Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse: How Do Woody Allen’s Characters Talk? 3031009444, 9783031009440

Citation preview

Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse How Do Woody Allen’s Characters Talk? Neda Chepinchikj

Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse “This book might best be advertised as a linguistic voice in the discussion of “Everything you always wanted to know about Woody Allen’s films but were afraid to ask”. Deconstructing the selected scenes through the lens of interactional linguistics and multimodal conversation analysis, Neda Chepinchikj offers her contribution to the methodology of research on cinematic discourse.” —Prof. Dr hab. Marta Dynel, Institute of English Studies, University of Lodz, Poland

Neda Chepinchikj

Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse How Do Woody Allen’s Characters Talk?

Neda Chepinchikj UNSW Sydney Sydney, NSW, Australia

ISBN 978-3-031-00944-0    ISBN 978-3-031-00945-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00945-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To my mum, dad and brother – Your unconditional love and support are my lifeblood.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge and thank everyone who has supported and assisted me on my journey to writing and publishing this book, so that it is available to the public. My heartfelt thanks go to my patient editor, Cathy Scott, as well as everyone in Palgrave Macmillan, who have been involved in the preparation and publishing process. I would also like to thank my proofreader, Antoinette Kennedy, for all her suggestions and ideas. My gratitude also goes to my colleague and friend Mariam Farida for introducing me to the world of academic publishing and for all her useful advice. Since this book is a product of a long journey of research and is based on my PhD thesis, I would also like to express my gratitude to my former supervisors, Dr Celia Thompson and Associate Professor Paul Gruba, who have taught me a lot about research and who were extremely supportive of my work. Most importantly, I thank my family, my mum Vaska, my late dad Miroslav and my brother Nenad, for their constant belief in me and for their eternal support. Their love and encouragement mean the world to me. Last but not least, I thank Mr Woody Allen for his fantastic film opus and for inspiring my research and this book. I wish him a long and prosperous life and many more films.

vii

Contents

1 I ntroduction  1 2 Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse  7 3 A  nalytical Approach 35 4 O  rganisation of Interaction 57 5 Verbal Features of Interaction 95 6 Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze135 7 Embodied Features of Interaction: Gestures187 8 Social Actions and Gender Considerations213 9 C  onclusion243

ix

x Contents

Appendix A: CA Transcription Conventions251 Appendix B: Transcriptions253 Index267

List of Excerpts

Excerpt 4.1 Excerpt 4.2 Excerpt 4.3 Excerpt 4.4 Excerpt 4.5 Excerpt 4.6 Excerpt 4.7 Excerpt 4.8 Excerpt 4.9 Excerpt 4.10 Excerpt 4.11 Excerpt 4.12 Excerpt 4.13 Excerpt 4.14 Excerpt 4.15 Excerpt 4.16 Excerpt 4.17 Excerpt 4.18 Excerpt 4.19 Excerpt 4.20 Excerpt 4.21 Excerpt 4.22 Excerpt 4.23

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 1–2) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 1–4) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 1–2) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 7–12) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 12–15) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 6–10) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 3–4) September (Scene 2, lines 21–23; 28–29) September (Scene 2, lines 16–19) September (Scene 2, lines 18–22) September (Scene 2, lines 24–27) September (Scene 2, lines 39–42) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 6–10) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 14–19) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 7–11) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 12–13) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 1–3) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 7–9) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 21–24) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 10–13) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 16–18) You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 8–10) You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 4–6)

60 61 63 63 64 65 65 66 67 67 68 68 69 70 70 70 72 72 73 73 74 75 75 xi

xii 

List of Excerpts

Excerpt 4.24 Excerpt 4.25 Excerpt 4.26 Excerpt 4.27 Excerpt 4.28 Excerpt 4.29 Excerpt 4.30 Excerpt 4.31 Excerpt 4.32 Excerpt 4.33 Excerpt 4.34 Excerpt 4.35 Excerpt 4.36 Excerpt 4.37 Excerpt 4.38 Excerpt 4.39 Excerpt 4.40 Excerpt 5.1 Excerpt 5.2 Excerpt 5.3 Excerpt 5.4 Excerpt 5.5 Excerpt 5.6 Excerpt 5.7 Excerpt 5.8 Excerpt 5.9 Excerpt 5.10 Excerpt 5.11 Excerpt 5.12 Excerpt 5.13 Excerpt 5.14 Excerpt 5.15 Excerpt 5.16 Excerpt 5.17 Excerpt 5.18 Excerpt 5.19 Excerpt 5.20

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 16–24) 75 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 4–6) 76 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 8–10) 76 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 2–3) 76 Interiors (Scene 1, lines 1–3) 79 Interiors (Scene 1, lines 4–12) 80 Interiors (Scene 1, lines 16–19) 81 September, Scene 2 (lines 12–19) 82 September (Scene 2, lines 1–9) 82 September (Scene 2, lines 30–34) 83 Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 1–10) 84 Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 18–21) 85 Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 7–13) 87 Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 14–18) 87 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 6–10) 88 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 14–15) 89 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 1–3; 10–13)90 Interiors (Scene 1, lines 4–6) 98 Interiors (Scene 1, lines 20–24) 99 September (Scene 2, lines 10–11) 100 September (Scene 2, lines 28–42) 101 Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 6–17) 102 Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 18–21) 103 Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 1–3) 104 Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 7–9) 104 Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 19–20) 104 Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 21–24) 105 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 4–10) 106 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 26–29) 107 Interiors (Scene 1, lines 7–10) 112 Interiors (Scene 1, lines 11–12) 112 Interiors (Scene 1, lines 16–18) 112 Interiors (Scene 1, lines 23–26) 113 Interiors (Scene 1, lines 14–15) 113 Interiors (Scene 1, lines 20–21) 113 September (Scene 2, lines 11–15) 114 September (Scene 2, lines 35–38) 115

