....Their work here is unique in its ambitious and informed combination of the analysis of prosody, grammar, rhetoric, and conversational structures....For those new to prosodic analysis, Language in time is a demanding read, but it richly rewards the effort. Auer, Couper-Kuhlen, and Muller set a new standard for discourse analysts and functionally oriented linguistics such that it is both based in the data of use and accountable to conversational practices as they emerged in the production if natural and socially consequential activities.