Talk is rule-governed.
Any approach to discourse must be concerned with explaining the amazing fact that we, as humans, are able to communicate as successfully as we do. Even though each conversation is unique, we tend to do the same things over and over again in conversation. Will will try to operationalize the theories we are discussing by attempting to apply them to data we collect and bring to class. We will look critically at what these theories have to offer and where they may fall short. We will explore notions of context and what that actually means in terms of interpreting discourse.