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Psychology and sociology often generate an amazing intensity of jargon.
Edited by Yrjo Engestrom and David Middleton, Cognition and Communication at
Work (Cambridge University Press, £35/ $44.95, ISBN 0 521 44104 8)
examines how people think and work together in a number of interesting
situations—an airline cockpit, the London Underground and courts in
Finland and the US that handle drink-driving cases. The London Underground
chapter describes nicely the second-by-second demands made on those who control
the line and how they cope. But the effect is spoilt when we are told that this
is really “sociointeractional practice”.