Raymond F. Pearson, In Conversation with Jonah: Conversation Analysis, Literary Criticism, and the Book of Jonah (JSOT Supplement, 220),
____Sheffield Academic Press, 1996.

Advanced level; Moderate perspective; Methodological and narratological considerations

Pearson brings the fruits of a relatively unexplored sociolinguistic tool--conversation analysis--to bear on the text of the Book of Jonah. In this conservative reader-response (viz, Iserian) analysis of Jonah, Pearson focuses his attention on the "function and characteristics of 'adjecency pairs' " (In Conversation, 108) in the narrative text of Jonah. Pearson's application of the conversation-analytic categories to the embedded speech in the Jonah narrative are unusually insightful. His analysis leads him to conclude that the narrator portrays Jonah as a particularly satirical prophetic figure.

For valuable criticisms of Pearson's work and his response see Ehud Ben Zvi (ed.), "Conversaltion Analysis and the Book of Jonah: A Conversation," Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 1 (1997): art. 2.