APPROACHING DIALOGUE Talk, interaction and contexts in dialogical perspectives -- Editorial page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Table of contents -- Preface -- PART I. Monologism and Dialogism Contrasted -- CHAPTER 1. Perspectives on language and discourse -- 1.1 Language as system vs. language in practice -- 1.2 Discourse: Individuals' use of language or interactions-in-contexts -- 1.3 Dialogism, dialogicality and dialogue -- 1.4 The traditional conflation of 'dialogism' and 'dialogue' -- 1.5 Dialogue: Interaction between co-present individuals through symbolic means -- CHAPTER 2. Monologism: Its basic assumptions -- 2.1 Cognition and communication as empirically distinct phenomena -- 2.2 Cognition as information processing by individuals -- 2.3 The transfer-and-exchange model of communication -- 2.4 The code model of language structure -- 2.5 The indirect dependence on written language in monologism -- 2.6 The ontological assumptions of monologism -- CHAPTER 3. Dialogism: Some historical roots and present-day trends -- 3.1 Interactions, contexts and social (re)construction -- 3.2 Dialogism of classical times -- 3.3 Before the 20th century -- 3.4 Some 20th century traditions -- 3.4.1 Phenomenology: Perspectives and multiple realities -- 3.4.2 Pragmatism: The gradual emergence of meaning -- 3.4.3 Symbolic interactionism and social behaviourism: The three-step model of communicative interaction -- 3.4.4 Sociocultural theory: Activity types and semiotic mediation -- 3.4.5 Summary: Some dialogistic ideas -- 3.5 Some present-day research traditions.: Empirical studies of discourse in interaction and contexts -- CHAPTER 4. Language structure and linguistic practices -- 4.1 The monologistic theory: Social realism plus individualism -- 4.2 Radical interactionism -- 4.3 Social constructionism -- PART II. Interacting and making sense in contexts.

CHAPTER 5. The dynamics of dialogue -- 5.1 Conversation as the habitat of dialogical principles -- 5.2 The sequential organization of a social activity -- 5.3 Coordination and synchronization of utterance segments in dialogue -- 5.4 Co-accomplishment in concerted activities -- 5.5 Interaction as expressing and testing mutual understanding -- 5.6 The local production of meaning and coherence -- 5.7 Dialogue as a series of opportunities for relevant continuations -- 5.8 The dynamics of discourse units -- 5.9 Summary: Some dialogical principles -- 5.9.1 Sequentiality -- 5.9.2 Joint construction -- 5.9.3 Act-activity interdependence -- 5.9.4 A superordinate principle: Reflexivity between discourse and contexts -- 5.10 Differing perspectives on dialogicality -- CHAPTER 6. Speakers and listeners -- 6.1 Monological speakers or dialogical interlocutors -- 6.2 Speaking: The production of utterances? -- 6.3 Embodied minds and persons in interaction -- 6.4 The production of utterance meaning -- 6.4.1 Reference and situated description -- 6.4.2 Responsive properties -- 6.4.3 Obligational aspects -- 6.4.4 The 'why' of communication -- 6.4.5 Social languages -- 6.5 The role of the speaker's partners in authoring utterances -- 6.5.1 The addressee -- 6.5.2 Other listeners -- 6.5.3 Principals and remote audiences -- 6.6 Conclusion -- CHAPTER 7. Sense-making in discourse and the situated fixation of linguistic meanings -- 7.1 Linguistic meaning and situated interpretation -- 7.2 Meaning in fixed codes and fixed contexts, or accomplishments in situated activities -- 7.3 Situatedness: Contextualization, decontextualization and recontextuali-zation -- 7.4 The nature of lexical meanings: Stable features or dynamic potentials? -- 7.5 Fixed word meanings or temporary fixations -- CHAPTER 8. Contexts in discourse and discourse in contexts.