  List of Excerpts 

Excerpt 5.21 Excerpt 5.22 Excerpt 5.23 Excerpt 5.24 Excerpt 5.25 Excerpt 5.26 Excerpt 5.27 Excerpt 5.28 Excerpt 5.29 Excerpt 5.30 Excerpt 5.31 Excerpt 5.32 Excerpt 5.33 Excerpt 5.34 Excerpt 5.35 Excerpt 5.36 Excerpt 5.37 Excerpt 5.38 Excerpt 6.1 Excerpt 6.2 Excerpt 6.3 Excerpt 6.4 Excerpt 6.5 Excerpt 6.6 Excerpt 6.7 Excerpt 6.8 Excerpt 6.9 Excerpt 6.10 Excerpt 6.11 Excerpt 6.12 Excerpt 6.13 Excerpt 6.14 Excerpt 6.15 Excerpt 6.16 Excerpt 6.17 Excerpt 6.18 Excerpt 7.1 Excerpt 7.2

September (Scene 2, lines 2; 4) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 7–10) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, line 12) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 14–17) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, line 20) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 1–7) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 9–16) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 19–24) You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 1–15) You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 17–29) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 4–6) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 16–18) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 20–24) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 25–26) September (Scene 2, lines 21–23) September (Scene 2, lines 35–38) September (Scene 2, lines 30–34) September (Scene 2, lines 8–9) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 7–10; 12) Interiors (Scene 1, line 6) Interiors (Scene1, lines 1–2) Interiors (Scene 1, line 19) September (Scene 2, lines 1–4) September (Scene 2, line 12–15; 18–19) September (Scene 2, lines 35–38; 41–42) September (Scene 2, lines 21–26) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 7–10; 12; 14–17; 20) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, line 21) Melinda da and Melinda (Scene 4, line 7) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 10; 12–13; 17–18) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, line 11) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 14–16) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 23–24) You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 10–15) You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 23–25) You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 6–13) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 7–10) Interiors (Scene 1, lines 25–26)

xiii

115 116 117 117 117 118 119 120 121 122 125 125 126 126 127 128 128 129 141 142 143 144 151 152 153 153 161 162 164 169 170 170 174 179 179 180 193 193

xiv 

List of Excerpts

Excerpt 7.3 Excerpt 7.4 Excerpt 7.5 Excerpt 7.6 Excerpt 7.7 Excerpt 7.8 Excerpt 7.9 Excerpt 7.10

September (Scene 2, line 6) September (Scene 2, lines 16–17) September (Scene 2, lines 21–22) Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, line 20) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 23–24) Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 2–3) You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 19–21) You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, line 15)

195 196 197 200 202 202 205 206

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3 Table 6.4 Table 6.5 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4

The data set with film titles, characters and scene time duration49 Number of turns-at-talk per interlocutor and in total for each interaction 60 Turn allocation types and turn transition instances in the five diegetic interactions 77 Gaze and its functions in the interaction between Joey and Mike in Interiors (1978) 139 Gaze and its functions in the interaction between Lane and Peter (September, 1987) 146 Gaze and its functions in the interaction between Judy and Gabe (Husbands and Wives, 1992) 159 Gaze and its functions in the interaction between Laurel and Lee (Melinda and Melinda, 2004) 165 Gaze and its functions in the interaction between Sally and Roy (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, 2010) 176 Types of gesture classifications 189 Types and number of gestures made by Joey and Mike (“Interiors”, 1978) 192 Complete display of gestures in Joey and Mike’s interaction in Interiors (1978) 194 Body parts involved in producing gestures and their incidence195 xv

xvi 

List of Tables

Table 7.5 Table 7.6 Table 7.7 Table 7.8 Table 7.9 Table 7.10 Table 7.11 Table 7.12 Table 7.13 Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 8.3 Table 8.4 Table 8.5 Table 8.6 Table 8.7 Table 8.8 Table 8.9 Table 8.10 Table 8.11

Types of head nod gestures by participant 197 Types of head shake gestures by participant 197 Types, frequency and functions of the gestures in the interaction between Lane, Peter and Lloyd (September, 1987) 199 Types of gestures produced by Gabe (Husbands and Wives, 1992)200 Gesture types, frequencies and functions (Husbands and Wives, 1992) 201 Types of gestures produced by Laurel and Lee (Melinda and Melinda, 2004) 202 Types, frequency and functions of the gestures in the interaction between Laurel and Lee (Melinda and Melinda, 2004) 203 Types of gestures by Roy and Sally (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, 2010) 204 Types, frequency and functions of Sally’s and Roy’s gestures (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, 2010) 204 A display of Mike’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals 215 A display of Joey’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals 216 A display of Peter’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals 220 A display of Lane’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals 221 A display of Lloyd’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals 222 A display of Gabe’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals 223 A display of Judy’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals 223 A display of Lee’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals 226 A display of Laurel’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals 227 A display of Roy’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals 231 A display of Sally’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals 232

1 Introduction

Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television. —Woody Allen

Have you ever been fascinated by film characters’ witty remarks and their intriguing conversations? Have you ever observed closely the actors’ body language, gestures, gaze and facial expressions and wondered how these contribute to their behaviour and intentions in their roles? Have you ever wondered what all those silences in between their talk mean or what they refer to? Or, simply, why do they say what they say and do what they do? When actors play the role of a character in film they communicate messages that the audience needs to decipher. How they do this is at the heart of this book. In particular, as we cannot discuss all film characters in all films in a single book, this book only focuses on a sample of film characters who feature in some of Woody Allen’s films. The aim is to understand how the actors reproduce social actions and mediate cinematic communicative and meaning-making intentions, by examining the way that they interact with one another, through both verbal and embodied language. The former is what is commonly known as words and utterances, while the latter encompasses body language, gaze, gestures and all that is non-verbal. This is important since human communication is not only verbal and auditory but also embodied and visual, that is,

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Chepinchikj, Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00945-7_1

