Conversation Analysis and Language for Specific Purposes

The Editors: Hugo Bowles is associate professor of English at the University of Rome «Tor Vergata», where he runs the English language programmes and teaches English linguistics and discourse analysis at undergraduate and postgraduate level. His research and publications are mostly in the areas of specialised discourse, particularly legal and medical communication, language pedagogy and LSP, and he is currently researching genre and conversation analysis and their applications to LSP teaching.Paul Seedhouse is Professor in Educational and Applied Linguistics in the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, UK. His monograph The Interactional Architecture of the Language Classroom: A CA Perspective was published in 2004. He also co-edited the collections Applying Conversation Analysis (2005) and Language Learning and Teaching as Social Interaction (2007).

«Bowles & Seedhouse’s book makes a convincing argument for the need to raise awareness amongst LSP teachers and learners of conversation as more than just information flow from one speaker to another. All articles in the book admirably pursue the same goal in showing how an integration of sequential analysis enriches our understanding of language teaching and learning. The book is therefore required reading for every teacher interested in speaking skills and conversation competence.» (Beatrice Szczepek Reed, The Linguist)

• Contents: Hugo Bowles/Paul Seedhouse: Introduction – Paul Seedhouse/Keith Richards: Describing and Analysing Institutional Varieties of Interaction – Gabriele Pallotti: Conversation Analysis: Methodology, Machinery and Application to Specific Settings – Keith Richards: Knowing When to ‘No’: Aspects of Alignment in Professional Relationships – Steve Walsh/Anne O’Keeffe: Applying CA to a Modes Analysis of Higher Education Spoken Academic Discourse – Laura Gavioli/Nick Maxwell: Interpreter Intervention in Mediated Business Talk – Anne Burns/Stephen Moore: Conversation Analysis and the Accounting Classroom: Exploring Implications for LSP Teaching – Cecilia Varcasia: English, German and Italian Responses in Telephone Service Encounters – Andrew Packett: Teaching Institutional Talk: A Conversation Analytic Approach to Broadcast Interviewing – Jean Wong: Answering my Call: A Look at Telephone Closings – Hugo Bowles/Paul Seedhouse: Interactional Competence and the LSP Classroom.