Conversational Realities

`I like this book, will recommend it to colleagues and students, and expect it to become a staple citation in articles and books I publish... Sometimes books an academic reads enable a person to make connections among previously disconnected pieces of experience, recurring preferences and passions, and particular life decisions. Reading Conversational Realities accomplished this for me... it is theoretically rich, philosophically thoughtful and experientially evocative′ - Human Studies`[An] immensely thoughtful, informative and persuasive treatment of the "rhetorical-responsive version of social constructionism" via an eclectic blend of, principally, European and American linguistics, philosophy and social psychology... Shotter′s book is most important for continuing the work begun by Billig and others bringing recognition via recollection to the rhetorical corpus. He claims to target his recovery of these materials toward psychologists; readers in related disciplines will certainly also benefit′ - Discourse & Society`This book is fascinating... It is important for several reasons. First, it provides an overview of an approach to the social sciences known as social constructionism... Second, Shotter maintains that the fundamental human reality is persons in conversations... Third, Shotter is concerned with practical implications, not just theoretical conceptions′ - Studies in Second Language Acquisition

• IntroductionA Rhetorical-Responsive Version of Social ConstructionismPART ONE: A RHETORICAL-RESPONSIVE VERSION OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISMThe Conversational Background of Social LifeBeyond RepresentationSituating Social ConstructionismKnowing `From Within′Dialogue and Rhetoric in the Construction of Social RelationsPART TWO: REALISM, THE IMAGINARY AND A WORLD OF EVENTSThe Limits of RealismSocial Life and the ImaginaryLinguistic Relativity in a World of EventsPART THREE: CONVERSATIONAL REALITIESIn Search of a PastTherapeutic Re-AuthoringReal and Counterfeit Constructions in Interpersonal RelationsThe Manager as a Practical AuthorConversations for ActionRhetoric and the Recovery of Civil SocietyEpilogueRhetorical-Responsive Social Constructionism in Summary FormAfterword - Roy Bhaskar