1

2 

N. Chepinchikj

multimodal. Only if looked at together can we make sense of human communication and interaction. One of the essential premises of this book is that language (in all its forms) is a social tool. In other words, language is performative and it is used in meaningful ways (Butler, 1990, 1997). Therefore, in a way, we can talk about two types of performances: (a) the socio-linguistic performance that humans enact in any given situation by means of both verbal and non-verbal resources and (b) the performance of actors when they enact their film, television or theatrical roles. This book aims to reconcile both but shed light on the former, that is, how actors utilise various resources (verbal and embodied) to deliver the on-screen interactions in their particular roles. The reasons for what actors say and do on screen should not be neglected since all interaction, be it naturally occurring or performed, is subject to ‘doing something’, that is, performing social actions. These are various, such as information exchange, invitations, offers, announcements, greetings, complaints, compliments and numerous others. Thus, even though represented interactions differ from naturally-occurring ones, especially in terms of their narrative and artistic purpose, they also share a similarity: they perform (or, more accurately, represent) social actions. The approach adopted in this book is multimodal conversation analysis (MMCA), which is employed to analyse and interpret both the verbal and the embodied resources of interaction. The modalities investigated here include talk, prosody, gaze and gestures. In terms of talk, this study focuses on the film dialogues in interaction, which consist of both what the represented participants say and how they say it. The latter component (how they say it) takes into consideration the prosodic features of spoken language, such as pitch, volume, intonation, word stress and pace, as well as gaps (pauses and silences), including audible inbreaths and outbreaths. Gaze refers to the amount and position of looking at one’s interlocutor during interaction, including mutual gaze, that is, when interlocutors look at each other simultaneously. Lastly, this study also examines gestures employed by the interactants, either as accompaniment to speech or as substitutes for speech. All of the resources of

1 Introduction 

3

interaction mentioned above have been identified as salient interactional features through the application of MMCA. The types of interactions examined in this book are different from naturally-occurring ones, which are spontaneous and happen in everyday life. They are the dialogues and embodied performances of actors in the story world of the film diegesis (Piazza, 2011). These interactions are generally referred to as represented or diegetic interactions. The term that is used throughout this book is diegetic interactions, which relates to the first level of the narrative world of a cinematic discourse1 (diegetic level), whereas the second level is known as extra-diegetic level. The latter encompasses the production, staging and audience’s response and relation to cinematic discourse. The scope of this book is solely the diegetic level of cinematic discourse and the relationships within the story world of the films. This book is a case study of dyadic2 diegetic interactions in the cinematic discourse of Woody Allen. Its aim is to present and discuss the structure and organisation of these diegetic interactions, their key verbal and embodied interactional features and the social actions performed by the co-participants in these interactions. Finally, this book also offers a glimpse into how these interactional features compare in terms of the co-­ participants’ gender. The book is organised in nine chapters. The next chapter (Chap. 2) serves as a contextual background to the topic at hand. It theoretically situates the study and looks at Woody Allen’s cinematic discourse from a linguistic (social interactional) perspective, thus setting the stage for the following chapters. It also outlines the specific appeal of Allen’s films and of how they yield to linguistic and interactional enquiry. Chapter 3 focuses on the analytical approach to the case study and contextualises the data set, which consists of five scenes from five different films by Woody Allen. The selected films are Interiors (1978), September (1987), Husbands and Wives (1992), Melinda and Melinda (2004) and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010). These films are  Cinematic discourse refers to the language of cinema, with all its various multimodal features, ranging from film dialogues to mise-en-scène and camera work. 2  A dyadic interaction refers to a type of interaction that occurs between two participants, as opposed to multiparty interactions, which include more than two participants (Mondada, 2013). 1

4 

N. Chepinchikj

mixed in terms of their genre, but they are all predominantly dramas. This chapter also explains the rationale for the data selection. Chapter 4 looks at the organisation of the interactions in the five selected film scenes. It starts with the basic, turn structure of the diegetic interactions and then moves to their larger, sequence organisation. The section on turn organisation also discusses the turn allocation and turn transition that occur in these interactions. The former refers to the types of turn distribution between speakers, while the latter indicates the manner in which one turn follows the next. Chapter 5 is dedicated to the key verbal features of interaction in the examined film scenes. These resources include topic shifts, prosodic shifts and gaps. As the name suggests, topic shifts indicate the changes in the topics discussed in the diegetic interactions, as well as the strategies used for that purpose and the level of co-participation (i.e. uptake or lack thereof ) in discussing a topic. Who, when and how introduces a topic of conversation and whether that topic is sustained or abandoned is seminal not only to the narrative line and characterisation, but also to the interactional behaviour represented in these film scenes. In terms of prosody and prosodic shifts, the discussion in this chapter focuses on their salience in relation to the projection of the interactants’ turns and the flow of the interaction as a whole. Finally, this chapter also discusses gaps and their interactional salience, where relevant. The discussion includes both intra-­ turn (within the same turn) and inter-turn (between different turns) gaps. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss the embodied features of interaction: gaze and gestures, respectively. The focus of Chap. 6 is on gaze as an embodied feature of interaction. Gaze and its use by the interlocutors in the diegetic interactions are discussed from an interactional aspect and to the extent that it is visible and observable in the selected film scenes. Its various interactional functions, such as in action formation and participation framework of (dis)engagement, are presented in this chapter. Chapter 7, on the other hand, examines gestures and their use for the purposes of interaction and communication. The focus is on their frequency, type and function in the analysed film scenes. In Chap. 8, the topic is the social actions performed by the represented participants in the diegetic interactions. These are the pragmatic actions that are conveyed through interaction, such as complaints, invitations,

1 Introduction 

5

greetings and others, but in this study, they are approached from and understood in the conversation analytic sense of the term. This not only includes the accomplishment of those actions, but also the strategies undertaken and the interactional goals of the interlocutors, which correspond to their underlying motivation for interacting and these are predominantly driven by the film plot and the purposes of narrative and characterisation. Finally, the interactional behaviour of the represented participants is also compared along gender lines. Chapter 9 is the conclusion of the book, which brings together the key findings of this study. It also summarises some useful practical insights and ideas that can be utilised by performance practitioners and professionals, in addition to the academic community. Finally, this chapter also states the contributions it is making to the field of cinematic discourse by bringing it closer to social interactional linguistic studies.

