Preface -- Part I. Scope, theories and methods -- 1 Introduction -- 1.1 Theoretical foundation -- 1.2 Some basic problems -- 1.3 Summary of basic problems. Preliminary hypotheses -- 2 Purpose and general design of project -- 2.1 Purpose -- 2.2 Cross-sex and same-sex groups -- 2.3 Role dichotomy -- 2.4 Quantity and quality of data -- 3 Interactants and recordings -- 3.1 Interactants -- 4 The application of Interaction Process Analysis (IPA) -- 4.1 Our procedures and discourse analysis -- 4.2 Purpose of the ComAct model -- 4.3 Bales' revised IPA model (1970) -- 4.4 IPA categories as ComActs -- 4.5 Role analysis -- 4.6 Summary of IPA procedures -- 5 The application of linguistic tentativeness signals -- 5.1 Linguistic tentativeness -- 5.2 The realization of the ComAct -- 5.3 Main-clause structure -- 5.4 Subclause function -- 5.5 Modality and modal constructions -- 5.6 Modal auxiliary verbs -- 5.7 Tag questions -- 5.8 Hedges -- 5.9 Lexical modal forms -- 5.10 Modality and lexico-structural prominence -- 5.11 Lexical clause-external modal constructions -- 5.12 Lexical clause-internal modal constructions -- 5.13 Incomplete structures -- 5.14 Dependent paralinguistic features -- Part II. Hypotheses and results -- 6 Delimitation hypotheses -- 6.1 Hypotheses about language, sex and interactional roles -- 7 Particular hypotheses -- 7.1 The A-series: Basic realization of ComActs -- 7.2 The B-series: Modality in the finite verb -- 7.3 The C-series: External modalities -- 7.4 The D-series: Hedges and lexical internal modalities -- 7.5 Conclusion -- Part III. Presentation of results by stratificational category -- 8 Results shared in by all substrata (TOT) -- 8.1 Primary sex differences -- 8.2 Primary role differences -- 8.3 Sex/role-differences -- 8.4 Summary -- 9 The younger generation (YNG) -- 9.1 Primary sex differences -- 9.2 Primary role differences.

9.3 Sex/role differences -- 9.4 Summary -- 10 The older generation (OLD) -- 10.1 Primary sex differences -- 10.2 Primary role differences -- 10.3 Sex/role differences -- 10.4 YNG and OLD: Summary -- 11 The managerial workers (MANA) -- 11.1 Primary sex differences -- 11.2 Primary role differences -- 11.3 Sex/role differences -- 11.4 Summary -- 12 The clerical workers (CLER) -- 12.1 Primary sex differences -- 12.2 Primary role differences -- 12.3 Sex/role differences -- 12.4 Summary -- 13 The manual workers (MANU) -- 13.1 Primary sex differences -- 13.2 Primary role differences -- 13.3 Sex/role differences -- 13.4 MANA, CLER, and MANU: Summary -- Bibliography -- Author index -- Systematic index of particular hypotheses -- Alphabetical index of particular hypotheses -- General index.