ABSTRACT
Conversation analysis (CA) has long served as an approach to the study of language and politics. This chapter provides a brief introduction to the conversation analytic approach to language and politics. It begins with a discussion of some of the methodological principles characteristic of this approach, and then reviews some exemplary research studies relevant to language and politics. It bears emphasis that the discussion of both methods and findings are far from exhaustive, and readers interested in delving deeper into the approach are urged to consult other relevant literature. Although language and politics shape one another out of the public eye, the chapter focuses on public interactions: participatory democracy meetings, political speeches and various forms of broadcast talk, including radio phone-in programmes, journalistic and 'infotainment' interviews, and news conferences. These studies are all conversation analytic in character, although some include multimodal and quantitative elaborations of CA work.
