Contents -- Chapter One: Introduction -- 1. Language and power -- 2. Investigating power in a close-knit group -- 3. Latent and emergent networks -- 4. Interventions as interruptions in discourse -- 5. The structure of the book -- 6. The data and the participants -- 6.1 The data -- 6.2 The participants -- Chapter Two: Towards a dynamic model of discourse -- 1. Introductory -- 2. A modular approach to discourse structure -- 2.1 The exchange structure -- 2.2 Action structure -- 2.3 Ideational structure -- 2.4 The participation framework -- 2.5 The information state -- 2.6 Levels or modules? -- 3. Turns and floors -- 4. Turns as on-record "speakings" -- 5. The floor as participation space in the discourse -- 6. Topics -- Chapter Three: Defining power -- 1. Power as inherent to verbal interaction -- 2. Self-image, status and dominance -- 3. Definitions of power -- 3.1 Power as the capacity to impose one's will -- 3.2 The consensual view of power -- 3.3 Power as a commodity and power as a discursive force -- 3.4 Power as the capacity to achieve one's aims -- 4. Defining the exercise of power -- Chapter Four: Intervention as interruption in social science research -- 1. Preliminary remarks -- 2. Interruption as a theoretical term -- 3. Interruptions as simultaneous speech -- 4. Operationalising interruption as a variable in experimental research -- 5. Conceptualising the term "interruption" within conversation analysis -- 6. Taxonomies of interruption -- 7. Interpretive criteria in evaluating interruptions -- 8. Interruptions as face-threatening behaviour and the exercise of power -- 9. A return to the "prudish view" of interruptions -- 10. Interrupting as a reprehensible social activity: the lay interpretation -- 11. Towards a definition of interruption -- Chapter Five: Types of verbal intervention in family discourse -- 1. Introduction.

2. Turn-internal interventions -- 2.1 Off-record minimal listener responses -- 2.2 Turn-internal support and agreement -- 2.3 Looking for space on the floor: the preemptive bid -- 2.4 Responding and contradicting turninternally -- 3. Apparent interventions due to lack of synchronisation -- 4. Intervening without overlap: the "silent interruption" -- 4.1 Petering out -- 4.2 Cutting in -- 5. Projecting turn-completion and intervening at tone unit boundaries -- 6. Blatant interventions -- 6.1 Blatant interventions of a negative kind -- 6.2 Blatant interventions of a positive kind -- Chapter Six: Latent and emergent networks -- 1. Introductory remarks -- 2. The concept of network in social science research -- 3. Morphological and interactional features of a network -- 3.1 Morphological features -- 3.2 Interactional features -- 4. Latent and emergent networks -- 5. The development of an emergent network -- 6. An individual member's status within the latent family network -- 6.1 The peripheral member -- 6.2 The member as competitor -- 6.3 The member as authority and resource person -- Chapter Seven: Status in the emergent network -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Dramatising the self -- 3. The negotiation of status in an emergent network -- 4. A detailed analysis -- 5. Requests and narratives -- Chapter Eight: Interventions and the negotiation of status and power -- 1. Introductory remarks -- 2. Struggling for power as a resource person: the data -- 3. Determining the emergent networks -- 4. Attempting to open up a second floor -- 5. The centrality index and the measurement of status -- 6. Setting up and consolidating status as a resource person -- 7. Challenging a position of power -- 8. Establishing power as a narrator -- 9. Regaining status as a narrator -- Chapter Nine: Intervention research in and beyond family discourse -- 1. Introduction.

2. Status, power and the exercise of power -- 3. Emergent networks in radio phone-in programmes -- 4. Perceiving interventions as interruptive: evidence for face loss -- 5. Gathering further data -- Notes -- References -- Author and subject index.