References Allen, W. (Director). (1978). Interiors [Film]. Rollins-Joffe Productions. Allen, W. (Director). (1987). September [Film]. Orion Pictures Corporation. Allen, W. (Director). (1992). Husbands and wives [Film]. TriStar Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (2004). Melinda and Melinda [Film]. Fox Searchlight Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (2010). You will meet a tall dark stranger [Film]. Mediapro, et al. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble. Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge. Butler, J. (1997). Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. Routledge. Mondada, L. (2013). Embodied and spatial resources for turn-taking in institutional multi-party interactions: Participatory democracy debates. Journal of Pragmatics, 46, 39–68. Piazza, R. (2011). Let’s cinema speak. Discourse in Italian cinema and beyond. Continuum.

2 Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse

Subjectivity is objective —Woody Allen

2.1 Cinematic Discourse Before we look at Woody Allen’s cinematic discourse and his filmmaking style, let us briefly consider the concept of cinematic discourse and of what it consists. Cinematic discourse is actually the language of cinema that integrates both the verbal and the visual, that is, multimodal features of the fictional narrative. This is a single and isolated narrative experience in the case of film, as opposed to television, where the narrative is longer, continuous and repetitive, with a possibility of more detailed development (Piazza et al., 2011). As mentioned in the Introduction, cinematic discourse is regulated by the “double plane of communication” (Piazza et  al., 2011, p.  1), the diegetic and the extra-diegetic planes, both of which are found in any screen discourse. The diegetic plane refers to the communication between the subjects (characters) in the story, whereas the extra-diegetic plane refers to the communication between the story-world and the external viewers. Owing to the double plane of communication, cinematic

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Chepinchikj, Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00945-7_2

7

8 

N. Chepinchikj

discourse is marked by the relationship between represented and interactive participants, that is, the diegetic characters and the spectators respectively (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996). The diegetic characters play a major role within this discourse, being the represented participants, or subjects of the narrative. This book discusses only the diegetic plane of cinematic discourse, focusing on the interactions that occur between the film characters in the diegesis. However, as film characters are fictitious, and we can only talk about diegetic interactions in cinema once they are performed by actors, it is the actual on-screen performance of those diegetic interactions that is taken into consideration here. Films are complex audio-visual products, which rely on the visual elements as much as on the soundtrack, which includes both speech and music. Language in film is but one semiotic resource employed in the meaning-making process. Other crucial elements are cinematography, non-verbal soundtrack, mise-en-scène, editing, gestures, body posture and facial expressions of actors playing characters. Therefore, it can be justly asserted that “film dialogue does not make meaning in isolation but in collaboration with image and non-verbal sound” (Desilla, 2012, p. 31). Or, more specifically, “films are multimodal as they combine various modalities; film meaning thus arises neither from image alone, nor from soundtrack alone, but rather from the co-deployment and interplay of different semiotic resources” (Desilla, 2012, p. 35). As this study only focuses on the diegetic world of the five selected Woody Allen’s films, it is important to stress at this point that multimodality is here understood in its narrower sense of the word, which is the multimodality of interaction. Therefore, the extra-diegetic multimodal resources, such as cinematography, mise-en-scène and soundtrack, will not be included in and commented on in the discussion. Instead, multimodality is approached from the interactional standpoint, as an array of various modes of expression in interaction, such as language, gaze and gestures. That is why multimodal conversation analysis (MMCA) has been chosen as both a theoretical framework and a methodological tool for this case study. Going back to cinematic discourse, it is worth noting that discourse is multifunctional in fictional narratives. It has an aesthetic function; it can serve the purpose of characterisation; it plays a role in defining narrative

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

9

genres; and it also engages the viewers. The narrative function of cinematic discourse is linked to the diegesis and its spatio-temporal anchoring, as well as to sustaining plot, revealing character, maintaining narrative causality and creating dramatic irony (Kozloff, 2000). It is particularly through characters that dialogue shapes and reveals characters’ personality, social class, emotional status and other traits (Kozloff, 2000; Phillips, 2000). Additionally, it reveals relationships among characters and therefore it is crucial to different types of film representations. As Culpeper and McIntyre (2010) argue, characterisation and speech act are essentially connected despite the fact that this connection is not always obvious. The aesthetic function, on the other hand, refers to the “power of language to define the tone and set the mood” (Desilla, 2012, p. 33). Film dialogues and their presentation (including both verbal and non-­ verbal resources) are a central part of cinematic discourse. Since film dialogues are generally written and acted out by actors on the screen with the intention of sounding spontaneous and realistic, they are essentially a linguistic product that undergoes a long and meticulous process of construction. Thus, the scripted, mediated and multi-authored nature of film language (as filmmaking is a joint venture of the director, screenplay writer, producer, editor and actors) contributes to produce a cinematic discourse as a compromise between two different poles: written and spoken, private and public, formal and informal, mimetic and fictional, reflecting the author’s intentions and audience’s expectations (Rossi, 2011). This gives cinematic discourse a particular place among the various types of discourses. This book does not make any claims that film dialogues are equal to spontaneous speech. There are numerous differences between the two spoken varieties. They differ in their nature and in the manner of execution (Gregory, 1967; Piazza, 2011), but primarily, they differ in their purpose: film dialogues always have a dramatic intention behind them (Berliner, 2013), which makes them different from spontaneous conversations. The accent in film dialogues is placed on their joint narrative purpose, where each character’s lines contribute to the overall film narrative and drive the plot further. More often than not, especially in Hollywood movies, the communication between the film characters is efficient and they tend to communicate what they mean and listen to one

