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Moving beyond the traditional boundaries of sociological investigation, Thomas J. Scheff brings together the study of communication and the social psychology of emotions to explore the microworld of thoughts, feelings, and moods. Drawing on strikingly diverse and rich sources--the findings of artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and examples from literary dialogues and psychiatric interviews--Scheff provides an inventive account of the nature of social life and a theory of motivation that brilliantly accounts for the immense complexity involved in understanding even the most routine conversation. "A major contribution to some central debates in social theory at the present time...What Thomas Scheff seeks to develop is essentially a quite novel account of the nature of social life, its relation to language and human reflexivity, in which he insists upon the importance of a theory of emotion...A work of true originality and jolting impact...Microsociology is of exceptional interest, which bears witness to the very creativity which it puts at the center of human social contact." --Anthony Giddens, from the Foreword