ABSTRACT
Everyday conversations are guided by pragmatic rules of communication. This chapter looks at these rules and how they characterize and shape conversations. Knowledge of these rules is part of what sociolinguists call communicative competence. The study of this form of competence has revealed that language is an adaptive and context-sensitive instrument that is shaped by its uses in conversations and by the implicit rules of social interaction that these entail. The ways in which language is used in conversations constitute primary vehicles for establishing, maintaining, defining, and cueing social relations, roles, and agendas.
