Linguistic Communication and Communicative Behavior

The objective of this book is to provide a description of some of the phenomena that determine linguistic behavior of communicative interaction. It is my belief that this can only be done by placing linguistic interaction in relation to human action and interaction, especially cooperation, in general. Therefore the book is divided into three parts and further chapterised into nine chapters. Part I gives an account of some of the characteristics of human action, of conventions for action and interaction, and of how we, on the basis of being acting agents ourselves, come to understand through socialization the actions of other individuals. Part II gives an account of the various communicative activities of a sender and a receiver. Part III provides a number of applications of the framework given in Part I and Part II.