This volume is the product of several years of cooperative field research. The initial goal was to seek comparative data to document and test the claim that interpretive analysis of conversational exchanges in key, naturally organized situations can yield significant insights into the communicative processes that underlie categorization, intergroup stereotyping, evaluation of verbal performance and access to public resources in modern societies. Ethnographic information and tape recordings of individuals of differing social and ethnic backgrounds interacting in such settings as counselling encounters, business and committee meetings, courtroom interrogations, public debates and family situations in North America and Britain were collected and subjected to comparative analysis. Most of the contributors were members of the research group directed by the Editor, and drew on a common pool of data. Heller, Maltz and Borker, and Tannen report on studies of their own that follow a similar perspective.

As the book developed, it became apparent that additional discussion was necessary to show how detailed analyses of conversational exchanges can contribute to an understanding of broader social issues. The introduction was therefore expanded to include a general discussion of basic communicative characteristics of modern industrial societies and their relation to ethnic and social distinction, and to the evaluation of verbal performance. The final chapter by Jupp, Roberts, and Cook-Gumperz reverts to this broader theme in discussing industrial communication in Britain, with special reference to the socioeconomic position of workers and professionals of Asian background.

Acknowledgments

Several of the chapters in this book appeared in preliminary form elsewhere.