The last decade has seen an increasing number of studies that incorporate conversation analysis (CA) as an analytical tool for examining second language (L2) talk in and out of the classroom. What might have given an impetus to this emerging trend is Firth and Wagner's (Reference Firth and Wagner1997) call for reconceptualization of fundamental concepts in SLA research and the subsequent debate featured in Modern Language Journal. Liddicoat, one of the proponents of Firth and Wagner's proposal in this debate, presents this new volume, which offers a comprehensive and accessible summary of the fundamentals of CA.
The volume begins with an overview of the development and guiding principles of CA that explains CA's stances toward frequently asked questions, including its treatments of contexts or quantification. The chapter on transcribing conversation points out the close connection between analyses and transcripts and discusses consequences of selecting a particular way of presenting talk or action observed in audio- or video-recorded data. The subsequent chapters cover turn-taking in conversation, gaps and overlaps, adjacency pairs and preference organization, sequence expansion, repair, opening and closing conversation, and story-telling. Discussion of each interactional organization and practice is accompanied by ample examples that illustrate its working in naturally occurring conversations. Representing the breadth and depth of CA traditions in its totality in a single volume is not such an easy task, as exemplified by the fact that Schegloff's (Reference Schegloff2007) recent work is devoted to just one topic: sequence organization. However, for those who have not yet fully committed to mastering CA, this volume serves as a good introduction to the methodology, helping to identify how CA might differ from other approaches and frameworks adopted for a microanalysis of interaction.
Although I initially identified Liddicoat as one who participated in the CA for SLA debate, in this volume he does not explicitly discuss how CA could be applied to SLA research. In this respect, his work differs from other recent books such as Gardner and Wagner (Reference Gardner and Wagner2004), Markee (Reference Markee2000), Richards and Seedhouse (Reference Richards and Seedhouse2005), and Seedhouse (Reference Seedhouse2004), which focus on how CA can inform the study of SLA and L2 use or other types of professional discourse. Researchers who are interested in issues involved in the application of this methodology might see this as a shortcoming. However, the understanding of what this methodology is about is as important as the discussion of how to apply it. Liddicoat's volume elucidates concepts and assumptions built into the analyses presented in the aforementioned books and yet not fully explained due to their space limitations. Personally, I consider it important for those who are interested in CA's potential in SLA (or even its skeptics) to read both of these types of literature to appreciate how CA can advance our knowledge of human interaction involving both first language and L2 speakers.
Liddicoat is so successful in explaining complex ideas and subtle observations in a logical step that I hope many L2 researchers, teachers, and learners will be prompted to examine the significance of taken-for-granted mechanisms that make our everyday interactions work.
