Abstract

The present work addresses the functional principles underlying conversation, in particular the achievement of mutuality as an irreducibly interpersonal phenomenon. Conversants are posited to cooperatively manage a mutual situation, described in situated, phenomenological terms as a joint experiential involvement with the world. This mutual situation evolves through collaborative acts of grounding . It is proposed that an underlying aim in all grounding is to sustain the overall functional integrity of the mutual situation. This aim also determines conversants' perceptions of mutual relevance, needed for joint communicative inferencing . Mutual relevance corresponds to the participants' understanding of some act as supporting their overall state of mutual functionality. ;Empirical work involved three pairs of adult volunteers. After three preparatory sessions to enhance metaconversational awareness each pair spent four one-hour sessions designing, building, and flying a kite. Discourse analysis was performed on video recordings from the kite-building phases. Descriptions, centered on conversational content, cover the entire interaction, including movements and gestures, and aspects such as conversational roles, engagement with materials and tools, and the use of representational media besides talk. The theoretical framework proves adequate for explaining the evolution of the mutual situation as a coherent, complex whole, even as conversants manage fluent and creative focus shifts, such as between aspects of a task, or from serious to joking engagement. Consistent with the notion of mutual relevance, joint communicative inferences underlying these shifts are shown to require participants' shared concern for maintenance and enhancement of an overall mutual functional state. ;Of special interest are instances of practical grounding: salient moments of practical action that serve to clarify the activity itself. The result is a merging of signifier and referent. It is argued that in these cases the conversation is reduced to a minimal core of mutual agency, collaborative action that is mutually articulated through grounding. This contrasts with traditional accounts depicting communication as the transmission or sharing of information. It is suggested that informing each other is but one type of joint project that people may engage in while seeking mutual agency, that is, while they converse