NO:>,
23 <

it wAs YESterday>;

Like Ruusuvuori's (2007) treatment of Finnish 'nii' (ni), Reber distinguishes
between "different sorts of" 'ohs,' 'oohs,' and 'ahs' on both phonetic/prosodic and
interactional grounds, which she terms ''two intersecting contextualization
systems'' (249). Chapter 9 deals with ''more affect-laden sound objects," alveolar
and bilabial clicks, and whistling. These were extremely rare in Reber's data. The
last chapter of the book offers an overall summary and conclusions.

Key findings of Reber's study include her analysis of ''extra high and pointed'' 'oh'
as fulfilling three functions. The first is to avoid affiliation. The second is to defer
either a positive or negative uptake on the speaker's part. The third is to give
greater rights to the other speaker to evaluate news. Reber discovers that ''extra
high and pointed'' 'ooh' signals positive excitement (and perhaps surprise) and
results in turn expansion (146), while 'ooh' with ''high pitch and a flat, rising-falling
contour'' functions as a receipt of detailed, negative information in complaint
sequences and troubles talk (158, 161). ''Low-falling and tailed'' 'ah' appreciates
the negativity of bad news and signals empathy while ''flat-falling and low'' 'ah'
communicates responses to rejections and to bad news when the recipient is the
''consequential figure'' (247). In sum, Reber argues that affect-laden sound objects
''constitute neither random nor absolutely spontaneous productions'' (257).

EVALUATION

One of the strongest features of 'Affectivity in Interaction: Sound Objects in
English' is its excellent list of references, which includes key journal articles, book
chapters, and monographs within the four research paradigms, as well as research
on affectivity from researchers operating within grammatical, semantic, and
discourse analysis paradigms. Many of these sources -- particularly those written
in or about languages other than English -- were unfamiliar to me and added to my
understanding of Reber's analysis and argument.

While Reber's findings are not strikingly different from those of prior researchers,
the depth of analysis presented sets the book apart from previous publications.
However, the greatest disappointment of the book, in my view, is the small data
set that Reber analyzed in a small range of conversational settings. Although
Reber presents radio phone-in shows as "semi-institutional," she also states that
such conversations "constitute adjustments of the ones practiced in mundane
contexts" (60). Unfortunately, therefore, the data set lacks examples of these
sound objects in work and institutional settings, which one would have expected
given the plethora of research on these in studies of talk-in-interaction (i.e.,
Conversation Analysis). Also, an entire chapter written about 12 clicks and
whistles found in the data because they, like 'oh,' 'ooh,' and 'ah,' ''are deployed as
recipient responses to affect-laden speaker actions'' (223) lacks credibility and
does little to advance the author's argument.

The book is both strengthened by and hampered by its status as a dissertation
revision. One strength is its thorough treatment of "background" and
"preliminaries," making the volume accessible to readers with little prior knowledge
of affectivity and talk-in-interaction research. Others are its thorough literature
review and richly detailed, predictable chapter structure. However, it is also
hampered by its origin as a dissertation. While most researchers are susceptible to
the temptation of avoiding critiquing those they know and admire, dissertation
writers are in a particularly awkward position. Reber, like all scholars-in-training, is
beholden to her academic committee members. Therefore, in her review of the
literature, Reber neglects to provide the same critical appraisal of the work of
those who supervised her dissertation. In her Acknowledgments (ix), she refers to
Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen as ''my supervisor, mentor and friend," and to Marja-
Leena Sorjonen as "my second supervisor.'' Reber also thanks Margret Selting for
discussing data examples with her and therefore neglects to offer the same critical
analysis of Selting's work as she does of Wierzbicka's (1992) or of Fischer's
(2000). What is more, the author thanks Couper-Kuhlen and Elizabeth Holt for
permission to use their data, and also acknowledges Couper-Kuhlen's ''meticulous
proofreading of the current manuscript in the final stages of production'' (ix).
Reber's reliance on her mentors may be a good professional move, but I, as a
reader, would hope for critical (or at least different) input to the publication process
from those less familiar with her work.

Reber's volume will be read with interest by linguists who work within a variety of
research paradigms: Prosody-in Conversation, Phonology-for-Conversation,
Discourse-Functional linguistics, and Conversation Analysis (see also Barth-
Weingarten et al. 2010). Scholars with research interests in embodied interaction,
communication studies, and affectivity in psychology, sociology, and medicine
may also be interested in these findings. All that is necessary is that readers be
willing to consider an account of certain ''response cries'' (Goffman 1978) that is
informed by multiple paradigms and therefore highly informative and productive. It
is this analytical constellation that makes 'Affectivity in Interaction: Sound Objects
in English' a thorough and unique contribution to the analysis of conversation.
More multimodal and multidisciplinary analyses of conversation are likely to result
from studies like this.


REFERENCES

Aijmer, Karin. 2002. English discourse particles: Evidence from a corpus.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar, Elisabeth Reber and Margret Selting (eds). 2010.
Prosody in interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Cooper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2009. A sequential approach to affect: The case of
"disappointment.'' In Haakana, Markku, Minna Laakso and Jan Lindström (eds.),
Talk in interaction: Comparative dimensions, 94-123. Helskini: Finnish Literature
Society (SKS).

Fischer, Kerstin. 2000. From cognitive semantics to lexical pragmatics: The
functional polysemy of discourse particles. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Goffman, Erving. 1978. Response cries. Language 54. 787-815.

Ruusuvuori, Johanna. 2007. Managing affect: Integration of empathy and problem-
solving in health care encounters. Discourse Studies 9. 597-622.

Schegloff, Emanuel. 1993. Reflections on quantification in the study of
conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 26. 99-128.

Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Selting, Margret and Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth (eds). 2001. Studies in interactional
linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Sorjonen, Marja-Leena. 2001. Responding in conversation: A study of response
particles in Finnish. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Wierzbicka, Anna. 1992. Semantics, culture and cognition: Universal human
concepts in culture-specific configurations. New York/Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Terese Thonus teaches in the Department of English and directs the
Writing Center at the University of Kansas. She researches oral discourse
analysis and second language acquisition and writing and has published
in 'Discourse & Society,' 'Text,' the 'Journal of Second Language
Writing,' and 'Linguistics and Education,' among other venues. She is
author, with Rebecca Babcock, of 'Researching the Writing Center:
Towards an Evidence-Based Practice' (Peter Lang, 2012).