The Concept of Action

N. J. Enfield is Professor and Chair in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. His work on language and human sociality is based on regular field work in mainland Southeast Asia, especially Laos. He has published more than a dozen books and over 100 academic articles. Among his more recent books are Relationship Thinking: Agency, Enchrony, and Human Sociality (2013), Natural Causes of Language (2014), The Utility of Meaning (2015), and The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology (Cambridge, 2014, co-edited with Paul Kockelman and Jack Sidnell). Jack Sidnell is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the structures of talk and interaction. In addition to research in the Caribbean and Vietnam, he has examined talk in court and among young children. He is the author of Conversation Analysis: An Introduction (2010), the editor of Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives (Cambridge, 2009) and co-editor of Conversational Repair and Human Understanding (Cambridge, 2013), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (2012) and The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology (Cambridge, 2014).

• Preface; Acknowledgements; Part I. Preliminaries to Action: 1. Basics of action; 2. The study of action; Part II. The Nature of Action: 3. The distribution of action; 4. The ontology of action; Part III. Action and Human Diversity: 5. Collateral effects; 6. Natural meaning; Postface; Index.

'This book constitutes a brilliant and indispensable contribution to our understanding of language and agency.' Paul Kockelman, Yale University, Connecticut