Passing the time of day : the cognition of chatting

![CDATA[Chatting (i.e. informal communication) is how we most frequently use language. It was through chatting that we learned our native tongue, and our most likely reason for learning other languages is to be able to chat to people with a different native tongue. We could seek to characterize the cognition of language by studying controlled speech. However, focusing on everyday chat reveals not only the complexity of the behaviour, but also the challenges that we meet, and how even the most incidental exchanges are underpinned by astounding moment-to-moment computation. This chapter describes the processes involved in talking (Section 19.2), the processes involved in listening (Section 19.3), and the reasons why these processes may falter when we are using a language acquired later than in childhood (Section 19.4, and also Chapter 21). Chatting is, above all, characterized by ease and naturalness; sharing a language helps.]]