Telephone Conversation
Robert Hopper(Author)
Indiana University Press
Published on 22. October 1992
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-0-253-20724-1 (ISBN)
Description
We are the people of the phone. We measure out our lives in coffee-spoon-sized speech events. Both at home and at work, we conform to the telephone's rhythms as other peoples respond to rhythms of nature, family, or institutions. Telephones are escaping their wires to enter our cars, airplanes, and patios. The call-waiting beep promotes the routing interruption of one phone call by another. Voice mail and the answering machine add monologues to the mix. These telephone machines snare us in their rhythms and routines. We can take control of this situation only by understanding the facts of telephone speaking.In this book, Robert Hopper eavesdrops on the sounds of telephone conversation, the most important yet least examined province of contemporary communication. The telephone is surely the primary electronic medium for interpersonal communication, but we rarely ask how telephones affect our interaction with one another. "Telephone Conversation" describes the interactional organization of talking on the telephone. It provides a detailed examination of this technologically mediated form of social activity.
It is not simply a book on telephone communication, it is a rigorous sociology of an important aspect of contemporary life.
It is not simply a book on telephone communication, it is a rigorous sociology of an important aspect of contemporary life.
Reviews / Votes
"... Hopper's aim is to begin to reveal to us the complex world of telephone conversation, and that is what he succeeds marvellously in doing." Discourse & Society "A guided tour through the interior world of phone interactions, Telephone Conversation is a playful, often poetic excursion into the dance-like qualities of language as and in technology." Wayne A. Beach "Telephone Conversation is an engagingly written book, peppered with snippets of telephone chat that enable readers to see the extraordinariness of ordinary talk." Quarterly Journal of Speech " ... the first comprehensive work on telephone interaction ... Written in a lucid, often poetic manner, it keeps the reader's interest to the end." Anthropological LinguisticMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Bloomington, IN
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
10ill.
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 159 mm
Weight
500 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-253-20724-1 (9780253207241)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
Preface Beginnings 1. The People of the Phone 2. The Rediscovery of Speaking Openings 3. Telephone Openings: How to Begin a Speech Event 4. Situational Variations in Telephone Openings: Circumstances, Relationships, Cultures Turns 5. How Do I Know When ItOs My Turn? 6. Turn Beginnings, Speech Overlap, and Interruption: Floor Access as Power Trajectories 7. Beginnings Discourse Episodes 8. Beginning to Play 9. The Telephone Access War Envoi: The Interaction Order Appendix: Transcribing Conventions Notes References Index