Understanding spoken discourse

International audienceSpoken discourse is the ongoing, situated interpretation of a speaker's communicative intentions, of which the addressee's expected and actual reactions are an integral part. The creation of discourse is thus a joint endeavor, involving the active cooperation of all the participants. The textual record on which this constructive activity is based, in conjunction with the invocation of a relevant context, is constituted not only by the verbal content of the utterances produced, but also by non-verbal signals. According to Clark (1996), the text flow is divided between two simultaneously operative tracks: a primary "official business" track, and a secondary discourse-management track. Evidence for the existence and specialization of these two tracks is given via extracts from two radio broadcast discussions