This article reviews and critiques traditional approaches to the study of discourse in negotiations. Then, drawing from an ethnographic study, it contrasts different ways in which discourse either constrains disputants or enables them to transform issues and the very nature of their disputes. Through an analysis of two rhetorical tropes used in the discourse, it examines the way in which bargainers enact tacit norms, use bargaining formulas, and define the nature of their interdependence. The article then draws from the textual analysis of negotiation to contrast different ways that meanings and organizational understandings are produced and reproduced through social interaction.
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