This book contains a series of studies I have been doing to look for better ways of describing the structure of human action, the relation between key decisions and outcomes, and the forces that give shape to events. I would like to think that the results could be applied to a variety of activity systems, particularly those which are especially problematic, such as interpersonal and intergroup conflict. For the most part, however, I will confine my examples to one single activity, which is in itself a 'test-case' for many others - conversation. This presents a degree of complexity which challenges orthodox methodology, but is sufficiently common and recordable to be a good introduction to the greater difficulties which lie beyond.
Although my intention is to use conversation analysis as a means to an end, the material may also be of some interest to those who study talk in its own right. The book does not set out to offer a comprehensive review of the field of discourse analysis, or to do justice to opinions and appraisals other than my own, but it does provide a context for its main studies and issues by citing certain key works from the literature of linguistics, the philosophy of language, ethnomethodology, machine intelligence, cybernetics, operations research and general systems theory.
I would, of course, like to thank friends and relations too numerous to mention, for their help and support, but in particular Dr. John Breaux who has influenced my thinking more than anyone else; the SSRC for financial support; St. John's and Wolfson Colleges, Oxford, of which I was a member while carrying out this research; the Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford, in which it was done; and Dr. Michael Argyle without whose help as graduate supervisor, senior grant-holder, series editor and friend this book would never have been written. Many thanks are also due to Ann McKendry for typing the various drafts, and to research assistants who helped enormously with the running and analysis of experiments, particularly Christine Smith, and also Peter McPhail, Dr. Anne Campbell, Peter Hancock and John Collins. Special thanks are due to Jill Crossland and Giovanni Carnibella for their assistance with proof reading and the preparation of indexes.

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