9 - Conversation

Summary

Chapter 9 begins with a review of the contribution of talk to maintaining homeostasis through “small talk” and other forms of “grooming,” both as a response to complex social structure and in facilitating social cooperation.It discusses the role of talk in forward projection of group-level representations, and the role of forward projection of a conversation topic in sustaining and managing conversations.It discusses the role of both physical constraints and social constraints such as politeness norms and facework in shaping the structure of conversation practices.It discusses the fine structure of conversation, in which the interpretations of utterances are confirmed or revised by subsequent utterances and the macro-structure of conversation (beginnings, turn-taking, topics, and closure).