One of the main concerns we often share as teachers and applied linguists, is how to approach certain conversational activities both as to what refers to their linguistic characterization and as to what concerns the pedagogic side of the teaching/learning of the activity at issue. What is established then at the outset is an existing link between language description and implementation of method(s). The study of negotiating activity is one such example, where the linguistic approach has undergone a series of shifts, which have largely influenced the learning/teaching approach to this conversational genre. It is our purpose in this article to review the processes that studies into negotiating activity have undergone, thereby revealing the most outstanding features around which linguistic studies have centred, as well as to refer to the pedagogical implications which stem from isolating those features. The article does also seek to present a comprehensive state-of-the-art view of the linguistic studies into negotiating activity.