Worlds of Talk: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Conversation

by Martin Malone

This book is about how we present our selves in everyday talk and interaction. Selves and conversations are skilful accomplishments requiring trust, dependency, and co-ordination. They are produced by multiple partners co-operating in the production of social events. The self is a 'performed character' - a 'dramatic effect' in Goffman's terms - which results from shaping our behavior to create a desired impression. Talk is both the means and the product of such events. Selves live in worlds that talk creates. Using the methods of conversation analysis, this book seeks to discover how selves are created and transformed in everyday talk. It examines how pronouns are used to create interactional boundaries, the strategic manipulation of interactional support, talk in dealing with conflict, and stylistic differences associated with gender. Theoretical discussion is combined with fine-grained analysis of ordinary conversations. The book will be of particular interest to students and professionals in sociology, social psychology, sociolinguistics and communication studies.

200 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 1997

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Martin Malone is an Irish short story writer and novelist.
Prior to his writing career, Malone served as a military policeman in the Irish Defence Forces, with postings in Lebanon and Iraq. His memoir The Lebanon Diaries: An Irish Soldier's Story (2006) documents these experiences.
Two of his novels, After Kafra (2001) and The Broken Cedar (2003, longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), draw on Malone's time as a UNIFIL peacekeeper stationed along the Lebanon-Israel border.
His other novels are The Silence of the Glasshouse (2008), and Us (2000); both are set in Ireland.
Malone's short stories have won several literary awards in Ireland. His first collection, The Mango Wars and Other Stories, was published in 2009.
He has also written several plays broadcast on RTE Radio 1 Ireland.