N. J. Enfield is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney and Director of the Sydney Centre for Language Research.
 
Jack Sidnell is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto.

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Overture
1 Intersubjectivity, Activity, Accountability 3
I Prerequisities for Language
2 Status and the Tyranny of Accountability 35
3 Participation and Reciprocal Involvement 55
4 Enchrony and the Semiotic Bottleneck 79
II Elements of Language 
5 Reference for Shared Intentionality 107
6 Semantics for Accountable Description 135
7 Grammar for Intersubjectivity 153
Postlude
8 Conditions and Consequences of Language 179
Notes 189
References 205
Index 235

"Two senior scholars explain what language does to human beings, especially how it affects our intersubjective competence"--