Face-to-face dialogue : theory, research, and applications / Janet Beavin Bavelas.

"This book brings together a long-term program of research focused on a single question that I have pursued, passionately and stubbornly, over several decades: What makes face-to-face dialogue unique? The theory that is still evolving from this research starts with the premise, shared with many language scholars, that face-to-face dialogue is the basic and prototypic form of language use. The research goes on to identify and explore the two resources-multi-modality and a high level of reciprocity--that do not occur in combination in any other form of language use. Research has led to the conclusion that having a face-to-face dialogue is the fastest and most skillful activity that ordinary humans do in real time. To study face-to-face dialogue is to enter and explore a micro-world that a written text cannot capture. The microscope for face-to-face dialogue includes digitized video, appropriate software, and refocusing one's mind from the everyday pace of events. The website that supplements this book [OUP website] demonstrates microanalysis with videos of most of the examples described in the text. The ultimate goal of this book is for readers to appreciate face-to-face dialogue in the several senses of the word: to be able to perceive to apprehend or understand to recognize the significance or subtleties of and to recognize as valuable or excellent."-- Provided by publisher.