ABSTRACT
IT IS commonplace for studies of everyday discourse to assume, explicitly or implicitly, that relationships among language and meaning are not static, immobile, or otherwise dormant. Interaction evolves because of the use of a variety of conversational mechanisms, situated within turn-taking sequences, which function temporally to organize understandings and regulate a sense of social structure unique to each social occasion. As information is exchanged, speakers and hearers simply go places with talk in order to accomplish such practical activities as making points, revealing opinions, planning actions, and reporting ordinary experiences. Collaboratively, speakers and hearers rely on conversation as a vehicle for traveling and journeying, that is, for taking excursions into the past, the present, and the future without ever having to leave the immediate (physical) context of interaction. Switching from one time dimension to another is a regular feature of everyday interaction, such that present discourse both influences and is influenced by past events and future possibilities. Thus, while references to what has or might happen reveal how discourse is a medium for transcending time and space, it cannot be ignored that what is happening interactionally constrains the meaningful nature of these temporal references.
