Book excerpt: This book investigates four modern plays, Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, Arnold Wesker's Roots, Terence Rattigan's In Praise of Love, and Alan Ayckbourn's Just Between Ourselves, and shows how the dialogue of each 'works' with respect to ordinary conversation. By considering both linguistic and literary perspectives, this work extends the boundaries of traditional criticism and demonstrates how the linguistic study of talk can contribute to our understanding of drama dialogue.