The Social World Within Reach: Intersubjective Manifestations of Action Completion
Abstract This is a study of the intersubjective recognizability of the ‘proper’ accomplishment of children’s actions: in particular, how the status of actions as properly completed is often actively made recognizable through speech and various modulations of bodily movement. In addition to analyzing how children do this in a number of cases, I argue that these manifestations of action completion are often strongly dependent on typified conventional knowledge, and that conventionality on the side of the signified is a neglected issue in gesture research. The data consists of video recordings of four Swedish children between 24-30 months of age who interact with their parents at home. The analysis is framed in ideas about intersubjectivity and action drawn from Alfred Schutz and Adam Kendon in particular, but also others. These theoretical syntheses are a substantial part of the contribution of this paper.