The objective of this research is to contribute to our knowledge of how people seek information, and how computer systems can be designed to help in this process. Most information retrieval research since the field emerged in the 1950's has reduced these questions to that of trying to determine how documents relevant to a user's query might be selected from a large collection of texts---a question that has proved remarkably difficult to answer. The present work takes the stance that this particular reduction increasingly limits progress towards the objective stated above. It is directed instead towards the development of a framework for IR based on the notions of discourse and human communication.