ABSTRACT
Harvey Sacks paid much attention to the strategic aspects of interaction. A characteristic of strategic interaction is that an actor may aim at getting somebody do something without appearing to do so. For instance, you can avoid giving help without refusing to do so if you treat the request as a joke. The strategic aspect of interaction is interwoven in all types of encounters, and is based in everyday talk and interaction. In institutional settings, the strategic nature of interaction is most significant in legal settings, particularly in cross-examinations. It is also a feature of media encounters, such as when avoiding an interviewer's questions. Of the various resources for strategic interaction, I will discuss describing as an activity, counter moves for avoiding negative implications, the placement of activities, the design of question series, and the use of the second position. In many of these actions, the speaker exploits the prior speaker's turn to meet his/her own aims. During the course of this chapter I will address a variety of institutional settings, but first I want to briefly consider the question: what is strategic interaction?
