Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk among Friends

by Deborah Tannen

Overview

This revised edition of Deborah Tannen's first discourse analysis book, Conversational Style--first published in 1984--presents an approach to analyzing conversation that later became the hallmark and foundation of her extensive body of work in discourse analysis, including the monograph Talking Voices, as well as her well-known popular books You Just Don't Understand, That's Not What I Meant!, and Talking from 9 to 5, among others. Carefully examining the discourse of six speakers over the course of a two-and-a-half hour Thanksgiving dinner conversation, Tannen analyzes the features that make up the speakers' conversational styles, and in particular how aspects of what she calls a 'high-involvement style' have a positive effect when used with others who share the style, but a negative effect with those whose styles differ. This revised edition includes a new preface and an afterword in which Tannen discusses the book's place in the evolution of her work. Conversational Style is written in an accessible and non-technical style that should appeal to scholars and students of discourse analysis (in fields like linguistics, anthropology, communication, sociology, and psychology) as well as general readers fascinated by Tannen's popular work. This book is an ideal text for use in introductory classes in linguistics and discourse analysis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199725380
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/21/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Deborah Tannen is University Professor and Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her academic books include the first edition of this book, published in 1984, as well as Gender and Discourse and the edited volumes Framing in Discourse, and Gender and Conversational Interaction (both OUP, 1993). In all, she has published nineteen books, including most notably The New York Times Best Seller You Just Don't Understand.

Hometown:

Washington, D.C. metro area

Date of Birth:

June 7, 1945

Place of Birth:

Brooklyn, New York

Education:

B.A., Harpur College, 1966, Wayne State University, 1970; M.A. in Linguistics, UC Berkeley, 1976; Ph.D., 1979

Table of Contents

Preface to the 2005 Edition1. Introduction2. Conversational Style: Theoretical Background3. The Participants in Thanksgiving Dinner4. Linguistic Devices in Conversational Style5. Narrative Strategies6. Irony and Joking7. Summary of Style Features8. The Study of Coherence in Discourse9. Coda: Taking the Concepts into the PresentAppendix 1: Key to Transcription ConventionsAppendix 2: Steps in Analyzing ConversationAppendix 3: Participants in Thanksgiving DinnerAppendix 4: The Flow of TopicsReferencesAuthor IndexSubject Index

Editorial Reviews

Praise for earlier edition:

"By far the most interesting and accessible—and fun!—introduction to conversational style that I know of. Students love it, and I use it as a required textbook whenever I teach sociolinguistics."—Doug Biber, Northern Arizona University

"Interesting and valuable for both laypersons and students."—Language

"A contribution not only for the general reader but for any researcher or student interested in conversation."—Language and Society

From the Publisher