Communication and Negotiation How Talk Works: Studying Negotiation Interaction

Negotiation depends on communication. Whatever else goes on during a negotiation, parties attempt to manage their differences and reach agreements through exchanges of messages that make up sequences of moves and countermoves. Complementing language use, negotiation interaction is unavoidably situated within physical and social environments that can function as resources for negotiators: location (institutional, architectural), embodiment (posture, gesture, laughter, eye gaze), modes of communication (documents, symbol systems, telephones, e-mails), and social relationships. Furthermore, even the “mental” elements of negotiation (goals, planning and strategizing, emotional reactions, evaluating outcomes, etc.) are communicatively constituted, made public, and mutually understood in and through interaction. More than simply representing and conveying information, communication is the means by which social actors create meanings, outcomes, identities, and relationships.