Introduction

Abstract

One of the strengths of Conversation Analysis (CA) as a research discipline is its capacity to direct researchers’ attention to apparently tiny features of interaction and explode their dimensions beyond all expectations, revealing delicacies of design and management that resist the assaults of clumsier instruments. The unwillingness of CA researchers to settle for easy solutions and their concern to elaborate the complexities of human action as revealed through talk have led to an impression in some quarters that the products of their investigations are too delicately wrought to bear the strains of application in the rough and tumble of practice. However, professionals in a range of disciplines from medicine to broadcasting have come to recognize the value of research that respects their peculiar achievements, and the field of Applied Linguistics (AL) has begun to acknowledge the contribution that CA can make to its programme. This book celebrates this important connection and anticipates some of its potential outcomes.

To every human problem there is a neat and easy solution — and it’s wrong.

H. L. Mencken