Arnulf Deppermann is head of the Pragmatics department at The Institute for the German Language (IDS Mannheim, Germany) and professor for German linguistics at the University of Mannheim. He has studied a great variety of topics and phenomena in the fields of Conversation Analysis, Interactional Linguistics and multimodal interaction analysis. His current research focus is on how referential practices and action formation changes over interactional histories. Recently he has worked on theater rehearsals, psychotherapy, and driving lessons. Theoretically, he is interested in issues of action ascription and in the relationship between social interaction and cognitive processes. Other work includes research on understanding and intersubjectivity in interaction, grammar and semantics in interaction, narrative and identity, and the coordination of talk and embodiment in multimodal interaction.