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R. Keith Sawyer, Improvised dialogues: Emergence and creativity in conversation. Westport, CT: Ablex, 2003. Pp. xi, 262. Hb $69.95.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2004

Barbara Johnstone
Barbara Johnstone
Affiliation:
Rhetoric, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15213, bj4@andrew.cmu.edu
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Extract

This is a study of dialogues performed in improvisational (“improv”) theater. Improv actors work without scripts, using mime and dialogue to come to a working agreement about cast of characters, setting, and plot, usually within a few interactional turns. Their performances are thus an ideal site for studying how framing works: how interactants come to a mutual understanding of what is going on that is shaped by and subsequently shapes their contributions. Although it does not quite meet its ambitious theoretical goals, the book is well worth reading, both for the descriptions and examples of a fascinating set of language games and for Sawyer's intriguing suggestions about what we can learn from them.

Type
REVIEWS
Information
Language in Society , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , July 2004 , pp. 440 - 443
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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References

REFERENCE

Silverstein, Michael (1993). Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function. In John A. Lucy (ed.), Reflexive language, 33–58. New York: Cambridge University Press.