Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2006
Gene Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004. Pp. 300. Hb $138.00, Pb $65.95.
Conversation analysis developed in the mid to late 1960s in a collaboration initially between Harvey Sacks and Emanuel Schegloff and, somewhat later, with the addition of Gail Jefferson. By the early 1970s, several students joined the group, by this point based at the University of California campuses at Irvine and Los Angeles, to form what Lerner calls “the first generation.” Conversation analysis has continued to grow, indeed has flourished, in the years since. Today conversation analysts are to be found not only in the United Stated, Canada, and the United Kingdom, but also Japan, Korea, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, and many other countries. There are conversation analysts in departments of sociology, linguistics, anthropology, communication, and psychology, as well as in many modern language and applied programs. The widespread success of conversation analysis is largely attributable to three characteristics of its research program: