HOW BIG? Answering a Question of Size
This fragment of interaction taken from a videotaped recording of a family gathering at Easter, illustrates the use of a second pair-part embodied action within a different type of question/ answer adjacency pair sequence -- a question is size is posed: "HOW BIG DOT?". The participants, two adults (Lil, the aunt, and Ann, the mother of Dot) and two children (Dot and her cousin Zev), are discussing the Easter Bunny. Note, however, that also occurring in this fragment are second and third examples of an embodied action response-turn in a question/answer adjacency pair sequence of the yes/no type similar to the Thirsty instance. In this case, we see Dot, the girl, provide a vertical head nod as the embodied, nonvocalized, second pair-part in the two sequences (at lines 4 and 20). But this instance provides an illustration of another type of question/answer adjacency pair sequence, one of size. Our focus is on what Ann asks her daughter at lines 12 and 14, and on what Dot does in the interaction starting at line 16.
(Click on PLAY button for HOW BIG?; note especially moments marked by arrows).
1 Dot: ... [the bu:nny:
[
2 Zev: [the bunny's [ a boy bun:
[
3 Lil: [the bu:nny's a gi::rl? =
4 Dot: = [((EA head-nod --(0.3)-->))
[
5 Zev: [ny:
6 Lil: it's a bo:y [bunny?
[
7 Zev: [ (a) BO:Y BUNny. =
8 Dot: = UhnUh, a ge::ul.
9 (0.5)
10 Zev: a BO:[Y: bu:n [n ny:
[ [
11 Dot: [ [ (no:)
[ [
12 Ann: [HOW BIG [DOT? <---
13 (0.2)
14 Ann: How big? <---
15 (0.6)
16 Dot: ((EA --->(0.5)-[-------------------> <---
[
17 Ann: [as big as me::?
18 Dot: ((EA --holding--(0.3)----->
19 ((EA--starts dissolving--(0.2)---->
20 Dot: ((EA--nod-up/still dissolving--->))
21 (0.2)
22 Zev: (They're) F A T
23 (0.7)
23 Dot: NO: THEY'RE NO::T
At lines 12 and 14 indicated by the arrows, we hear Ann, the girl's mother, ask and then repeat a question, thereby initiating an adjacency-pair sequence of a certain type. In contrast with our prior example, the first pair-part in this case is a vocalized "how big" question, and Dot's second pair-part response (starting at line 16) is a nonvocalized embodied action-turn that provides a physical display of her second pair-part response to her mother's question, and to just that type of question. Note the fact of her nonvocalized performance as it constitutes her turn in the interaction: its sequential fit in the adjacency pair structure, its display of analysis of Ann's question as a size-question, its provision of a size-answer to that question. (Details of the internal structure of Dot's second pair-part action-turn, and its assembling, holding, and dissolving, are examined more closely in Chapter Four, Section Three).
The instance How Big? demonstrates how a participant uses nonvocalized embodied actions to provide valid second pair-part responses in question/answer adjacency pair sequences of two kinds (size;yes/no). It also demonstrates how unproblematic the use of such turns is for the participants themselves. In the next instance, Scary, another kind of adjacency pair sequence is examined: an assessment sequence.