Language and social interaction

Researchers from different academic disciplines approach conversation as a form of social interaction from widely differing perspectives. In this article, an overview of the sociological and sociolinguistic approaches and their different concerns in conversational interaction will be provided.

I am interested in these approaches in so far as they present views about conversation as a sociolinguistic instance which reveals interpersonal relations and various social variables. Such views are displayed in the hope of demonstrating that these perspectives fall short of providing structural analyses of conversation as a “social structure” for which participants hold themselves responsible for its maintenance.