Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse

Readers who expect gender-difference discussion will be disappointed; this book's topic is very different, though equally important. Tannen shows that repetition of key pieces of a speaker's utterance are useful in a variety of ways: they maintain a topic, allow turn-taking which supports the story-teller, and reinforce a speaker's point. She also demonstrates how repetition and other cooperative strategies help conversational partners negotiate meaning together.