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Beyond the garden of a thousand flowers

Towards a theory of dialogue as human action

 | Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
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Abstract
Current dialogue research is characterized by remarkable theoretical diversity, described by Edda Weigand as a “garden of a thousand flowers”. While this plurality has enriched the field, it has also blurred the conceptual boundaries of dialogue. This paper argues that additive approaches risk obscuring dialogue as a distinct theoretical object. Building on dialogue theory developed within the tradition of the International Association for Dialogue Analysis (IADA), dialogue is conceptualized as the organizing principle of human communicative action. Drawing on Weigand’s concepts of the Minimal Action Game, competence-in-performance, and the architecture of meaning, the paper demonstrates how dialogue systematically integrates sequentiality, responsiveness, purpose, evaluation, persuasion, emotion, and verification into a coherent explanatory framework of human communication.
Article outline
  • 1.Dialogue research at a crossroads
  • 2.Dialogue, communication, interaction, and dialogism: Towards a distinct object of inquiry
    • 2.1Communication: The broadest framework
    • 2.2Interaction: Coordinated human action
    • 2.3Conversation analysis: The sequential organization of talk
    • 2.4Pragmatics: Meaning as situated action
    • 2.5Discourse: Communication in society
    • 2.6Dialogism: Dialogue as a philosophical principle
    • 2.7Dialogue theory: A different explanatory level
  • 3.Dialogue as the organizing principle of human communicative action
    • 3.1From communicative phenomena to organizational principles
    • 3.2Dialogue as an organizing principle
    • 3.3Human communicative action as a dynamic process
    • 3.4Towards an explanatory theory of dialogue
  • 4.Reconstructing dialogue as an explanatory theory
    • 4.1The minimal action game: Reciprocity as the elementary unit of dialogue
    • 4.2Competence-in-performance: Communication as emergent organization
    • 4.3Purpose: The organizing force of dialogue
    • 4.4The architecture of meaning
    • 4.5Dialogue theory as an integrative explanatory framework
  • 5.Implications for dialogue studies
    • 5.1The explanatory status of dialogue
    • 5.2Dialogue Studies as an integrative discipline
    • 5.3Dialogue Studies in the age of Artificial Intelligence
    • 5.4Future perspectives for dialogue research
    • 5.5Reconsidering the future of Dialogue Studies
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Author queries
  • References
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