CECILIA E. FORD is Professor, College of Letters and Science, English Department and Women's Studies Program at University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. Her research focuses on language as an interactional phenomenon, drawing on conversation analysis as a framework for discovering the ways that humans construct, on a moment-by-moment basis, the social orders that make up our lives - including the provisional and emergent practices we call 'language'. Her research concentrates on turn taking and how humans collaborate and improvise in social interaction, using contingent practices including grammar, sound production, and physical orientations (gesture, gaze, body position).

"Cecilia Ford's Women Speaking Up is a refreshing look at the linguistic competency of women in the workplace...In what could otherwise be a daunting array of research participants and transcripts, the book makes excellent use of organizational keys, typographical indicators, and line drawings to organize data and help the reader follow along. This is thoughtful, nuanced, sophisticated work that avoids prescriptive findings or reductive applications...we should applaud Ford's commitment to making the methods and theoretical contributions of conversation analysis so accessible and to thereby allow women and men from all academic disciplines to celebrate women's agency." - Rebecca Wey, Gender and Language journal

• Acknowledgements Transcription Symbols Introduction: A Feminist Project Data and Analytic Practices Reflections on Participation Meeting Organization: Openings, Turn Transitions, and Participant Alliances Questions: Opening Participation, Displaying Expertise and Challenging Placing and Designing Disaffiliative Actions Speaking Up in Meetings: Summary and Conclusions References Index