Argues that a major difficulty in formalizing linguistic dialogue interaction is the uncertainty arising from various factors. Advances proposals for capturing at least some of those factors in logical representations: topic/subtopic arrangement; semantic allocation; participants' competence; discourse goals; semantic, psychological, and pragmatic…

Notes that, since fictional discourse need not reflect prevailing systems of meaning and norms or values, readers gain detachment from their own presuppositions; by constituting and formulating text-sense, readers are constituting and formulating their own cognition and becoming aware of the operations for doing so. (FL)

Analyzes the interaction strategies employed by a conversational participant who is unsure that he or she understands the content or the context of the interaction well enough to contribute appropriately to it but feels impelled to continue participating anyway. (FL)

Uses an analysis of children's interpretations of a complex episode of social interaction to illustrate three features that distinguish them from robot plans and that form a basis for a theory of the development of social action: human plans (1) are social, (2) operate on interpretations, and (3) are used, not just executed. (FL)

Indicates a periodic structure in the distribution of between-turn silences in two-party conversation, a finding that is inconsistent with current stochastic or signaling models, which view social interaction as an exchange of stimuli and responses. Finds that social interaction is fundamentally a collaborative activity. (JD)

Discusses focusing, the manner in which speakers center attention on a particular element of discourse, and describes a process model of focusing that specifies what syntactic, semantic, and world knowledge constraints are needed for a hearer to track a speaker's focus in a discourse. (FL)

Shows that among the qualities of interaction present in peer learning are the negotiation of teaching and collaborative roles, attention-focusing, showing and pointing, and informative messages. (FL)

Suggests that young children use their expectations of a context-specific, normal range of pause duration in timing the onset of a turn at speaking. (FL)

Uses techniques of the study of conversational analysis in oral language in the study of American Sign Language conversations, and concludes that such conversations are structured in ways that parallel those of spoken language. (FL)

Reports the findings of a study that was designed to explore children's use of language in the adversative episode. (FL)

Investigates the ways in which primary school-aged children engage a teacher's attention through active solicitation. Argues that examining these interactions reveals both what the children do and allows for a redefinition of a conceptualization of "talk engagement." (FL)

Examines social differences in expectations of indirectness in conversations between married couples, both Greek and Greek-American. Concludes that Greeks are more likely to expect indirectness in the context presented and that Greek-Americans have retained the Greek communicative patterns. (FL)

Examines longitudinally how mothers structure shared book reading interactions with their children across the preschool period. Addresses consistency of individual maternal styles over time and comparability of storybook reading styles across familiar and unfamiliar stories. Finds three maternal stylistic groups: Describers, Comprehenders, and…

Suggests that children's use of social scripts for the production of sustained dialog in peer interaction depends on the nature of role play and that their attempts at script expansion are precursors to adults' recognition of the potential of conversation for self-expression. (FL)

Examines the effect of management and turn-allocation activities on students' reading performance during classroom lessons. Shows that the teacher was often oriented toward other class members while eliciting information during students' reading turns. (FL)