Interactive alignment and prediction 
in dialogue

In this chapter we discuss Pickering and Garrod’s (2004) interactive alignment account of dialogue processing and consider a range of evidence supporting the model. We then introduce a more nuanced account of interactive alignment than that in Pickering and Garrod (2004) based on speakers’ and listeners’ ability to predict what they are about to say or hear using forward language models (Pickering & Garrod, 2013). In this account interactive alignment comes about in part from the matching between interlocutors’ predictions. Finally, we consider how this development relates to the research reported in other chapters in this volume.