ABSTRACT

Linguistics.—Verbal or nonverbal interaction between individuals (conversation, dialogue, discussion, controversy, but also exchanging looks or gestures) can be regarded as either the locus of the actualization and manifestation of preexisting human organization principles or as a privileged place where social, cognitive, and linguistic forms are constructed, where they emerge (→COMMUNICATION, CONSTRUCTIVISM, EMERGENCE, LANGUAGE, SOCIAL COGNITION). This second, interactional or interactionist view has interested philosophers as varied as Francis Jacques and Jürgen Habermas, and has been studied empirically in several disciplines of the human sciences. It has led to conceptions of language and cognition that do not focus on the representation of references and hence on the relationship between words and things (→SENSE/REFERENCE), but rather on the establishment of intersubjective relationships and hence on the construction of public versions of the world linked to actions in context (→ACTION, CONTEXT AND SITUATION). This approach reformulates a number of questions about social relations and social order, child socialization and learning, and the emergence of grammar (→GRAMMAR, LEARNING).