ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an understanding that institutional communication was necessary with a view to achieving the institutional goals and purposes. In a way of speaking, communication is the fuel that keeps the institutional engine running. The chapter presents the basics of Weigand's action game theory, which she calls the Mixed Game Model. It considers the dialogic action game as the basic unit of communication in general and, consequently, as a basic unit of communication in the institutional context. The minimal form of the action game is a dialogic exchange between dialog partners consisting of the communicative action and the communicative reaction. Action and reaction include speech acts like requesting information, making a statement about the world, asking somebody to carry out a practical action, as well as complying and agreeing, among others. The chapter classifies institutional communication into distinct types. The classification is done on the basis of a type continuum with the two end points "impersonal/pre-defined/formal" and "personal/undefined/informal".
