Gaze selects the next speaker in answers to questions pronominally addressed to more than one co-participant

Like many other languages, but unlike modern (standard) English, German has a distinct second person plural pronoun (ihr, ‘you guys’), contrasting with the second person singular pronoun (du). The second person plural pronoun addresses a turn to more than one, and possibly all co-present participants. This paper investigates turn-taking after such multiply addressed turns, taking as an example information-seeking questions, i.e., a sequential context in which a specific next action is relevant in the adjacent position. It might appear that in such a context, self-selection applies (Schegloff 1992: 122); more than one co-participant is addressed, but none selected as next speaker. In this paper, I show on the basis of spontaneous interactions recorded with mobile eye-tracking equipment that this is not the case and that TCU-final gaze is employed to select the next speaker. The participant not being gazed at TCU-finally is addressed, but not selected as the answerer in next position and may provide an answer in a sequential position after the first answer. The article demonstrates that gaze is an efficient way to allocate turns in the absence of verbal cues and thus contributes to our understanding of turn-taking from a multimodal perspective.

Positionally-sensitive action-ascription

Schegloff (1996) has argued that grammars are “positionally-sensitive”, implying that the situated use and understanding of linguistic formats depends on their sequential position. Analyzing the German format Kannst du X? (corresponding to English Can you X?) based on 82 instances from a large corpus of talk-in-interaction (FOLK), this paper shows how different action-ascriptions to turns using the same format depend on various orders of context. We show that not only sequential position, but also epistemic status, interactional histories, multimodal conduct, and linguistic devices co-occurring in the same turn are decisive for the action implemented by the format. The range of actions performed with Kannst du X? and their close interpretive interrelationship suggest that they should not be viewed as a fixed inventory of context-dependent interpretations of the format. Rather, the format provides for a root-interpretation that can be adapted to local contextual contingencies, yielding situated action-ascriptions that depend on constraints created by contexts of use.

Thanking actions: interactional variation in Swedish-language service encounters in Sweden and Finland

The social action of thanking is an everyday practice in most cultures and, as such, it has been the focus of contrastive studies of different languages, cultures, and countries. This article focuses on the sequential organisation of the action of thanking in Swedish, which is a pluricentric L1 in Sweden and Finland. The study’s data are actions of thanking realised through the Swedish interjection tack [‘thank you’] in service encounters in the two countries. By analysing the sequential position of actions that are similar in form, their potentially different interactional functions can be examined. The actions of thanking are described in two different sequential positions in relation to adjacency pairs, as either responsive or initiating thanking actions. After an initiating thanking action a response is conditionally relevant or expected. A contrastive analysis of these responses reveals that in 73 % of the cases they constitute another action of thanking with the word tack. In Finland, the proportion amounts to 81 % and in Sweden it amounts to 65 %. This contrasts with my earlier study on thanking in medical encounters in the two varieties (Grahn 2019), where a slightly higher proportion of thanking actions as responses to initiating thanks was reported in Sweden than in Finland. In sum, sequential position is highlighted as critical for the management of interpersonal relations and the organisation of this institutional setting.

Classroom teasing: Institutional contingencies and embodied action

This article compares the sequential position, action, and design of teasing sequences in classroom and mundane interaction. This collection of teases comes from a university Geosciences classroom, and the analysis demonstrates that, like teases in ordinary conversation, classroom teases are sequentially bound and designed in extreme fashions. Nonetheless, classroom teasing sequences are unique in terms of the actions and precise designs of teasables and teases as well as the sequential contingencies that create opportunities for teasing. This paper contributes to past conversation analysis research showing how teases as sequences of embodied action are subject to local contingencies and constraints.

