Sociale interactie in de Taalbeheersing

This paper argues that applied research should always co-exist with fundamental research. At the same time, the paper shows how social interaction research in the Netherlands has had a strongly applied focus for several decades, in particular in health care and education. In addition, the papers make a plea to stop characterizing communication studies in terms of the ‘verbal transmission of information’ since research deals not only with linguistic communication and not only with communicative activities where transmitting information is the main purpose.