Conversations are cooperatively achieved speech events. In introducing a new topic, there are specific procedures followed to close the old topic. Because these procedures take place over a series of utterances, both/all participants must cooperate to close a topic. Analysis of conversations among adults who know each other suggests that there are…

Outlines the beliefs people have about speech styles, how and why people modify speech styles, and the role of speech style in social identity. Discusses educational implications of these findings. (RL)

Traces the development of an approach to studying face-to-face interaction that proposes to expound the rules or procedures of interaction and to account for observed behavior in terms of how it functions as a communicational system. A selective literature review and recommendations for further study are included. (EJS)

This paper draws from a number of sources, from Muhammad Ali to TV commercials, to demonstrate the quite different conceptions that black and white Americans have of the meaning of boasting and bragging. For blacks, boasting and bragging are two distinct ways of speaking and communication. Boasting is a joking, playful verbal bahavior, not to be…