HAREM: A Performed Second Assessment
In this fragment of videotaped interaction, two friends Eve and Lil are discussing a mutual friend's (Jackie's) problems. The first transcript is drawn from the audio track.
(Click on PLAY button for HAREM; hit PAUSE II after the audio version)
(Audio Transcript)
1 Lil: and JAckie SAi:d that she's NOT going to DO it.
2 (0.5)
3 Eve: hm hmm
4 Lil: becAUse- (0.2) you know (0.2) it's
5 ridIculous >>an HE already thINks<<
6 that A:ll of thEm are like his HAREM:
7 or- (0.2) something alREAdy (.) YEAh. <---
8 (1.2)
9 SO: SHE was rEAdy to have a FIght
In line 5, Lil has made a negative first assessment regarding the situation in which their friend, Jackie, finds herself ("it's ridiculous"). Lil has also conveyed a description in lines 5 and 6 that is readably negative in character concerning what "he" thinks about "all of them" ("like his HAREM:"). Lil's actions have made relevant a second assessment from Eve (who has claim to some knowledge about their mutual friend, Jackie). Yet we do not hear Eve take a turn. Furthermore, based on their vocalized utterances alone, a question can be raised regarding Lil's continuing talk at line 7: "or- (0.2) something alREAdy (.) YEAh." When Lil says, "YEAh." with emphasis, what has occasioned her acknowledg- ment/alignment token and to what is it orienting?
As the title of this subsection suggests, Lil's co-participant has constructed a nonvocalized, embodied action-turn in which she performs an aligning assessment of Lil's news-so-far and does so in overlap with Lil's unfolding talk. A second transcript indicates Eve's turn as well as the on-going, overlapping interaction occurring at lines 10 and 11 (previously indicated by what might have been considered a potentially problematic one and two-tenths second pause at line 8 in the first transcript). Now let us examine the second transcript.
(Click PLAY button again to resume viewing HAREM: An Embodied Look)
1 Lil: and JAckie SAi:d that she's NOT going to DO it.
2 (0.5)
3 Eve: hm hmm
4 Lil: becAUse- (0.2) you know (0.2) it's
5 ridIculous >>an HE already thINks<<
6 that A:ll of thEm are like his HAREM:
7 or- (0.2) [something alREAdy [
8 Eve: [((EA --look------------[------> <---
9 Lil: [YEAh.
10 Lil: [((EA-nodding--(1.2)------->))
11 Eve: [((-EA-slow head shake--->))
12 Lil: SO: SHE was rEAdy to have a FIght
Now we (analysts) can see what Lil has seen prior to producing her "YEAh" in line 9. Eve has just produced a nonvocalized, embodied second assessment to the first Lil delivered:
Lil: ...it's ridiculous >>an HE already thINKs<< that
A:ll of thEm are like his HAREM: or- (0.2)...
There is a transition-relevant place just after Lil's utterance of "HAREM:", but she extends her turn, stretching out the "m" and introducing the conjunction "or". The "or" creates a slot for a next turn-unit. What Lil does next is stop talking momentarily (for two-tenths of a second) before providing the next words ("something alREAdy").
6 (Lil): ... that A:ll of thEm are like his HAREM:
7 or- (0.2) [something alREAdy [
8 Eve: [((EA --look------------[------> <---
9 Lil: [YEAh.
But at line 8, we can see Eve orienting to the transition- relevant place just after Lil's utterance of "HAREM:", its lateness accounted for by Eve's possible close attending to Lil's stretch of the "m". However, even though Lil continues talking, Eve is obliged at some point soon in this sequence to provide a second assessment of Lil's prior talk, sooner if it is to be agreeing or aligning and later if disagreeing. So just after the short silence (0.2) and as Lil is speaking, Eve initiates in silent overlap her second assessment embodied action-turn. Eve's display is visually available to Lil, who has been directing her gaze at Eve throughout her own talk.
Eve performs her assessment in the following way. She has been gazing at Lil with her head sustained full-face toward Lil. Now, however, while still holding her gaze on Lil, Eve turns her head slowly to the left such that her right eye, the right side of her face, and her right ear are now facing more directly toward Lil. As she turns her head, Eve also extends it forward from the neck in a leaning-in movement and raises her right eyebrow.
These coordinated movements taken altogether constitute the first part of Eve's nonvocalized, embodied action, assessment turn; and although we cannot precisely interpret what her assessment might mean, we can observe how Lil treats it as meaning -- and that is, with Lil's utterance of "YEAh" immediately forthcoming at just this place, as a display on Eve's part of alignment with Lil's earlier negative assessment of the situation surrounding "him" and his "harem." Furthermore, although her turn is not spoken, the fact that Eve begins producing it in overlap with the end of Lil's assessing turn (and with no delay) is a further indication that her nonvocalized embodied action-turn is an agreement display (Pomerantz, 69).
So in this assessment sequence, we have Lil's first extended negative assessment (vocalized), Eve's second and aligning assessment (nonvocalized), and Lil's acknowledgment and uptake of Eve's second assessment.
But this is not all that these speakers do. At lines 10 and 11, we observe that both participants are gazing at one another and that the following actions occur in overlap. As Lil is completing her utterance of "YEAh", she also begins nodding her head (twice) over a period of one and two-tenths seconds (and during what was indicated as a pause in the first transcript). Meanwhile, Eve, upon completing the slow leftward movement of her head, proceeds to turn it back toward the right and perform what now emerges over time as a very slow lateral head-shake -- having been built on the first slow head-turn to her left.
7 or- (0.2) [something alREAdy [
8 Eve: [((EA --look------------[------> <---
9 Lil: [YEAh.
10 Lil: [((EA-nodding--(1.2)------->)) <---
11 Eve: [((-EA-slow head shake--->)) <---
12 Lil: SO: SHE was rEAdy to have a FIght
Both displays are visually available to their intended recipients, who are gazing at the performers. Eve extends her second assessment with the head-shake while Lil extends her aligning acknowledgment of it with her head nods. There is no pause, and Lil initiates her next turn just here, a turn whose first object, "so", marks closure of the assessment/alignment sequence and a shift back to the topic Lil was engaging at the beginning of this fragment at line 1: Jackie' stand. We observe in this instance, then, that the overlapping of nonvocalized turns and spoken turns requires collaborative attention work on the part of the co-participants; its seamless occurrence here demonstrates the degree to which these participants are relying systematically and unproblematically on the visual-spatial domain provided for by their co-presence (as seers). (Footnote *2)
In an important early work, Charles Goodwin raised the issue of visual as well as aural attention in his examination of restarts, pauses, and mutual gaze (1980); and he described how the "services of the hearer," as he phrased it, could include provision of visual attention as well. Goodwin demonstrated how a speaker (with visual access to recipient's head) could project from the slight head-turning movements of a recipient that recipient's incipient attentiveness (279). The role of visual attention was critical, and we have observed that with the use of embodied action-turns, visual attending is essential and can allow for the unproblematic overlap of nonvocalized turns with spoken turns.
In the following example, it is demonstrated how co-participants using embodied action turns rely on the visual attentiveness of one another to collaboratively carry out a word search and to display alignment with one another (Goodwin and Goodwin 1986; see p. 61 for description of "the thinking face"). Furthermore, this instance demonstrates turn overlap in the sense shown in the examples above as well as turn overlap where no one is speaking but where both are acting and looking.