The grandmother-granddaughter conversation examined in this book makes explicit what the detailed study of interaction reveals about two social problems--'bulumia' and 'grandparent caregiving.' For the first time, systematic attentions is given to interactional activities through which family members display ordinary yet contradictory concerns about health and illness. Through analysis of a single audio-recorded and transcribed conversation, the altogether pervasive and often troubled co-existence of family medical predicaments is revealed by treating families as primordial institutional...

This book examines the concept of "community," focusing on how communication practices help manage the tensions of creating and sustaining everyday communal life amidst the crisis of human loss. While acknowledging how the contradictory and inconsistent nature of human relationships inevitably affects community, this intimate and compelling text shows how community is created and sustained in concrete communication practices.
The authors explore these ideas at Bonaventure House, an award-winning residential facility for people with AIDS, where the web of social relationships and the...

This work examines the concept of community, focusing on how communication practices help manage the tensions of everyday communal life amidst the crises of human loss. The authors explore these ideas at Bonaventure House, an award-winning residential facility for people with AIDS.

An analysis of the social origins of karaoke and the dramaturgical characteristics of karaoke events. It visits various karaoke scenes in their natural context, from hotel ballrooms to multi-ethnic, working-class neighbourhoods, especially those of immigrant Chinese.

Referential communication is the term given to communicative acts, generally spoken, in which some kind of information is exchanged between one speaker and another. This information exchange is typically dependent on successful acts of reference, whereby entities (human and non-human) are identified (by naming or describing), are located or moved relative to other entities (by giving instructions or directions), or are followed through sequences of locations and events (by recounting an incident or a narrative). These "activities" are examples of events that are more typically described as...

Interactional dilemmas occur when participants are required to engage in two contradictory activities at the same time or orient to two conflicting goals. The existence of such dilemmas provides a context for interactants to be creative, pro-active, and indeed strategic as they maneuver between the numerous demands placed on them and produce behavior that fits the ongoing communication episode. Trials are one such episode in which the various participants -- in this case, the judge, the defendant, and lawyers -- experience interactional dilemmas and work to resolve these through their...

Interactional dilemmas occur when participants are required to engage in two contradictory activities at the same time or orient to two conflicting goals. The existence of such dilemmas provides a context for interactants to be creative, pro-active, and indeed strategic as they maneuver between the numerous demands placed on them and produce behavior that fits the ongoing communication episode. Trials are one such episode in which the various participants -- in this case, the judge, the defendant, and lawyers -- experience interactional dilemmas and work to resolve these through their...

falls into women's studies, aging studies, as well as everyday communication markets.