Searching for universal features of conversation

Abstract

analyst- who declares himself to be engaging in "rough-and-ready applied phenomenology " (p. xiii): A researcher who will "sometimes tack rather than sail before the wind, " "derive poise from a blur," and who invites readers into his messy kitchen to observe, firsthand, the way cooking gets done and meals get prepared. Empiricism is akin to art criticism- yet another reminder that the rigor and imagination of science should be designed to illuminate, not suppress, understandings of the "lives of relative strangers." The possibility of universal features in conversation is central to Talking Culture. A considerable portion of the analysis is founded, and indeed empirically rests on the noticing of, apparently small and what may be (and typically are) readily taken for granted features of social action. A focus upon try- markers and person references across American and Thai speech, for example, draws readers' attention to seemingly isolated bits of what may appear to be randomly selected fragments from cultural gatherings among various Thai peasants and officials. Through analysis, certain of these "trivial " details emerge as conversational phenomena that appear in unrelated languages- candidate conversational universals.

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