Explicit and implicit ways of enhancing common ground in conversations

Abstract

In this paper we want to explore the notion of common ground a n d its theoretical status, and we want to illustrate how conversa- tionalists attend to their common ground, how they negotiate, maintain and enlarge it. This is part of a larger claim that much of language use consists of interlocutors' negotiation of common ground. This may happen, as we shall illustrate below, on a fairly explicit turn-by-turn level when interlocutors interrupt each other to establish the correct identity of a referent or when they ask each other to confirm assumptions, and it happens implicitly on a sentence-bty-sentence level as interlocutors signal their assumptions by their linguistic choices.