Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; Overview of chapters; Discourse analysis; 2. Involvement in discourse; Involvement; Sound and sense in discourse; Involvement strategies; Scenes and music in creating involvement; 3. Repetition in conversation: toward a poetics of talk; Theoretical implications of repetition; Repetition in discourse; Functions of repetition in conversation; Repetition and variation in conversation; Examples of functions of repetition; The range of repetition in a segment of conversation; Individual and cultural differences; Other genres; The automaticity of repetition; The drive to imitate; Conclusion; 4. 'Oh talking voice that is so sweet': constructing dialogue in conversation; Reported speech and dialogue; Dialogue in storytelling; Reported criticism in conversation; Reported speech is constructed dialogue; Constructed dialogue in a conversational narrative; Modern Greek stories; Brazilian narrative; Dialogue in writers' conversation; Conclusion; 5. Imagining worlds: imagery and detail in conversation and other genres; The role of details and images in creating involvement; Details in conversation; Images and details in narrative; Nonnarrative or quasinarrative conversational discourse; Rapport through telling details; The intimacy of details; Spoken literary discourse; Written discourse; High-involvement writing; When details don't work or work for ill; Conclusion; 6. Involvement strategies in consort: literary non-fiction and political oratory; Thinking with feeling; Literary non-fiction; Speaking and writing with involvement; Involvement in political oratory; Conclusion; 7. Afterword: toward a humanistic linguistics; Appendix I. Sources of examples; Appendix II. Transcription conventions; Notes; List of references; Author index; Subject index.