Many of the readers of this list may recall my request for feedback
and advice in a note I posted last Spring. I study the improvisational
aspects of conversation. My work is firmly empirical, combining
ethnographic observation, transcription, and discourse analysis with
the coding and statistical techniques of psychology. My evolving
theoretical framework combines creativity theory, pragmatics,
sociolinguistics, and semiotics.
My primary area of research is in children's preschool pretend play,
and I have a book soon to be published by Lawrence Erlbaum, _Pretend
play as improvisation_. I have also written on jazz performance,
and I am several years into a study of improvisational theater.