10 

N. Chepinchikj

another (Berliner, 2013). This, however, is not always the case with Allen’s film characters, where there is plenty of rambling and “linguistic stumbling” (Berliner, 2013, p. 110), which is used to create dramatic tension. While conversational language tends to express stance, avoid elaboration, elicit responses, use discourse markers (e.g. interjections or inserts) and forms that signal attention for the purposes of interaction management (Biber et  al., 1999), film characters most frequently speak flawlessly, with almost no disfluencies, hesitations or adjustments to what they have said. Overlaps in talk are also very rare and when any of these phenomena do occur, they are most likely to be intentional. It goes back to the narrative purpose as well as characterisation, such as the character being nervous, secretive or surprised. Hence, if any of these film dialogue conventions are violated, they serve the greater purpose of progressing the narrative and showing causality of events and characters’ behaviour. It has to be pointed out that all of the abovementioned conventions refer to classical Hollywood movies. However, there are a number of exceptions to various degrees to these conventions that are found in films by certain film makers, such as John Cassavetes, Orson Welles and Woody Allen. Another distinction between film dialogues and naturally-occurring speech is the (typically) scripted nature of diegetic interactions. Film dialogues are not only written in the film’s screenplay, but they are most often rehearsed and memorised before they are performed in front of film cameras to produce the movie (Berliner, 1999; Kozloff, 2000; Mittmann, 2006; Piazza et  al., 2011; Rossi, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2011). However, sometimes diegetic interactions may only be partially scripted or they may not explicitly follow what is contained in the script. Furthermore, the screenplay may not contain all the instructions on the various interactional resources that are to be applied in the actual performance, such as prosody and non-verbal language (e.g. gaze and gestures). While scripted media may offer “a highly edited version of social and cultural life”, Queen (2015, p. 21) claims, “they are no more and no less ‘real’ than the unscripted media”, which makes them worthy of linguistic examination. Finally, even scripted interactions are based on some form of reality as they can provide us with insights “into underlying knowledge about real conversation” (Bubel & Spitz, 2006, p. 71).

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

11

Film dialogues, as already fleetingly mentioned above, are also instrumental to the shaping of characters on screen and they are used to reveal characters and build relationships between them, thus contributing to the “speaker’s identity” (Bednarek, 2019, p. 13). In the case of cinematic discourse, it is a joint collaboration of the writer and the actor to bring the character to life; however, characterisation is ultimately the product of performance (Queen, 2015). One of the ways in which writing and performance accomplish characterisation is through the characters’ use of language. Language use shapes the characters’ identities (Queen, 2015) and is instrumental in giving distinctiveness to individual characters and also in generating general ideas of social similarity and difference. In sociolinguistic studies that investigate cinematic discourse as well as in audiovisual translation studies, the characters’ linguistic identities are examined through dialects, idiolects and other linguistic traits from both the perspectives of individual distinctiveness (Bonsignori & Bruti, 2014; Planchenault, 2017; van Zyl & Botha, 2016) and from the perspective of generating stereotypical identity representations (Gregori-Signes, 2016; Ranzato, 2019). Another difference is the concept of emergence. This concept, as used in the conversation analytic tradition, indicates the social spontaneity of interaction in naturally-occurring conversations (Mondada, 2014a, 2014b; Ten Have, 2007). Bearing in mind the fact that film dialogues are pre-scripted, this concept does not have the same meaning in cinematic discourse. Rather, the emergence of interaction here refers to the enactment of those dialogues by the actors as represented participants, but not in terms of the spontaneity of the contents of talk. Despite the distinctions, diegetic interactions and spontaneous, everyday conversations do share a number of commonalities. To begin with, diegetic interactions are representations of human interaction since much of audio-visual fiction tends to simulate in many ways real-life human behaviour by ‘approximating’ naturally-occurring conversations (Werner, 2020, p.  1; also: Levshina, 2017; Quaglio, 2009). The ‘reality code’ (Bednarek, 2012, 2018; Berliner, 1999; Kozloff, 2000; Richardson, 2010), which Kozloff (2000, p. 47) defines as “a complex code of what a culture at a given time agrees to accept as plausible, everyday, authentic”, provides alignment between film dialogues and their performance in an

12 

N. Chepinchikj

embodied gestalt with the everyday, human interactions. This alignment provides a semblance of verisimilitude between the two types of interactions (Bednarek, 2018; Bonsignori, 2013, 2018; Dynel, 2013, 2015; Forchini, 2012; Ghia, 2019; Zago, 2017) and this is especially noticeable in films of the drama genre. The alignment is generated through linguistic means. For instance, overlaps in film dialogues are used “to reflect a natural characteristic of everyday oral communication” (Zabalbeascoa & Corrius, 2019, p. 67). This kind of “‘realistic’, ‘authentic’ and ‘naturalistic’ dialogue is one of the functions of TV dialogue, just as it is for film” (Bednarek, 2018, p. 20). Thus, many diegetic interactions feel, look and sound realistic, as they are relatable to the ordinary human experience. Another similarity is the communicational and self-presentational aspects of film dialogues (Kozloff, 2000; Richardson, 2010). I have already mentioned that the main purpose of film dialogues is to drive the narrative and also to shape the characters’ identities and this is accomplished through language, among other means. Characters in films communicate with both verbal and embodied resources and they also, like real people, make various verbal and embodied choices to express themselves. While most of these choices are being made in advance by the writer and director, the actors are indispensable in giving life to the characters. Their on-screen choices in the performance are just as important and, sometimes, they can be improvised, altered or reimagined. Despite the difference in purpose, focus and emphasis (Stokoe, 2013), the interactional resources and the communicative rules and principles in both varieties of spoken interactions are very similar. The same linguistic and pragmatic devices are encountered in diegetic interactions as in naturally-occurring ones (Bednarek, 2018). What varies is their use and frequency depending on the communicative context, which is a determining factor for both types of spoken varieties. Therefore, some linguistic features will be more frequent in film dialogues than in naturally-occurring conversations and vice versa. For example, more emphatic and exaggerated language is generally found in film dialogues (Bednarek, 2018), with fewer interruptions, hesitations, disfluencies and overlaps. Still, numerous linguistic traits that are common in naturally-occurring interactions are also found in telecinematic discourse. For instance, colloquial speech and non-standard linguistic forms (Bednarek, 2018;

