SECTION 3.2.1

 

EMBODIED ACTION-TURNS IN ADJACENCY PAIR SEQUENCES

Following Sacks' admonition that analysts of human interaction should be "dealing with recognizability, constantly" (1992, Vol. I, 239), one of the claims being made here is that embodied actions are produced with some expectation and in such a manner that they will be recognizable to recipients. Within vocalized adjacency pairs, it has been well-described that recognizing and producing a relevant and appropriate next item at a precisely specified and projectable-in-advance moment or slot is part of the interactional work co-participants must accomplish or be held conversationally accountable for (Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974; Sacks 1972; C. Goodwin 1979; West and Zimmerman 1982).

The present data reveal that embodied actions are used recurrently and systematically by participants to create and to fill adjacency-pair slots in unfolding sequences of interaction. That co-participants do so and collaboratively accomplish smooth turn-transition in so doing provide additional evidence that embodied actions function as valid turn-units. Analyses of particular instances of interaction demonstrate participants' use of embodied actions in constituting adjacency pair turns. We have examined a request/compliance pair constituted by nonvocalized embodied action turn components in the DROP-CATCH instance. In that instance, both the first and second pair-parts of the adjacency pair were nonvocalized embodied action-turns. Now we will examine three additional examples wherein producers of second pair-parts do so using embodied action-turns.

THIRSTY: A Nonvocalized Second Pair-Part in a

"Yes/No" Question Sequence

The fragment labeled THIRSTY is taken from a videotaped recording of a Thanksgiving family gathering. The child had been sucking on a carrot, and in this segment the father has just taken the carrot out of his son's mouth and is gazing closely at his son as he asks the question, "Are you thirsty?" The formulation of the father's turn is that of the first pair-part of a question/answer adjacency pair sequence of the yes/no type; accordingly, the father's utterance provides for conversational constraints on what can be counted as appropriate and unmarked for a next item due in the unfolding interaction -- a second pair-part, a response to the question, and in this case, a "no" response. Therefore, what we are especially interested in with this instance is what happens after the question.

(Click on PLAY button for THIRSTY)

1 Father: Are you thir:sty?

2 (0.4)

3 Son: ((EA head shake --(0.4)-->)) <---

4 (0.2)

5 Father: ((offers carrot))

In line 1, the father asks, "Are you thir:sty?" After a brief pause, the boy responds (there is some simultaneous interaction with the carrot which is acknowledged but is not our focus at this time). The boy performs for his recipient (who is providing close visual attention) a fairly vigorous horizontal head-shake. His nonvocalized, embodied action-turn displays orientation to and analysis of the father's turn in observably explicit ways: it follows completion of the father's turn and thereby displays orientation to transition-relevance at this place, albeit slightly delayed; it constitutes the second to a first of a sequential pair; it provides a response to a question, thereby displaying analysis of the type of turn produced by his father; and it further provides a specifically-appropriate kind of response ("no") in the slot created by (and delimited by) the father's first pair-part, yes/no question formulation. In terms of the sequential fit and the appropriateness of the boy's action-turn, there is nothing problematic or remarkable displayed by either participant. The boy, who can speak, has not spoken but has produced a turn in the interaction.

The instance, THIRSTY, illustrates one kind of possible response-turn produced by a participant using a nonvocalized, embodied action in a particular moment of actual interaction: a horizontal head-shake. The next instance illustrates a different type of question/answer adjacency pair sequence.