Talk and Social Theory: Ecologies of Speaking and Listening in Everyday Life - Hardcover

Erickson, Frederick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0745624707 ISBN 13: 9780745624709

Publisher: Polity, 2004

Synopsis

Talk and Social Theory will be an essential text for students of sociolinguistics and the analysis of discourse in conversation.

• introduces the study of 'talk' linked to social theory;
  
• develops a new theoretical argument that reviews the relations between local social practices and general societal processes of talk;
  
• the use of everyday examples - a family dinner table, a school classroom, an academic advising session in an community college - enhances the book’s appeal to a non-specialist as well as a specialist audience;
  
• reviews the key theoretical perspectives and conceptual frameworks in social theory and in the sociolinguistic study of talk.
  

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Talk and Social Theory is an inportant contribution to our understanding of everyday talk and its relation to broader social processes. Talk is unique and locally produced, crafted by particular social actors for the specific situation of its use. Yet the conduct of such talk is profoundly influenced by, and influential upon, social and cultural processes that occur beyond the temporal and spatial horizon of the occasion of the talk itself. Drawing on and criticizing social theory, Erickson explores the mutually reinforcing connections between the local conduct of talk and the general working of society, economy, and history.

The use of everyday examples enhances the appeal of Talk and Social Theory to a non-specialist as well as a specialist audience. Written in a clear and comprehensible way, it reviews key theoretical prospectives and conceptual frameworks in social theory and in the sociolinguistic study of talk. It concludes with an argument against overly determinist accounts of talk as social action, in the interest of better construction of social theory and better empirical study of talk.

This book will be an essential text for students of sociolinguistics and the analysis of discourse in conversation. It will also be of interest to students in sociology, anthropology, social theory, education, linguistics, applied linguistics, and anyone concerned with the nature and uses of language in social interaction.

About the Author:

Frederick Erickson is George F. Kneller Professor of Anthropology of Education at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.

About this edition

• Publisher: Polity
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0745624707
• ISBN 13: 9780745624709
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232