Abstract

This study documents and characterizes a phenomenon in naturally‐occurring conversation which I have termed interactional reconstruction. Interactional reconstruction involves retroactive reinterpretation of an earlier utterance (or set of utterances) on the basis of a more recent utterance (or set of utterances). This work is meant to serve two functions: first, to enrich our theories of human communication; and second, to explore directions and implications for theories of meaning and discourse modeling within cognitive science.