Communication as Social Interaction

The stereotypical definition "language as an instrument of communication" projects the perspective of linguistic interaction into the wider framework of social interaction. Starting from the mid-90s, the study of the communicational dimension has increasingly opened towards the exploration of the action dimension. This seems closest to rendering the stake of any discursive act: when proposing to say something, the speaker/addresser does not only intend to communicate that "something", but also to act in one way or another upon the interlocutor - recipient of the message - thus determining the latter to re-act in his turn. Knowledge or ignorance of certain codes, ways of address, linguistic or non-linguistic behaviours, as well as of common linguistic practices can lead, as the case requires, to the success or failure of the communicative act.