TY - BOOK ID - 80816459 TI - The concept of action AU - Enfield, N. J. AU - Sidnell, Jack PY - 2017 SN - 9781139025928 9780521895286 9780521719650 0521719658 0521895286 1108514502 1108505562 1139025929 PB - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, DB - UniCat KW - Social interaction KW - Anthropological linguistics KW - Sociolinguistics KW - Language and languages KW - Language and society KW - Society and language KW - Sociology of language KW - Language and culture KW - Linguistics KW - Sociology KW - Integrational linguistics (Oxford school) KW - Anthropo-linguistics KW - Ethnolinguistics KW - Language and ethnicity KW - Linguistic anthropology KW - Linguistics and anthropology KW - Anthropology KW - Human interaction KW - Interaction, Social KW - Symbolic interaction KW - Exchange theory (Sociology) KW - Psychology KW - Social psychology KW - Social aspects KW - Sociological aspects KW - Social interaction. KW - Anthropological linguistics. KW - Sociolinguistics. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:80816459 AB - When people do things with words, how do we know what they are doing? Many scholars have assumed a category of things called actions: 'requests', 'proposals', 'complaints', 'excuses'. The idea is both convenient and intuitive, but as this book argues, it is a spurious concept of action. In interaction, a person's primary task is to decide how to respond, not to label what someone just did. The labeling of actions is a meta-level process, appropriate only when we wish to draw attention to others' behaviors in order to quiz, sanction, praise, blame, or otherwise hold them to account. This book develops a new account of action grounded in certain fundamental ideas about the nature of human sociality: that social conduct is naturally interpreted as purposeful; that human behavior is shaped under a tyranny of social accountability; and that language is our central resource for social action and reaction. ER -