8.1 The incompleteness of language -- 8.2 Types of contextual resources -- 8.3 Dimensions of contexts: cross-classifying contexts and contextual resources -- 8.4 Two perspectives on contexts of discourse -- 8.5 Some additional properties of contexts -- 8.5.1 Backgrounding -- 8.5.2 Relevance -- 8.5.3 Partial sharedness -- 8.5.4 Dynamics of utterance, contexts and understanding -- 8.6 Recontextualizations at the micro-level -- selective use of cotextual resources -- 8.7 Fragments of discourses and contexts -- 8.8 Local decontextualizations -- 8.9 Perspectival conflicts and competing context spaces -- 8.10 Recontextualizations at a global level: Intertextuality and interdiscursivity -- CHAPTER 9. Elementary contributions to discourse -- 9.1 Elementary building-blocks: Utterances, idea units and turns at talk -- 9.2 The response-initiative structure of contributions to dialogue -- 9.3 Excursus: The elements of social action -- 9.4 Varieties of contributions to dialogue -- 9.5 Utterances that are not full-fledged contributions to dialogue -- 9.6 Initiative and response as relational aspects of turns -- 9.7 Coding elementary contributions to dialogue -- 9.8 The dialogicality of larger units of discourse -- CHAPTER 10. Episodes and topics -- 10.1 Topic progression in the flow of discourse -- 10.2 The joint production of a topic -- 10.3 Episodes: units of natural social interaction -- 10.4 Monotopical and polytopical episodes -- 10.5 Non-topical episodes -- 10.6 Local and global coherence -- 10.7 Topical trajectories and transitions between episodes -- 10.8 Topical development in monologue -- 10.9 Episodes as the locus for creating temporarily shared understanding -- 10.10 The gradual determination of indeterminate topics -- 10.11 Episodes and topics as emergent and dynamic events -- 10.12 Units of talk-in-interaction -- CHAPTER 11. Communicative projects.

11.1 Communicative actions as interactions -- 11.2 Speech act theory: Monological acts by individual speakers -- 11.3 Intentionality and responsibility -- 11.4 From speech acts to local sequences, language games and communicative projects -- 11.5 The notion of a 'communicative project': A first approximation -- 11.6 Communicative projects: Asymmetrical participation and collective accomplishment -- 11.7 Limits to sharedness: Misalignment of parties' projects, and coordination of competing goals -- 11.8 The nested nature of projects -- 11.9 Communicative strategies: Methods of accomplishing communicative projects -- 11.10 The past- and future-orientation of communicative projects -- 11.11 'Communicative project' as a discourse-analytic concept -- CHAPTER 12. Situation definitions, activity types and communicative genres -- 12.1 Activity types as situation definitions -- 12.2 Communicative genres -- 12.3 Genres of 'ordinary conversation' -- 12.4 The global structure of activities: Core activities and phase structure -- 12.5 Communication in relation to non-communicative activities -- 12.6 Coherence, relevance and topic progression as activity-dependent -- 12.7 The creative accomplishment of routines within genres -- 12.8 The partial sharedness of activities and genres -- 12.9 Classifying communicative activities in families -- PART III. Monologism and dialogism reconciled? -- CHAPTER 13. Dialogism: opportunities and limitations -- 13.1 Dialogical principles and the theory of discourse structure -- 13.2 Dialogue theory and empirical methods -- 13.3 Extending dialogue theory: A general epistemology for communication and cognition -- 13.3.1 Monological speech and thought -- 13.3.2 Dialogism and written texts -- 13.4 Dialogism as opposed to radical social constructionism -- 13.4.1 Subjects and agency.

13.4.2 The material basis as constraints on discursive construction -- 13.5 Dialogism as a context-specific framework -- 13.6 The limits of dialogism -- CHAPTER 14. Reconstructing monologism as a special case -- 14.1 Monologism and dialogism as perspectivized frameworks -- 14.2 In support of monologistic practices -- 14.3 From decontextualizing practices to decontextualized theories -- 14.4 Conclusion -- References -- Appendix: Transcription conventions -- Index -- The series IMPACT: Studies in language and society.