This volume aims at analyzing the relationship between the dialogical accomplishment of spoken talk-in-interaction on the one hand and entrenched patterns of linguistic and socio-cultural knowledge (constructions, frames, and communicative genres) on the other. The contributions analyze linguistic patterns in different languages such as English, French, German, and Swedish. Methodologically, they take up the usage-based position that structural and functional aspects of language use need to be studied empirically and "bottom-up": Since grammatical structure arises as the entrenched result of recurrent language use, its study should start with the local organization of natural talk-in-interaction before moving on to more complex and abstract relationships between linguistic structure, linguistic meaning, and socio-cultural activity/event patterns. Furthermore, they argue that Dialogism provides a promising starting point for a usage-based approach to linguistic patterns as both emerging (i.e. constructed in response to the situational circumstances of talk-in-interaction) and emergent (i.e. constructed with regard to symbolic units as parts of socially and culturally shared knowledge).

Using the example of nonfinite verbal construction ( Me give up? ), this book tries to move from the everyday use of grammatical construction to its representation in linguistic usage knowledge. Some characteristics of nonfinite verbal constructions are discussed across languages and with a view to the problem area of speech and writing."

The papers in this volume study linguistic structures in the context of their interactive functions and usages; they concentrate on grammatical constructions for the positioning of self and others. Using empirical analyses of positioning constructions, the authors show that forms and functions of grammatical structures in everyday interactions are closely interwoven with the conditions for the production and reception of spoken language. In order to take account of the tension between the stabilisation of grammatical constructions and the process of their actualisation in interactions, the authors combine methods from Interactional Linguistics with insights from usage-based positions of both Construction Grammar and Cognitive Grammar.