New book: Action and Agency in Dialogue

Action and Agency in Dialogue
Passion, incarnation and ventriloquism

by François Cooren, Université de Montréal

With a foreword by Bruno Latour

What happens when people communicate or dialogue with each other? ! is is the daunting
question that this book proposes to address by starting from a controversial hypothesis:
What if human interactants were not the only ones to be considered, paraphrasing Austin
(1962), as "doing things with words"? ! at is, what if other "things" could also be
granted the status of agents in a dialogical situation? Action and Agency in Dialogue:
Passion, incarnation, and ventriloquism proposes to explore this unique hypothesis by
mobilizing metaphorically the notion of ventriloquism.

According to this ventriloqual perspective, interactions are never purely local, but
dislocal, that is, they constantly mobilize figures (collectives, principles, values,
emotions, etc.) that incarnate themselves in people's discussions. ! is highly original
book, which develops the analytical, practical and ethical dimensions of such a
theoretical positioning, may be of interest to communication scholars, linguists,
sociologists, conversation analysts, management and organizational scholars, as well as
philosophers interested in language, action and ethics.

http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=DS%206