Asking and Telling in Conversation

Anita Pomerantz is one of the pioneers of Conversation Analysis (CA), a field that has grown from a small and marginalized subfield into a significant, international, multidisciplinary field of inquiry. CA now enjoys widespread acceptance and appreciation, thanks in large part to Pomerantz’s contributions.

Asking and Telling in Conversation collects Pomerantz’s most influential articles across the span of her career, focusing on the complexities of asking and telling something to another person. The actions of asking and telling may seem straightforward, but speakers deal with a number of complexities when they ask and tell. Pomerantz’s work focuses on the ways in which the performances of asking and telling are shaped by, and shape, the identities of the participants, the activities in which they are engaged, what was said and done prior to the actions in question, and the anticipated reactions to their talk and action. Each of the volume’s nine chapters is framed by original pieces by Pomerantz which discuss the significance and contribution of the article to current studies in CA. In addition to the new introductions and closing commentary for each work, this book includes full introductory and concluding chapters that draw out the connections across the author’s work. Pomerantz also shares her reflections on preference organization, which she first analyzed in her foundational research nearly fifty years ago.

Bringing together seminal works of CA with contemporary analysis in the field, this book sheds new light on important questions-and answers-in communication studies. A collection of work from a foremost scholar, Asking and Telling in Conversation is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of Conversation Analysis.

Anita Pomerantz, Professor Emerita in the Department of Communication, University at Albany, is a Conversation Analyst who analyses audio and videotapes of interaction to uncover the principles relied upon and the methods used for agreeing and disagreeing, seeking information, and negotiating responsibility for blameworthy and praiseworthy deeds in interpersonal, medical, and legal contexts. She has served as Chair of the Language and Social Interaction Division of the National Communication Association and the International Communication Association. She received the Garfinkel-Sacks Award for Distinguished Scholarship from the Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis Section of the American Sociology Association in Montreal in 2017 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Conversation Analysis in Loughborough, England in 2018.