ABSTRACT
Conversation is different from other sorts of discourse. Perhaps because we all engage in it so often, it seems simple: People who speak the same language send and receive a series of messages in sequence. Actually, it isn’t nearly so simple, because those messages are jointly shaped on a moment-by-moment basis (Clark, 1992, 1996, 1997; Goodwin, 1981; Krauss, 1987; Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974; Schegloff, 1982). Unlike people engaged inmonologue or in reading or writing text, conversationalists have the opportunity to rely on their partners in ways that structure the discourse itself.
