ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a highly selective overview of scholarly work, focusing primarily upon several major strands of research that have had—and continue to have—a strong influence upon our understanding of the interpersonal and psychological determinants of spoken discourse. It analyzes psycholinguistic research on conversational interaction, considering approaches that emphasize how interlocutors collaborate to accomplish particular communicative goals as well as approaches that focus primarily upon the underlying linguistic and cognitive processes that facilitate successful interactions. More than most other approaches to social and linguistic interaction, conversation analysis relies almost exclusively upon recordings and transcripts of natural talk in spontaneous interactive contexts. Clark's collaborative model suggests that the consideration of common ground is an integral part of language use in dialogue. Such consideration poses a challenge for psychological theories of conversation, given that this requires an account of how speakers and addressees come to represent the commonality of particular knowledge.
