The first linguistics-based textbook on conversation analysis, illuminating the universals of interaction across a rich array of languages.

1. Introduction: why study conversation?; 2. Towards an understanding of action: origins and perspectives; 3. Why that, now?: position and composition in interaction; 4. Interaction in time: the centrality of turntaking; 5. The structure of sequences I: preference organisation; 6. The structure of sequences II: knowledge and authority in the construction of identity; 7. Halting progressivity: the organisation of repair; 8. Conclusion: discovering order.

Rebecca Clift is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Essex. She is co-editor of Reporting Talk (Cambridge, 2006).