Explaining and Arguing The Social Organization of Accounts [Hardcover]

Explanations identify causes, back up claims and justify actions. Social scientists study them because they reveal how people understand and construct their worlds. This stimulating book offers a critical review of the major approaches to the study of everyday explaining and arguing.

Using concrete examples to illuminate the range of contemporary approaches, Antaki's concern is to test theory against practice. He draws a picture of explanation as a richly social achievement of speaker and audience, involving a balance between delicate manoeuvre and the exercise of discursive power.Explanations identify causes, back up claims and justify actions. Social scientists study them because they reveal how people understand and construct their worlds. This stimulating book offers a critical review of the major approaches to the study of everyday explaining and arguing.

Using concrete examples to illuminate the range of contemporary approaches, Antaki's concern is to test theory against practice. He draws a picture of explanation as a richly social achievement of speaker and audience, involving a balance between delicate manoeuvre and the exercise of discursive power.`This is a remarkable book... it covers an awesome amount of ground. It tells us in some detail what cognitivists, social constructionists, discourse analysts, argumentation theorists, conversation analysts and others have to contribute to our understanding of explanation, reasoning, argument, excuses and justification... It is remarkable also for the clarity of its exposition, which is such as to command this reader's unqualified admiration and gratitude. The style is disarmingly unpretentious, even playful. The author demonstrates once and for all that it is possible to write about ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and the rest without resorting to opaque and tortured prose, thus performing a feat many of us had dispairingll³»