Language and social interaction is a vibrant area of inquiry with numerous journals devoted to its study. Although well represented at major international conferences, it rarely constitutes the focus of an entire conference. LANSI (The Language and Social Interaction Working Group) is one of the few exceptions. This volume brings together a collection of papers that began as presentations and ensuing dialogues at the first two LANSI conferences, providing a snapshot and broad sampling of current research in a variety of institutional contexts such as jury deliberations, educational settings, medical interaction, and service encounters.