"The book draws on discourse analytic research and applies it to a wide range of real-life situations and examples including private conversations among friends and family as well as interchanges in the classroom, workplace, and public settings. Interweaving rhetorical and cultural perspectives, the author gives particular attention to the ways talk reflects communicators' cultural and ethnic background, nationality, social class, and gender, as well as the dynamics between particular conversational partners. Illuminated is the complex role that talking plays in building relationships and creating - and ideally, resolving - relational problems."--BOOK JACKET.