The Notion of Language Game : A Natural Unit of Dialogue and Discourse

The study of dialogue is a relatively new area for linguistic research. Only ten years ago, linguists were mostly occupied with the analysis of sentences and their internal structure on various levels. In other disciplines, however, such as sociology, anthropology and philosophy, discourse has been a frequent object of study in investigations concerning the role of language in human activities from different perspectives. In this paper, I will argue that the notion of language game, introduced by Wittgenstein and discussed by many others, is the natural candidate for such a unit. The game concept is, if we make it somewhat precise , very general and covers central properties of social action (cf. Lyttkens 1981). Many authors have already begun to explore that concept for the purpose of studying dialogue (see e .g. Mann , Moore and Levivn 1977 , Levinson1979). Others use concepts that are in some respects equivalent to the game concept (see e.g. the discussion below of Reichman 's context space theory)