Non-convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interaction
Without units, there are no boundaries; and without boundaries, there are no units. Traditional linguistics takes units such as sentences and intonation phrases for granted, treating them as static. Interactional linguistics has reconfigured many of these units, treating them as emergent, focusing o...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
De Gruyter
2021-12-01
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| Series: | Open Linguistics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2020-0170 |
| _version_ | 1818322823154761728 |
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| author | Temer Verónica González Ogden Richard |
| author_facet | Temer Verónica González Ogden Richard |
| author_sort | Temer Verónica González |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Without units, there are no boundaries; and without boundaries, there are no units. Traditional linguistics takes units such as sentences and intonation phrases for granted, treating them as static. Interactional linguistics has reconfigured many of these units, treating them as emergent, focusing on their evolution in time, and how they implement social actions. A productive line of research of interactional linguistics has been this tension between conventional linguistic units and units of (and for) interaction (Reed and Beatrice 2013; Ogden and Walker 2013). The cesura approach (Barth-Weingarten 2016) focuses on the constitution of phonetic-prosodic discontinuities, which give rise to boundaries, “cesuras”, which it treats as a continuum from “no cesura” through “candidate cesuras” of various strengths, to “full cesuras”. However, there are also elements of spoken interaction whose unit-hood is not obvious at all levels of description; and it is a subset of these that form the focus of this article. We illustrate this with extracts of multimodal talk where two interactants taste and assess unfamiliar food and produce the token “mm”. We show how the alignment (and non-alignment) of boundaries of sequential, prosodic, gestural, lexical, and syntactic units can be a semiotic resource. Data are obtained from Chilean Spanish. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-13T11:02:55Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-67357d6601e143cca0e90d9ccf5a80dc |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2300-9969 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-13T11:02:55Z |
| publishDate | 2021-12-01 |
| publisher | De Gruyter |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Open Linguistics |
| spelling | doaj.art-67357d6601e143cca0e90d9ccf5a80dc2022-12-21T23:49:13ZengDe GruyterOpen Linguistics2300-99692021-12-017168570610.1515/opli-2020-0170Non-convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interactionTemer Verónica González0Ogden Richard1Departamento de Inglés, Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación, Santiago 7760197, ChileDepartment of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, United KingdomWithout units, there are no boundaries; and without boundaries, there are no units. Traditional linguistics takes units such as sentences and intonation phrases for granted, treating them as static. Interactional linguistics has reconfigured many of these units, treating them as emergent, focusing on their evolution in time, and how they implement social actions. A productive line of research of interactional linguistics has been this tension between conventional linguistic units and units of (and for) interaction (Reed and Beatrice 2013; Ogden and Walker 2013). The cesura approach (Barth-Weingarten 2016) focuses on the constitution of phonetic-prosodic discontinuities, which give rise to boundaries, “cesuras”, which it treats as a continuum from “no cesura” through “candidate cesuras” of various strengths, to “full cesuras”. However, there are also elements of spoken interaction whose unit-hood is not obvious at all levels of description; and it is a subset of these that form the focus of this article. We illustrate this with extracts of multimodal talk where two interactants taste and assess unfamiliar food and produce the token “mm”. We show how the alignment (and non-alignment) of boundaries of sequential, prosodic, gestural, lexical, and syntactic units can be a semiotic resource. Data are obtained from Chilean Spanish.https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2020-0170conversation analysisinteractional linguisticsmultimodal constructionsnon-convergent boundariesaction ascriptionexponency |
| spellingShingle | Temer Verónica González Ogden Richard Non-convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interaction Open Linguistics conversation analysis interactional linguistics multimodal constructions non-convergent boundaries action ascription exponency |
| title | Non-convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interaction |
| title_full | Non-convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interaction |
| title_fullStr | Non-convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interaction |
| title_full_unstemmed | Non-convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interaction |
| title_short | Non-convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interaction |
| title_sort | non convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interaction |
| topic | conversation analysis interactional linguistics multimodal constructions non-convergent boundaries action ascription exponency |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2020-0170 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT temerveronicagonzalez nonconvergentboundariesandactionascriptioninmultimodalinteraction AT ogdenrichard nonconvergentboundariesandactionascriptioninmultimodalinteraction |