On 10 June 2024, Jef Verschueren gave an interview for Voices in Pragmatics, the section of the website of the International Pragmatics Association dedicated to documenting the reflections of foundational and high-contributing figures in the field. Motivated by several key considerations, I present here a (polished) transcription of the interview, the complete 1.5-hour video recording of which remains available on the website (https://​pragmatics​.international​/page​/Voices). One such motivation is that it affords an especially appropriate occasion to honor Jef Verschueren as the founder of the International Pragmatics Association, from which he retired as Secretary-General in early 2026. In terms of its content, the dialogue provides the reader with a vital retrospective on Verschueren’s central role in the emergence and growth of the field that, as he himself paraphrases it, studies “the interactive making and negotiation of meaning”. He traces the origins of his scholarly interests, reflects on the motivations underlying his key publications and the journal Pragmatics, and articulates his conception of the possible futures of the discipline. Of particular importance is that, at a more general level, the reader is offered a broader and exceptionally rich insight into the establishment of pragmatics as a recognized area of study during the second half of the twentieth century. This record is therefore of substantial interest to scholars concerned with the historiography of linguistics and of pragmatics in particular, as well as with some of the key figures who shaped the discipline and the formative events that marked its development.