Conversation, cohesive and thematic patterning in children's dialogues∗

The investigation of conversation has recently taken several directions including speech act analysis, examination of the linguistic structures used in conversation, and the ethnomethodological approaches of conversational organization. This report presents some interactions among these kinds of approaches that are simultaneously present in spontaneous conversation. It was found that the use of cohesion in conversation is related to the conversational status of the different kinds of turns a speaker may take. The organization of information within clauses was also found to be related to both the turn‐taking structureof the conversation and the use of cohesion.