It is now widely agreed that in latter part of the 20th century sociology has taken a 'linguistic turn'. One of the approaches to emerge out of the linguistic turn is conversation analysis, which is now recognized as one of the most distinctive and genuinely original approaches to the study of language, communication and social interaction to have emerged during the last forty years. This comprehensive collection, brought together by two of the leading figures in conversation analysis, will be indispensable to researchers in not only linguistics but sociology, social psychology, communications, and health sciences whose work involved the language and linguistic features of social action.