, Approaching Dialogue : Talk , Interaction and Contexts in Dialogical

Attention to detail is the hallmark of this work. The problem is that there is so much detail drawn from such a variety of disparate approaches, that big issues are lost or dissolved in the detail. Every detail of discourse analysis, interactional linguistics and conversation analysis, even of ethnomethodological analysis of talk and symbolic interactionism and of communication studies and science, find their way into this text. Linell's encyclopaedic knowledge of the field is displayed with a substantive acknowledgement of authorities and previous collaborators, especially Bakhtin, Kristeva, Marková and Rommetveit. At times, the reader seems directed to recognize a new college, an essentially central and east European college, of authorities, the Dialogists, the Bad Homburg Experience. The core commitment, here, is to dialogue vs monologue, that is to see all conversation or discourse as occurring between two parties, as involving a speaker and a hearer, an initiator and a recipient – that, what is said has only meaning when it is heard. With some reverence to Schutz, Goffman and Luckmann, Linell endeavours to draw text, into co-text, into context, to discourse to structures. But much of the detail of prosody, of speech act and, of utterance and turn, must not be lost as the context of talk expands. As pure scholarship, the 31 pages of references and the copious footnotes are ample evidence that this is textbook material. At times, the book feels like a Materia Linguistica Interactica or Materia Dialogica, a text, Per Linell would be more than worthy to produce. I would take issue with the book on two counts: the enforced insertion of ethno-methodology and the inability to let go the facticity of context. These are not two separate issues but constitute the big issue lost in the detail – the forest that could not be seen for the trees. The ethnomethodologist has to challenge the loss of members' talk. Although early commentary suggested, and constant reference implied, a faithful commitment to talk-as-a-members'-accomplishment, the linguistician could not let go. Descriptions of segments of transcript constantly dissolved into analyst's accounts of the 'dialogue' rather than demonstrations of 117 Book reviews Discourse Studies Prospective reviewers can find a list of books and review instructions at the following website: