Francesca Pridham is Head of English at Winstanley Sixth Form College, Wigan, and Assistant Examiner in A-Level English Language for AQA.

Unit 1 Introduction; Unit 2 Features of Spoken Language and Oral Narratives; Unit 3 Structure in conversation; Unit 4 Negotiation and interaction; Unit 5 Conversational genres; Unit 6 Spoken language in written texts;

This accessible satellite textbook in the Routledge INTERTEXT series is unique in offering students hands-on practical experience of textual analysis focused on conversation. Written in a clear, user-friendly style by an experienced teacher, it combines practical activities with texts, followed by commentaries and suggestions for further study. It can be used individually or in conjunction with the series core textbook Working With Texts: A core book for language analysis.

Aimed at A-Level and beginning undergraduate students, The Language of Conversation:
-- analyses exactly what happens during conversation and why
-- discusses the structure, purpose and features of conversation
-- explores the relationship between speaker and listener
-- examines different kinds of conversation, including television chat shows, door-to-door sales pitch, classroom interaction, teenagers' chat, mother and child communication
-- explains the theory in a simple, practical way -- without jargon
-- provides a clear introduction to technical terms.