ABSTRACT
Spontaneous, spoken interaction is of interest to a wide range of disciplines. From a linguistic point of view it is the archetypal use of language, in which all of us acquire our first language, and many properties of language must be accounted for with reference to it. Sociologists, similarly, are interested in conversation simply because so much of our everyday lives is conducted through the medium of speech. Computational linguists use machines to model language understanding and production. We shall be examining in detail all these three perspectives in the course of this chapter. Others who have taken a more specialised interest in conversation include social and clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, educationalists and teacher trainers. It is therefore only to be expected that there is no unified theory of conversation that can be put together from these varied approaches, and this chapter reflects that diversity. We begin, however, with some general observations.
