Language in Time The Rhythm and Tempo of Spoken Interaction [Hardcover]

The authors here promote the reintroduction of temporality into the description and analysis of spoken interaction. They argue that spoken words are, in fact, temporal objects and that unless linguists consider how they are delivered within the context of time, they will not capture the full meaning of situated language use. Their approach is rigorously empirical, with analyses of English, German, and Italian rhythm, all grounded in sequences of actual talk-in-interaction.

....Their work here is unique in its ambitious and informed combination of the analysis of prosody, grammar, rhetoric, and conversational structures....For those new to prosodic analysis,Language in timeis a demanding read, but it richly rewards the effort. Auer, Couper-Kuhlen, and Muller set a new standard for discourse analysts and functionally oriented linguistics such that it is both based in the data of use and accountable to conversational practices as they emerged in the production if natural and socially consequential activities. --Language in Society