Processes of interactive spoken discourse: The role of the partner

We first outline features of interactive spoken discourse that distinguish it from other forms of discourse and the research methods that have evolved to examine it. We then review some of the basic facts about production and comprehension in conversation, which show various ways that speakers and addressees take each other into account, or at least seem to. We present arguments from the discourse literature about what sorts of mental processes and representations are needed to explain these findings. Based on these arguments, we lay out a set of theoretical distinctions that need to be kept in mind in the empirical studi of converstaion. Finally, with these distinctions in mind, we review the controversial emprical literature that focuses on when and whether people adapt their discourse to each other.