List of contributors; Preface; Part I. Introduction: 1. Introduction Allen D. Grimshaw; Part II. The Studies: Learning to Argue: 2. Disputes in the peer culture of American and Italian nursery-school children William A. Corsaro and Thomas A. Rizzo; 3. Serious and playful disputes: variation in conflict talk among female adolescents Donna Eder; 4. Interstitial argument Charles Goodwin and Marjorie Harness Goodwin; 5. The sequential organisation of closing verbal family conflict Samuel Vuchinich; Part III. The Studies: How 'Grown-ups Do It': 6. Ideological themes in reports of interracial conflict Teresa Labov; 7. Oracular reasoning in a psychiatric exam: the resolution of conflict in language Hugh Mehan; 8. Rules versus relationships in small claims disputes John M. Conley and William M. O'Barr; 9. The judge as third party in American trial-court conflict talk Susan U. Philips; 10. Difference and dominance: how labour and management talk conflict Katherine O'Donnell; 11. The management of a co-operative self during argument: the role of opinions and stories Deborah Schiffrin; 12. Silence as conflict management in fiction and drama: Pinter's Betrayal and a short story, Great Wits Deborah Tannen; Part IV. Conclusion: 13. Research on conflict talk: antecedents, resources, findings, directions Allen D. Grimshaw; List of references; Name Index; Subject Index.