Table of Contents

1. Notes on contributors; 2. Preface; 3. Calling for help: An introduction (by Firth, Alan); 4. Technical assistance; 5. Calibrating for competence in calls to technical support (by Baker, Carolyn); 6. Collaborative problem description in help desk calls (by Houtkoop, Hanneke); 7. The metaphoric use of space in expert-lay interaction about computing systems (by Kraan, Wilbert); 8. Emotional support; 9. The mitigation of advice: Interactional dilemmas of peers on a telephone support service (by Pudlinski, Christopher); 10. Four observations on openings in calls to Kids Help Line (by Danby, Susan); 11. 'I just want to hear somebody right now': Managing identities on a telephone helpline (by Molder, Hedwig te); 12. Healthcare provision; 13. Callers' presentations of problems in telephone calls to Swedish primary care (by Leppanen, Vesa); 14. Constructing and negotiating advice in calls to a poison information center (by Landqvist, Hakan); 15. Consumer assistance; 16. Opportunities for negotiation at the interface of phone calls and service-counter interaction: A case study (by Chappell, Denise); 17. Institutionality at issue: The helpline call as a 'language game' (by Torode, Brian); 18. Aspects of call management; 19. Some initial reflections on conversational structures for instruction giving (by Murtagh, Ged M.); 20. Working a call: Multiparty management and interactional infrastructure in calls for help (by Whalen, Jack); 21. Name Index; 22. Subject Index

Reviews

[...] Calling for Help brings out various aspects of institutional talk that have been scantly studied by discourse analysts. In this respect, this book has opened a new frontier in conversation analysis. Because of its approach to language as a means of social interaction, the book can offer a great deal to those interested in studying language in society.
*Shiv R. Upadhyay, York University, Toronto, Canada, on Linguist List, Vol. 17.3279 (2006)*