Interaction and Grammar

Description

Many scholars of language have accepted a view of grammar as a clearly delineated and internally coherent structure which is best understood as a self-contained system. The contributors to this volume propose a very different way of approaching and understanding grammar, taking it as part of a broader range of systems which underlie the organisation of social life and emphasising its role in the use of language in everyday interaction and cognition. Taking as their starting-point the position that the very integrity of grammar is bound up with its place in the larger schemes of the organisation of human conduct, particularly with social interaction, their essays explore a rich variety of linkages between interaction and grammar.

"Interaction and Grammar is an innovative, informative, interesting, and, in my view, important book...The book is innovative in that the collaboration it reports is among pioneers in articulating work in formal syntax, conversation analysis, and paralinguistics...in investigation of interactional accomplishment. It is informative in illustrating something of the range of autonomously syntactic...prosodic and paralinguistic, pragmatic, and other devices available in different languages/cultures for management of turns...I will read forthcoming studies influenced by this important volume to watch the broader view gain wider acceptance." Allen D. Grimshaw, American Journal of Sociology "Interaction and grammar is a superb collection. No one working in the area of language and interaction can afford to ignore it." Language in Society