REVIEW OF CONVERSATION AND TECHNOLOGY Conversation and Technology

Within the early pages of this volume, Ian Hutchby declares his intention to explore how a better understanding of "technologies for communication, " as he terms them, can help us appreciate better the "relationship between forms of technology and structures of social interaction " (p. 2). As a sociologist, his interest lies primarily in "analysing the ways in which non-human technological artefacts can become important elements in the patterns of ordinary human conduct " (p. 5). While the volume is arguably targeted first and foremost at those working in the areas of communication studies, organizational studies, and cultural studies, and certainly not at those involved in language pedagogy, there is much that the discerning teacher and researcher of language learning can gain from this book. It provides an intelligent, insightful, and incisive discussion of the modern world of communication from the beginnings of the telephone to the emergence of the computer-based chatroom, and argues convincingly that it is important not only to consider what potential such technologies have to impact upon our social discourse, but also to understand the complex ways in which human beings mould the exploitation of these technologies to meet their own social ends. Reading the volume raises our awareness both of the potential of human-computer interaction and of the seemingly never-ending subtleties of human conversation. While all examples are based on native-speaker interaction, the volume would be useful as a reference tool an