Abstract
This article provides an overview of the research traditions that shaped current interactional research in Italian linguistics. It discusses different ways in which talk-in-interaction has been conceptualised, starting from the early writings in Romance philology and its subfields and then focusing especially on Leo Spitzer’s pioneering work, which was consigned to oblivion for decades in the Italian-speaking world. The article carves out the impact disciplines such as sociology and anthropology had on the establishment of interaction as an object of investigation. Finally, it offers a brief historical and epistemological account of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, and presents a synopsis of studies carried out in and on Italian.