4: Com and action Flashcards
pointing as social actions
- Pointing gestures have a referential and a social element (Tomasello, 2008)
- Talk also has a referential and a social element (e.g., ‘do you have a pen?’)
- People use talk to implement social actions (this idea was introduced in speech act theory; Austin, 1962)
Recipients make sense of someone’s turn by asking themselves ‘what is this doing’?
Actions are sequentially organised (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974; Schegloff & Sacks, 1973)
- Speakers’ turns come one after the other (because of the ‘one at a time’ rule examined last week)
- Recipients make sense of someone’s turn by relating it to the just previous turn
There is a social expectation that a speaker addresses what has come just before their turn
Actions done through talk form joint activities
Usually, people do not use talk for isolated actions
People use talk to engage with others in joint activities
(Clark, 1996; Levinson, 1992; Schegloff, 2007)
Sequences of action
Sequence = a type of joint activity formed by interconnected actions done by different speakers
initiating action –> Responsive action
starting a sequence: initiating action
REQUEST SEQUENCE: a request invites fulfilment
OFFER SEQUENCE: an offer of information invites acknowledgement and perhaps gratitude
DIRECTIVE SEQUENCE: a directive invites compliance (telling someone what to do)
NOTICING/SHARING SEQUENCE: a sharing invites appreciation
QUESTION-ANSWER SEQUENCE: a yes/no question invites a yes/no response
Sequences in great ape communication (Rossano 2013)
old and young monkey make eye contact - establishes participation framework
wrist-bent gesture implements an action (a carry request)
the request introduces the expectation of a fulfilment (being carried)
Pika et al 2018 - average timing of response
0.2 seconds
suggests evolutionary basis to how we communicate
summary
sequence of 2 actions: initiating and responsive action
first action introduces the expectation of a second action that is collaborative*
*(which collaborate at 2 levels: Structure and stance, aka alignment and affiliation) (Stivers, 2008)
have organised participation frameworks
Different ways of responding to an initiating action
(expanded on in w9)
conversation has rules
can evade a question or answer a different question (politicians)
if the recipient doesn’t respond, person A can pursue an answer
Application: Drew 1992: US assault trial
attorneys use yes/no responses to restrain the victim’s responses
now recognised as a harmful practice leading to 2ndary victimisation
focus is on how victims work to evade the contraints of questions through transformative answers
Missing/ delayed responses
Last week, we learned that silences are made sense of in the context of the one at a time rule for turn taking.
What was missing there is the basis for how silences are treated in the way they are. How they are interpreted depends on their position. The silences we consider here acquire meaning because they follow an initiating action. They thus embody lack of or delaying of a response that is normatively due.
silences have a communicative action
A’s response to silence
with B’s hesitation, A anticipates there might be a decline of the request, so produces a question that may make it easier to decline
Summary: on-time vs delayed-responses
- Rule: people should respond on-time (due to pressure from the rules of participation seen in Week 3)
- Delays and hesitations in responding are therefore a source of meaning: people ask themselves, ‘what is this doing?’
- Delays are sometimes understood as forecasting a response that does not fulfil the project embodied in the initiating action (e.g., declining an invitation)
- So, conversational rules are a source of meaning
Sequence expansions: (schegloff 2007)
- Sequences of actions composed of an initiating and responding action implement projects (something that the initiator is trying to accomplish)
- People use practices to maximise the chances that the project is successful
- We refer to these as sequence expansions
These demonstrate that people track one another’s inferable intentions
Type of sequence expansion 3
pre-expansion (before initiating action)
insert expansion (in between iniating and responding action)
Post-expansion (after responding action)
e.g. of pre-expansion
asking ‘what are you doing?’ before asking someone to do something
Links to recursive inference and perspectival representation (and self-monitoring)
e.g. of insert expansion (Pino et al 2022)
e.g. if someone asks if you have illnesses, you may ask for specifics e.g. ‘now?’ before providing your answer
Links to recursive inference and perspectival representation (and self-monitoring)
e.g. of post-expansion
base sequence: ‘are you a coffee drinker?’ ‘no’
post expansion: ‘no?’ ‘i hate coffee’)
asks for more info after answer
Summary:
- Talk implements actions
- Actions done through talk form joint activities
- Some of these activities consist of sequences of two actions
- In these sequences of action, an initiating action creates the expectation of a responding action that supports the project embodied in the initiating action
These sequences can be expanded
application: a competent speaker who cannot speak (Goodwin 2004)
man with aphasia
- His resources: three words (yes, no, and), prosody, gesture, and uses of the environment and context - He leads others to speak and piggybacks what they say to construct communicative actions - Example: Helen, his wife, has told a story about an earthquake. He then initiates a related story about an earthquake they experienced 30 years ago. It dangerously displaced a picture which was about to fall over the crib of their son. - Common ground
- prosody
Greetings
- Greetings are organised in sequences of actions where a first invites a second (which is usually a ‘reciprocal’)
- Greetings routinely happen at the start of interpersonal interactions
- They serve to create co-presence, declare mutual availability, and (re)affirm the nature of the relationship
They can be verbal (saying ‘hi’), gestural (waving), and tactile (handshakes, hugs)
reading: rules to convo
- subconscious rules (we only occasionally make errors)
- if someone asks a question this should be responded to. not just good manners
- regulating the flow of talk is a group activity; joint action
reading: breaking rules
Even slight breaches of conversational norms can quickly lead to upset and personal conflict
rules only really become apparent when someone is breaking them
breaking rules too often could be a sign of mental illness