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

13

Ghia, 2019; Zago, 2017), dialects and regional varieties (Planchenault, 2017; Ranzato, 2019; Werner, 2020) and various types of questions (Ghia, 2019), are all used in audio-visual fiction. Even specific types of discourse, such as legal and courtroom language in American films, have been found to be very similar to naturally-occurring instances of the discourse, by displaying similar linguistic features that appear in similar quantities in the two language corpora (Forchini, 2017) as well as in terms of use of technical vocabulary (Csomay & Petrović, 2012). These linguistic features are verbs, first and second person pronouns and possessives, contractions, private verbs (e.g. feel, believe), coordinating conjunctions, clausal connectors and demonstratives. In Forchini’s (2017) words, “movie language is constantly marked by involved production, non-narrative concerns, situation-dependent reference, non-overt expression of persuasion, and abstract information, whatever the genre” (p. 145). Therefore, it is evident that diegetic interactions share numerous traits with spontaneous language, which makes them excellent candidates for linguistic and social interactional investigation. Even though film dialogues are scripted, they are, “written to be spoken as if not written” (Gregory, 1967, p. 188) and sometimes they are referred to as “mediated” or “represented talk” (Richardson, 2010, p. 177). Thus, the performance of the dialogues does follow the rules and norms of everyday occurring conversations. The actual performance also differs from the scripted dialogues (Cruickshank, 2014; Gibbons & Whiteley, 2021; Macrae, 2014; Short, 1998), since the exact scripted utterances undergo alterations and, to a certain extent, are improvised. In fact, actors use method-acting techniques to “interact in a realistic way adapting the language given them in the script to the context in which they are supposed to find themselves” (Taylor, 2004, p. 80). What this means is that actors make adjustments to the actual script according to their needs and with the purpose to make it realistic. This is particularly true in the case of Woody Allen’s films, since he is widely known to shoot them in single takes, allowing the actors maximum freedom of expression and modifications of the exact lines in his scripts (Weide, 2012). Much of the recent linguistics research on audio-visual discourse has been exploring various facets of language use in films and TV shows from different perspectives, such as dialects and different linguistic varieties

14 

N. Chepinchikj

(Planchenault, 2017; Ranzato, 2019; Werner, 2020), humour (Dynel, 2011, 2018; Gregori-Signes, 2016; Messerli, 2020; Stokoe, 2008), emotions (Bednarek, 2008; Krysanova & Shevchenko, 2019), voice-over narration (Harrison, 2020), identity (Chierichetti, 2017), gender stereotypes (Gregori-Signes, 2016), misunderstandings and implicature (Desilla, 2019) and particular lexis, such as swear and taboo words (Bednarek, 2019). Many of the extant studies are based on corpus linguistics and investigate primarily the dialogues (both spoken by the actors and written in the screenplays and other scripts), while others are sociolinguistic, semiotic, pragmatic, (cognitive) stylistic (e.g. Gibbons & Whiteley, 2021; Harrison, 2020; van Zyl & Botha, 2016) and even psycholinguistic (e.g. Krysanova & Shevchenko, 2019). There are also those that take a multimodal approach to audio-visual expression and most frequently apply the multimodal analysis, as developed by Baldry and Thibault (2006) (e.g. Bonsignori, 2018, 2019; Law, 2019). While cinematic discourse is undeniably multimodal by nature, on both its planes, diegetic and extra-diegetic alike, most of the studies that approach films as multimodal products investigate the multimodality of the extra-diegetic plane, which includes cinematography, non-­ verbal soundtrack, mise-en-scène and editing. This study approaches multimodality in film from an interactional perspective, that is, it looks at a variety of resources (verbal and embodied) that occur on the diegetic plane and which are made meaningful in the on-screen, represented interactions.

2.2 Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse As mentioned in the Introduction and the previous section of this chapter, this study takes an interactional approach to the use of language (both verbal and non-verbal) in Woody Allen’s cinematic discourse. This means that the delivery and embodiment of the film dialogues by the actors is examined through the lens of interactional linguistics and multimodal conversation analysis (MMCA). The premise of both approaches is that language is a social construct, which is context-dependent and

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

15

accomplished through interaction (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting, 2001; Fox, 1987; Ford, 1993; Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008; Liddicoat, 2011; Ten Have, 2007). Language forms and structures are thus actively (re)produced and adapted to the requirements of interaction, which means that they arise in use and their use not only reflects conversational structure, but it also creates it (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting, 2001). Since film dialogue is a form of conversation, it is worthwhile to examine diegetic interactions from a conversation-based perspective. This perspective takes a micro-analytical approach to analysis and the study of linguistic phenomena from the standpoint of participants and their orientation in interaction (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting, 2001). Furthermore, this perspective is also combined with the multimodal approach to interaction, where various semiotic resources (in this particular case speech, gaze and gestures) are integrated holistically and they make sense in their integration. Participants in interactions make decisions as to what resources to use, when to use them and what resources they are going to prioritise or foreground for the interactional purposes they have in mind (Hazel et al., 2014; Mondada, 2014a). Finally, this study looks closely at the social actions performed through embodied interaction by the interlocutors in the chosen diegetic interactions. The approach to social action here is oriented more towards its sequential positioning within an interaction and its co-construction by the interlocutors. In other words, the social actions are examined as acts that the interlocutors perform (or intend to perform) through interaction with their co-participants, or, more generally speaking, what the actors in the film scenes are doing with their dialogue and embodied behaviour. Therefore, this study adopts the basic CA principle of analysing social action in interaction that rests on the ‘next turn proof procedure’1 (Sacks et al., 1974), whereby the current listener ascribes a certain social action  Sacks et al. (1974, p. 728) explain this concept as follows:

1

The turn-taking system has, as a by-product of its design, a proof procedure for the analysis of turns. When A addresses a first-pair part such as a ‘question’ or a ‘complaint’ to B, we have noted, A selects B as next speaker, and selects for B that he next perform a second part for the ‘adjacency pair’ A has started, i.e. an ‘answer’ or an ‘apology’ (among other possibilities) respectively. B, in so doing, not only performs that utterance-type, but thereby displays (in the first place to his co-participants) his understanding of the prior turn’s talk as a first part, as a ‘question’ or ‘complaint’.

