ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that playscripts in general, and modern playscripts in particular, are an extremely rich resource for the conversational analyst, who is ultimately interested in accounting for and describing the structures and sociolinguistic constraints that are the rules for naturally occurring conversations. Alienation concepts are referred as 'estrangement devices', and 'foregrounding'. It is clear that creative literature itself can be seen and used as an Alienation Device on social life, as in the use of imaginative literature as data in the recent work on the 'Sociology of the Everyday'. The chapter reviews sociological work that has used literature as data for sociological observation and correlation. There can be seen to be a strong link between the concept of Alienation and that expressed by writers in other disciplines, or each, it is seen as a general procedure to enable observations and critical or descriptive thought, in a movement towards data-based theory.
