Using an analytical framework from interactional linguistics, this book develops a linguistic analysis of verbal interactions. Based on a wide range of discursive exchanges between announcers and listeners from five Portuguese nighttime radio programs, Carla Aurélia de Almeida discusses the discourse strategies of caller and host and the verbal rituals that contribute to the maintenance of interactional order and institutional power. This book highlights the theoretical and methodological issues underlying the study of language in operation, characterizes the generic coordinates of institutional radio discourse, and identifies the way in which the ritualization of discursive practices is constructed. De Almeida studies face-saving strategies and phenomena like hesitations, repetitions, mitigation devices, discourse intensifiers, and directive or continuative host interventions.