Conversational Structure

A. Definition of Conversation

Conversation is clearly the prototypical kind of language usage, the form in which we are all first exposed to language. All major aspects of pragmatic organization are connected to usage in conversation such as  Deixis: encoding of temporal, spatial, social, discourse parameters organized around the assumption of co-present conversational participants. Presupposition: involving constraints on the way in which information has to be presented if it is to be introduced to particular participants with specific shared knowledge and assumptions about the world. Implicatures: deriving from specific assumptions about conversational context.  Speech acts: building on the assumption of a conversational matrix (e.g., betting requires an uptake to be effective).