"Interactional competence" is a theoretical construct that has only recently been tested empirically. Speakers contribute to an interaction with their individual resources; however, interactional competence is co-constructed by all participants. Interactional competence can be observed in spoken interaction as speakers' combined ability…

This dissertation explores how participants express and interpret verbal cues of interaction involvement in dyadic conversations via text-based Instant Messaging (IM). Moreover, it seeks to discover differences in the way American participants and Chinese participants use verbal cues when they are highly, or lowly involved. Based on previous…