16 

N. Chepinchikj

to the current speaker’s turn and then, when the current listener takes over the speakership, their turn design reveals the social action previously ascribed along with their understanding of the previous speaker’s intention. Action ascription in this sense signifies “the assignment of an action to a turn as revealed by the response of a next speaker” (Levinson, 2013, p. 104). If this social action ascription remains uncorrected in the next turn or turns, it means that joint meaning and understanding has been established between the interlocutors (Levinson, 2013). The action ascription depends on a number of factors, such as turn design, turn location, the context of the interaction, as well as the purpose and the larger framework into which the interaction is embedded, such as institution, private domain, or, in the case of this study, the story-world of films. I have already mentioned that human interaction is multimodal by nature as the channels of communication do not solely include speech (or language, more generally), but also numerous other semiotic resources, which are not verbal. Hence, the principal premise of the interactional approach used in this book is that all interaction is multimodal or “fundamentally embodied” (Hazel et  al., 2014, p.  3) and the resources of interaction other than speech will be referred throughout as embodied since this term captures the essence of all the various resources produced by or with the aid of the human body. The embodied resources of interaction include gaze (C.  Goodwin, 1979, 1980, 1981; M.  H. Goodwin, 1980; Kendon, 1967; Rossano, 2006, 2012, 2013), gesture (C. Goodwin, 1986; Goodwin & Goodwin, 1986; Groeber & Pochon-Berger, 2014; Kendon, 1972, 1980, 1990a, 1990b, 1994, 1997, 2007; Schegloff, 1984, 1986; Streeck, 1993, 1994), body posture (Rasmussen, 2014), body movement (kinesics) (Heath, 1984, 1986), manipulation of objects in the surrounding environment (C. Goodwin, 2000, 2013; Mortensen & Hazel, 2014), and even using the environment itself as a semiotic resource for interaction. This approach focuses on multimodality of interaction, building on the assumption that interactions are “complex multimodal Gestalts2” (Mondada, 2014a, p. 137; see also Hazel et al., 2014).

 Gestalt refers to the many parts of something, where the object or thing is more than the sum of its parts or different from the combination thereof. 2

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

17

The term multimodality employed here is borrowed from MMCA and means, “various resources mobilized by participants for organizing their action—such as gesture, gaze, body postures, movements, prosody, lexis and grammar” (Mondada, 2014a, p. 138). This term also implies a plurality of resources and their constitutive intertwining in the process of interacting (Mondada, 2014a). Very importantly, the various resources are integrated holistically and they make sense in their integration. Participants in interactions make decisions as to what resources to use, when to use them and what resources they are going to prioritise or foreground for the interactional purposes they have in mind (Hazel et al., 2014; Mondada, 2014a). In social interaction, a huge emphasis is placed on the emergence of meaning-making through the use of various interactional resources by the interactants as well as their collaboration and temporality. Both emergence and temporality are related to the very nature of interaction, as phenomena emerging on the spot and in the course of time. Both turns-­ at-­ talk and complex multimodal actions are designed moment-by-­ moment in an emergent manner. These processes are also progressively shaped through time. This type of emergence and co-construction particularly applies to spontaneous, naturally-occurring conversations, where interlocutors respond (or not) to one another and where there is no pre-determined outcome of their interaction. Such interactions are not pre-organised (Mondada, 2014a) and, hence, resources such as grammar, emerge through interaction and are co-constructed through joint effort on the part of all participants involved, not merely the speaker (Goodwin, 1979, 1981, 1986). All building blocks of speech, such as words, phrases and clauses are seen as emergent, fluctuating and “also as grounded fundamentally in action and interaction” (Fox et al., 2013, p. 734). This means that they both depend on the context and at the same time create the context of interaction (Ford, 1993; Fox & Jasperson, 1995; Silverstein, 1976). In Schegloff’s words (Schegloff et al., 1996, p. 40), “the meaning of any single grammatical construction is interactionally contingent, built over interactional time in accordance with interactional actualities”. In the same fashion, sentences are deemed products of joint and collaborative action performed by both a speaker and recipient and they

18 

N. Chepinchikj

involve both linguistic and embodied (gaze, gesture) resources to accomplish the desired actions (Goodwin, 1981, 1995). Consequently, sentence production can change according to the change in recipiency, gaze or other interactional features, and thus it can be redesigned for a new recipient or situation. Therefore, since speech production is an interactional achievement, it cannot be ascribed to a single speaker. Syntax, prosody and semantics are regarded as shared knowledge among the speech community (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting, 2001), serving as resources in carrying out interaction, which is a collaborative endeavour. Interactions are also purposeful and they have an orderly nature. Talk in CA is viewed as an activity for accomplishing goals in interaction (Sacks, 1995). It possesses a strategic and orderly nature; however, its order is not uniform, but it is structured by participants in an interaction (Liddicoat, 2011). In other words and as already mentioned, talk is jointly co-created by its participants in the process of interacting and people’s talk is seen as “an emergent collectively organized event” (Ten Have, 2007, p.  9). Emphasis, however, is placed on how participants conduct interactions and what a particular utterance does, rather than what it means (Sidnell, 2010). Finally, another central principle of conversation is ‘recipient design’ (Sacks et al., 1974). This concept is defined as “the multitude of respects in which the talk by a party in a conversation is constructed or designed in ways which display an orientation and sensitivity to the particular other(s) who are the co-participants” (Sacks, et  al., 1974, p.  727). Therefore, speakers design their talk in such ways as to make themselves understood by recipients and their selection of words “reflects what the speaker assumes the recipient knows” (Sidnell, 2010, p. 5).

