Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen & Margret Selting (eds.), Prosody in conversation: Interactional studies. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xii, 471. Hb $74.95.

Abstract

Turns at talk in conversation, and in any other form of spoken interaction, are designed to enable speakers to be understood in the way they wish to be understood by their co-participants. Talk is meaningful insofar as speakers design their turns so as to be recognizable as making an offer, closing a topic, agreeing or affiliating, being ironic, finishing their turn, continuing, being surprised or astonished at news, “just” asking a question, reproaching, indicating that there is something problematic about what the prior speaker has just said, and so on. (I take these activities from those that are variously studied in the chapters in this collection.) So “turn design” is at the heart of how we mean what we say, what we communicate, in interaction.