordingly. These systems are coming into daily use for home banking, for airline flights enquiries and for placing orders over the telephone and are fast becoming more powerful and more pervasive. Using data taken from a major, European Union funded project on speech understanding, the SunDial project, this book shows how this data may be analyzed to yield important conclusions about the organization of both human-human and human-computer information dialogues. It describes the Wizard-of-Oz method of collecting speech dialogues from people who believe they are interacting with a speech understanding system before that system has been fully designed or built and it shows how the resulting dialogues may be analyzed to guide further design. This book provides detailed and comparative studies of human and human-computer speech dialogues, including analyses of opening and closing sequences and turn-taking.

Using data taken from a major European Union funded project on speech understanding, the SunDial project, this book considers current perspectives on human computer interaction and argues for the value of an approach taken from sociology which is based on conversation analysis.

`This is one of those books that, researchers, students and teachers want to have on their desks, because it answers questions, clarifies confusing areas, and provides accessible overviews of sometimes technical work - and all in prose that is unpretentious and engaging' - British Journal of Sociology `There is no doubt that conversation analysis (CA) is an impressive and valuable approach to studying discourse, and Wooffitt does an excellent job of demonstrating its analytical sophistication and rigour' - European Journal of Communication `This is an excellent book: clear, engaging and authoritative. It treads a path through the many confusions and provides a map of the fields of conversation analysis, discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis and discursive psychology which is better than any currently available. It will be a valuable resource in teaching' - Professor Jonathan Potter, Loughborough University `An excellent exposition: concepts are explained and put into context, and the reader is guided from introductory to advanced levls of discussion. Wooffitt sets out and answers the kinds of questions typically raised by students and others about relations and differences between discourse and conversation analysis... engaging and useful' - Professor Derek Edwards, Loughborough University This significant text by Robin Wooffitt is the first to systematically examine the complex relationship between conversation analysis and discourse analysis. It comes at a timely moment: despite the close connection between the two forms of analyses in academic research, no other existing text explains these links methodically, comprehensively and for the benefit of undergraduate and master's students. Key features of this text: - It takes students from first principles up to more advanced debates, and is therefore suitable for under grad and MA/PhD students. - Careful illustration of methodological approaches through detailed analysis of data. - Clarity of writing; lengthy chapter summaries; further readings; glossary of CA/DA terminology as an appendix. Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis shows how the methods and findings of conversation and discourse analysis may inform the development of empirical research questions. It will therefore be an invaluable resource for social science students on courses which require them to undertake practical or empirical exercises.

`This is one of those books that, researchers, students and teachers want to have on their desks, because it answers questions, clarifies confusing areas, and provides accessible overviews of sometimes technical work - and all in prose that is unpretentious and engaging' - British Journal of Sociology `There is no doubt that conversation analysis (CA) is an impressive and valuable approach to studying discourse, and Wooffitt does an excellent job of demonstrating its analytical sophistication and rigour' - European Journal of Communication `This is an excellent book: clear, engaging and authoritative. It treads a path through the many confusions and provides a map of the fields of conversation analysis, discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis and discursive psychology which is better than any currently available. It will be a valuable resource in teaching' - Professor Jonathan Potter, Loughborough University `An excellent exposition: concepts are explained and put into context, and the reader is guided from introductory to advanced levls of discussion. Wooffitt sets out and answers the kinds of questions typically raised by students and others about relations and differences between discourse and conversation analysis... engaging and useful' - Professor Derek Edwards, Loughborough University This significant text by Robin Wooffitt is the first to systematically examine the complex relationship between conversation analysis and discourse analysis. It comes at a timely moment: despite the close connection between the two forms of analyses in academic research, no other existing text explains these links methodically, comprehensively and for the benefit of undergraduate and master's students. Key features of this text: - It takes students from first principles up to more advanced debates, and is therefore suitable for under grad and MA/PhD students. - Careful illustration of methodological approaches through detailed analysis of data. - Clarity of writing; lengthy chapter summaries; further readings; glossary of CA/DA terminology as an appendix. Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis shows how the methods and findings of conversation and discourse analysis may inform the development of empirical research questions. It will therefore be an invaluable resource for social science students on courses which require them to undertake practical or empirical exercises.