Changes in the ecology of languages and communicative settings brought about, and accelerated, by digital transformation and increased global mobility see interactants engaging with new communicative possibilities and challenges such as computer-mediated interactions on a new scale.

Research Area 4 shifts the focus of investigation from face-to-face interaction to mediated discourse settings, which comprise digitally mediated discourses, including computer-mediated and human-machine interaction (e.g. interaction with conversational AIs), and societal discourses, i.e. asynchronous, many-to-many discourses (e.g. political discourses, science communication), which are also often digitally mediated. These discourses have been studied intensively in a range of disciplines including in media studies, philosophy, psychology, and linguistics. Here, we approach their investigation from the innovative perspective of our newly and substantially deepened understanding of face-to-face interaction. We thus ask: Which mechanisms and resources found in face-to-face interaction also work in asynchronic and mediated interactions? Which don’t? Where does the need for new, setting-specific means of managing communicative trouble arise and how successful are these new means?