Reviewed by James Murphy, University of Manchester

This book is intended as an introductory textbook in conversation analysis (CA) for undergraduates, and it fulfills this purpose, with thirteen chapters covering the most important aspects of the conversation analytic method. Before the start of the book proper, Jack Sidnell provides the transcription conventions employed in the book and discusses them in detail.

Ch. 1 places CA in its historical context, briefly discussing the ethnomethodology of Erving Goffman and Harold Garfinkel, which inspired the earliest conversation analysts Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. The chapter also explores why the close analysis of actual talk is important to our understanding of language and society. Ch. 2 provides advice for collecting, transcribing, and making observations about spoken data.

Ch. 3 begins the main theoretical discussions by examining the turn-taking rules in conversation. S explains clearly how speakers arrange turns-at-talk, how they select the next speaker, and what occurs when talk overlaps. Ch. 4 looks at the non-serial organization of talk, that is, how actions are achieved in conversation. S cogently discusses the notion of the adjacency pair and conditional relevance. Ch. 5 discusses preference structure, which explores why, for instance, speakers disprefer turning down invitations and how speakers go about performing dispreferred utterances.

Ch. 6 examines longer stretches of talk. This includes pre-sequences and extensions of talk before the ‘nitty-gritty’ of conversation is reached, such as pre-announcements (e.g. ‘Guess what happened to me?’ (95)). Insert expansion and post-expansion are also discussed. S describes what happens when things go wrong in conversation in Ch. 7, which entails an analysis of self-repair (i.e. where speakers correct their own mistakes and infelicities) and other-initiated repair (i.e. where hearers seek clarification or repetition of a troublesome turn-at-talk). Ch. 8 provides a more detailed discussion of the turn and how it is constructed. S discusses how turns usually begin and end, and describes the importance of gaze and intonation. S also touches on how turns   can be built collaboratively when talk overlaps.

Ch. 9 explores techniques speakers use to maintain the floor for extended periods. S describes typical storytelling patterns and how couples cooperate to describe events. Ch. 10 focuses on opening and closing sequences in conversation and, in particular, telephone exchanges. Ch. 11 looks at the broad notion of topic, i.e. what a conversation is actually about. S discusses how speakers keep conversation on-topic, including methods employed by others to change or shift topic. S also discusses the problems with using the idea of ‘topic’ in CA work. Ch. 12 looks at conversation in a variety of contexts and discourse domains, including courtrooms and educational settings. The final chapter offers a summary of the previous chapters and of the CA research program more generally.

Overall, this book is an ideal introduction for students new to CA. It is suitable not only for those with a linguistics background, but also sociologists and anthropologists. It is well-written and filled with engaging examples of real-life talk. Perhaps the only element missing is some engagement with criticism of CA.