Huh huh asennoitumisena fyysiseen rasitukseen

Tässä multimodaalista keskustelunanalyysiä hyödyntävässä artikkelissa analysoidaan suomen kielen huudahduspartikkelia huh huh erityisesti fyysisen toiminnan ja osallistujien toimintaan asennoitumisen jäsentäjänä. Tavoitteena on selvittää, miten osallistujat rakentavat fyysisesti raskaassa toiminnassa lausutulla huh huh -partikkelilla vuorovaikutusta sekvenssijäsennyksen eri vaiheissa. Artikkeli perustuu kahteen videoaineistoon: huh huh -huudahduspartikkelin mahdollisia käyttökonteksteja taustoitetaan ensin Poliisit-tv-sarjasta (154 tuntia) kerätyllä 33 tapauksen kokoelmalla, jonka pohjalta muodostuvaa yleiskuvaa täsmennetään luonnossa liikkumista ja toimintaa kuvaavalla videoaineistolla (10 tapausta). Siinä missä aikaisemmassa tutkimuskirjallisuudessa huh huh -huudahdus-partikkelia on käsitelty lähinnä vierusparin jälkijäsenenä, siis edeltävään puheenvuoroon affilioitumista ja vastaanotettavan asian yllättävyyttä osoittavana responssina, artikkelin molemmissa aineistoissa huh huh esiintyy useammin sekvenssin aloittavassa vuorossa kuin etujäsentä myötäilevänä jälkijäsenenä tai kolmannen position vuorossa. Artikkeli osoittaa, että vastaanottajat tulkitsevat aloittajien huh huh -avausvuorojen ilmaisevan aloittajan asennoitumista meneillään olevaan toimintaan, erityisesti sen fyysiseen raskauteen. Kun osallistujat ovat mukana samassa fyysisessä toiminnassa, vastaanottajat vastaavat näihin sekvenssin aloittaviin huh huh -vuoroihin sosiaalisen solidaarisuuden säilyttämiseksi pääsääntöisesti samanmielisesti. Artikkelissa pohditaan myös rajanvetoa ei-kielelliseen äänellistämiseen, joka kytkeytyy raskaaseen hengittämiseen somaattisena toimintaympäristönä. Ulospuhallettu hu(h)h hu(hhh)h kytkeytyy pitkäkestoiseen väsyttävään toimintaan ja toiminnan intensiteetin, kuten vauhdin, muutoskohtiin. Nämä huomiot korostavat tarvetta tarkastella huudahduspartikkeleita pieninä mutta taloudellisina liikkeeseen ja materiaaliseen ympäristöön liittyvinä vuorovaikutusresursseina. Huh huh as an expression of physical effort This article examines how the reduplicated Finnish interjection huh huh is used by participants to negotiate the moment-by-moment unfolding of a shared physical effort and as a cue for seeking alignment and affiliation. Based on a conversation-analytical and multimodal study of video-recorded data (including reality TV programmes and video recordings of activities in nature), the article contends that huh huh orders and formulates interaction differently depending on its sequential position and suprasegmental elements. First, the article contrasts previous conversation-analytical research on Finnish every-day conversations that have mainly considered huh huh as an affiliating surprise response to a prior turn, with an analysis of an exhaled huh huh as a first-position turn-initiation device. Secondly, this article shows that recipients interpret the first-position huh huh as an incontestable account of the first speaker’s stance (e.g. physical struggle) and are therefore expected to provide an aligning and affiliative relevant turn. Examples are given in which huh huh in first position elicits no response, where a candidate (aligning) response is provided and where the respondent challenges the preference for providing an affiliative response. When the response is not explicitly aligning, a longer sequence of talk (e.g. playful mockery) occurs in an effort to steer the sequence and close it with an affiliative under-standing of the ongoing activity. Thirdly, the article examines the somatic quality of huh huh: this occurs in relation to transitions within the ongoing physical activity (e.g. walking/running) and is thus a transition marker related to (temporarily) closed activity sequences. The article concludes with an appeal for further study of interjections used as interactional devices in relation to mobile and material practices.

