Conversation and Gender

Showcases the latest thinking and cutting-edge research of scholars working on topics at the intersection of gender and conversation analysis.

Conversation analysts have begun to challenge long-cherished assumptions about the relationship between gender and language, asking new questions about the interactional study of gender and providing fresh insights into the ways it may be studied empirically. Drawing on a lively set of audio- and video-recorded materials of real-life interactions, including domestic telephone calls, children's play, mediation sessions, police-suspect interviews, psychiatric assessments and calls to telephone helplines, this volume is the first to showcase the latest thinking and cutting-edge research of an international group of scholars working on topics at the intersection of gender and conversation analysis. Theoretically, it pushes forward the boundaries of our understanding of the relationship between conversation and gender, charting new and exciting territory. Methodologically, it offers readers a clear, practical understanding of how to analyse gender using conversation analysis, by presenting detailed demonstrations of this method in use.

1. An introduction to conversation and gender Susan A. Speer and Elizabeth Stokoe; Part I. Gender, Person Reference and Self-Categorization: 2. The gendered 'I' Clare Jackson; 3. Categories in talk-in-interaction: gendering speaker and recipient Victoria Land and Celia Kitzinger; 4. Doing gender categorization: non-recognitional person reference and the omnirelevance of gender Noa Logan Klein; Part II. Gender, Repair and Recipient Design: 5. 'Girl - woman - sorry!': on the repair and non-repair of consecutive gender categories Elizabeth Stokoe; 6. Gender, routinization and recipient design Sue Wilkinson; 7. Recipients designed: tag questions and gender Alexa Hepburn and Jonathan Potter; Part III. Gender and Action Formation: 8. On the role of reported, third party compliments in passing as a 'real' woman Susan A. Speer; 9. 'D'you understand that honey?': gender and participation in conversation Jack Sidnell; 10. Bids and responses to intimacy as 'gendered' enactments Wayne A. Beach and Phillip Glenn; Part IV. Gender Identities and Membership Categorization Practices: 11. Accomplishing a cross-gender identity: a case of passing in children's talk-in-interaction Carly W. Butler and Ann Weatherall; 12. Engendering children's play: person reference in children's conflictual interaction Marjorie Harness Goodwin; 13. Being there for the children: the collaborative construction of gender inequality in divorce mediation Angela Cora Garcia and Lisa M. Fisher; 14. Gender as a practical concern in children's management of play participation Jakob Cromdal.

Drawing on a lively set of audio and video recorded materials of real-life interactions, this volume is the first to showcase the latest thinking and cutting-edge research of an international group of scholars working on topics at the intersection of gender and conversation analysis.

Susan A. Speer is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Gender Talk: Feminism, Discourse and Conversation Analysis (2005).
Elizabeth Stokoe is Reader in Social Interaction in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University. She is the co-author of Discourse and Identity (2006).