Focusing on the increasing attention of communication scholars to the production of conversation, this paper outlines three broad perspectives on discourse analysis: (1) codification, which involves discrete categorizing of discourse and includes work in speech act theory, traditional interaction analysis, and message strategies; (2) coordination, which requires a search for mechanisms that coordinate conversation exchanges and focus on the structure of discourse, cognitive rules, and resource exchange models of discourse; and (3) cooperation, which views communicators as active, goal seeking agents in understanding the production of conversation and is concerned with cooperative dialogue and contexts for conversation. The historical development of each perspective is sketched, and within each one of these some theoretical approaches concerned with conversational coherence are discussed. In addition, each perspective is examined in terms of the felicity conditions suggested by W. Pearce and V. Cronen, who argue that a theory should be evaluated on the basis of its utility. The paper's analysis of codification, coordination, and cooperative models reveals critical issues and important differences in various scholars' conceptualizations of conversation. The utility of the cooperative perspective in examining the accomplishment of coherent discourse is demonstrated. Suggestions for future directions in message analysis and researching conversational coherence are offered. (Seven pages of references are provided). (JD)