Includes index.

1. Introduction --- 2. Speech acts and conversational maxims --- 3. The ethnography of speaking --- 4. Conversational analysis --- 5. Intonation --- 6. A linguistic approach --- 7. Discourse analysis and language teaching --- 8. The acquisition of discourse --- 9. The analysis of literary discourse.

The central concern of this book is the analysis of verbal interaction or discourse. This first six chapters report and evaluate major theoretical advances in the description of discourse. The final chapters demonstrate how the findings of discourse analysis can be used to investigate second-language teaching and first-language acquisition and to analyse literary texts.