Review of Studies on Alignment in Polylogue

Alignment is an important feature in polylogue as w ell as an indispensable variable in the study of polylogue. This paper tries to give a comprehensive review of the study of alignment in polylogue,w hich covers the dynamics of negotiating alignment,linguistic resources and their distributional features in achieving alignment,interactive relationships betw een institutional talk and mechanism of alignment and the influence of extra-interactional factors upon alignment. After the review and analysis of the previous studies,directions for future study are suggested.