Paul Seedhouse's
The Interactional Architecture of the Language Classroom: A Conversation Analysis Perspective is the fourth volume in the Language Learning Monograph Series. The volumes in this series review recent findings and current theoretical positions, present new data and interpretations, and sketch interdisciplinary research programs. Volumes are authoritative statements by scholars who have led in the development of a particular line of interdisciplinary research and are intended to serve as a benchmark for interdisciplinary research in the years to come. The value of Seedhouse's interdisciplinary focus in the present volume is clear. He synthesizes research from second language acquisition (SLA), applied linguistics, and conversation analysis and helps us to see connections among language pedagogy, classroom talk, and the structures of social action. The reader is reminded that there have been other book-length treatments of second language classroom discourse from the perspective of conversation analysis, but these other books have focused on a small number of lessons or on a small number of classes. Another original contribution of the present volume is that Seedhouse recognizes the tremendous diversity of second language classrooms: Learners differ in their first language(s), whether they speak the same first language or multiple languages, their age, their geographical location, the cultural context of instruction, and so forth. And there are just as many relevant teacher variables. Seedhouse recognizes that diversity by incorporating seven distinct databases of classroom conversations in this study. By comparing talk across many classroom contexts he is able to show that irrespective of that diversity, the reflexive relationship between the pedagogical focus of the lesson and the organization of turn-taking, sequence, and repair holds. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)