Danish dialogue particles in an interactional perspective

In our paper, we give an overview over what is known about some of the most frequent interjections in Danish talk-in-interaction: ja (‘yes’), nej (‘no’), mm (‘mm’), nå (approximately ‘oh’), and okay (‘okay’). We review the CA/IL literature on these words, and we present our own exemplary analyses of single instances of these words in extracts from our corpus of recorded, naturally occurring Danish interactions. Based on this, we argue that sequential position, epistemics, and affiliation and alignment should be taken into account when describing and categorizing dialogue particles in talk-in-interaction. Prosody and other phonetic cues are important for the realization of the above dimensions and functions and we review what is known about prosodic and phonetic cues plus add some of our own observations, without launching a full phonetic and prosodic analysis.

Measurement of Toe-Brachial Indices in People with Subnormal Toe Pressures

Background: Insufficient information exists about the nature of toe-brachial indices (TBIs) and how best to obtain them, yet their validity may be particularly important for the identification and management of peripheral artery disease and cardiovascular disease risk. We explore ways in which valid TBI measurements might be obtained. Methods: The TBI data were recorded from 97 people with subnormal toe pressures. Most people provided three TBI readings from each foot on six different occasions over a 6-month period. The foot with the lower baseline TBI was noted. Results: For most people, only small inconsistencies existed among the three readings taken from each foot on a single occasion, and there were no consistent differences based on sequence. However, for some people there were noticeable and unsystematic differences among the measures. Selecting any specific one of the three readings based on its sequential position, or averaging specific readings, did not yield TBIs that were unequivocally typical for a person, and taking the lowest reading of each set seemed to offer the most expedient solution in this context. That permitted baseline descriptive statistics to be produced for both the higher and lower pressure feet, between which there was a statistically significant TBI difference. Conclusions: Accurate and consistent TBI readings cannot be assumed for people with subnormal toe pressures, and taking only a single reading or indiscriminately averaging readings seems inadvisable. Two readings and, if they are discrepant, additional readings, are recommended for each foot, ideally on several occasions, and careful consideration should be given to determine the most representative reading for each foot. Cuff sizes and other sources of inaccuracy or distortion should not be ignored, and standardized protocols for obtaining TBIs are recommended.

Conducting a task while reconstructing its meaning

This article investigates the way an institutional task of a meeting is oriented to by different meeting participants and developed in and through local interaction. Our data come from a city organization, where a large organizational change is planned and prepared through a series of face-to-face encounters and accompanying written texts. Using the notion of recontextualization and by connecting it to the conversation analytical method and to the notion of intersubjectivity, the study examines how the institutional task that is verbalized in written form prior to the meeting is conceptualized by meeting participants in their turns of talk. By doing so, the study will particularly shed light on the question of how different recontextualizations are motivated by their sequential position in interaction. Based on this, it also investigates how the meeting participants construct their professional identities through the conceptualizations made. In a wider sense, the article shows how spoken interaction and written texts interweave and form a reciprocal relationship in organizational life. Thus, it contributes to a deeper understanding about the multifaceted connections between the interactional management of meetings and wider organizational practices and processes that these encounters have been set up to advance.

Binding at Birth: The Newborn Brain Detects Identity Relations and Sequential Position in Speech

Breaking the linguistic code requires the extraction of at least two types of information from the speech signal: the relations between linguistic units and their sequential position. Furthermore, these different types of information need to be integrated into a coherent representation of language structure. The brain networks responsible for these abilities are well known in adults, but not in young infants. Our results show that the neural architecture underlying these abilities is operational at birth. In three optical imaging studies, we found that the newborn brain detects identity relations, as evidenced by enhanced activation in the bilateral superior temporal and left inferior frontal regions. More importantly, the newborn brain can also determine whether such identity relations hold for the initial or final positions of speech sequences, as indicated by increased activity in the inferior frontal regions, possibly Broca's area. This implies that the neural foundations of language acquisition are in place from birth.