2.3 Woody Allen’s Cinematic Style Now that we have defined cinematic discourse in general terms, as well as clarified the standpoint from which it is investigated in this book, let us turn to Woody Allen’s cinematic discourse, which is quite particular. To begin with, Woody Allen is an extremely prolific and complete film artist (screenwriter, director and actor) and the sole creator of his film work

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

19

from its inception to its final realisation, which means that he has an overarching and exclusive authorship and control over his films (Bailey, 2014). Roger Ebert writes that Woody Allen “is one of only two or three American film directors who makes all of his films on his own terms, in his own way” (2006, p. 80). Bearing all this in mind, Allen has been characterised as an ‘auteur’ (Lax, 2007; Schickel, 2003). Being an auteur does not simply mean writing, directing and acting in one’s films, but more importantly it is about creating an individualistic and recognisable film style, with a number of traits that are recurrently found in a number of movies by the same author (Maras, 2009; Sarris, 1962). Applying this definition makes it more than obvious that Woody Allen has created a signature style in his films over the last forty years of active film work. Furthermore, Allen’s films are not (intended to be) commercial and they have rarely (if at all) been box-office successes. His film work is not emblematic of the Hollywood ‘dream factory’3. On the contrary, his work is independent of Hollywood and its system of work and production, which is yet another confirmation of his auteur renown and status. There a number of specific traits of Allen’s filmmaking that are immediately recognisable, and some that are peculiar to his manner of work but not immediately visible. I will mention a few of both types here, especially the ones that define his cinematic discourse and make it particularly relevant to the present enquiry.

2.3.1 Recognisable Traits of Allen’s Film Style With regard to the visible and immediately recognisable features, one of these is his choice of music, which is used both as a diegetic device (within the story-world) and as extra-diegetic device (e.g. in opening and closing credits). Allen, being a jazz aficionado and a clarinet player himself, uses jazz music in all his films. Very occasionally, he also makes use of classical music, especially in his more serious films. Along with his unwavering music choices, another one is the recognisable typeface in all his films’  “Woody Allen doesn’t write blockbusters and Hollywood likes him. He writes about things he knows.” (Lines spoken by the character Dr Joel Fleischman in the TV series “Northern Exposure”, Season 1, Episode 6 (“Sex, Lies and Ed’s Tapes”, 1990)). 3

20 

N. Chepinchikj

titles and credits, which has not changed since Sleeper (1973). Thus, both the auditory and visual elements of Allen’s films make them immediately recognisable from their very beginning. Another trait of his films is the city settings and the urban topics that he writes about. Most of Allen’s films take place in his birth-city of New York or in other metropolises, such as London, Paris, Barcelona and Rome. This comes as no surprise since he describes himself as an ultimate city-dweller and someone who takes no personal interest in the bucolic environment (Allen, 2020). That is why he very rarely depicts the countryside (Bananas, 1969; Love and Death, 1975; A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, 1980b). As for his topics, they generally revolve around existential issues, relationships, the arts, but also crime, murder, magic, infidelity and divorce. He also makes considerable use of recurrent and problematic issues, such as sexuality, and treats gender and gender relationships extensively in his film work, owing to his interest in depicting intimate relationships between women and men. Woody Allen’s film opus recurrently focuses on, among other themes, relationships between females and males, especially in terms of romantic involvement, marital relations, infidelity, divorce and break-ups of relationships. Any one or more of these perspectives on female-male relationships are featured in all of his films. Writing about Allen’s depiction of romantic relationships, Bailey (2014, p. 98), however, states that “[t]hough romances are frequently at the center of his stories, the Allen filmography is littered with failed relationships. The couples that meet in his movies, fall in love, and stay that way (presumably) beyond the end credits are few and far between”. All of the above is due to Allen’s pessimistic and cynical view of relationships “that started with all good faith, and everybody swore allegiance and great love and fealty and then you looked up in six days, or six months, or six years, or whatever, and everything had somehow come to nothing, or something had gone wrong somewhere. It was more frequent than two people who would meet with good intentions and form a relationship and things would last. That was the rarity.” (Bailey, 2014, p. 99). The pessimistic view of romance and relationships is also closely related to the characters that Allen depicts in his films. They are complex intellectual people who face difficulties in having good and long-lasting relationships because, in Allen’s own words, “they’re so finely tuned, and have

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

21

so much difficulty getting pleasure out of life, and are so critical of everything” (Bailey, 2014, p. 99). Allen’s characters are selfish and indulgent, particularly with respect to love. They lie both to themselves and to each other and “they’re always wondering if there is something or someone a little better, just around the corner” (Bailey, 2014, p. 99). The reasons for the unfortunate endings of female-male relationships in Allen’s films are various, such as, boredom (Annie Hall, 1977; Husbands and Wives, 1992), the betrayal of a friend (Manhattan, 1979; Melinda and Melinda, 2004a), ego (Sweet and Lowdown, 1999), a past lover (Alice, 1990), irresistibility of outside attraction (September, 1987; Everyone Says I Love You, 1996; Celebrity, 1998; Anything Else, 2003; You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, 2010), being controlled by one’s partner (Interiors, 1978) and death (Love and Death, 1975; Crimes and Misdemeanors, 1989; Match Point, 2005). Nevertheless, in most of his films, the overwhelming cause of relationship break-ups is infidelity (Bailey, 2014). Speaking of the roles Allen himself plays, they tend to be stock characters, roughly classified in two groups: either intellectual (or pseudointellectual) types or scoundrels and petty criminals. They are immediately recognisable by their witty one-liners, quirky behaviour and neurotic mannerisms. Especially the former characters (and this extends to all the intellectuals in his films, not just the characters played by Allen) are portrayed as people who overcomplicate things, have strong feelings and opinions about everything and are overly critical, which leads to their own downfall (Schickel, 2003). However, Allen believes that his own acting abilities are very limited and therefore the range of characters he can play is quite restricted (Allen, 2020; Lax, 2007). Thus, he is mostly believable in comic roles and he has never appeared in any of his more serious films. Lastly, a very significant feature of Allen’s film work is that he builds his films to a great extent on verbal dialogue. His propensity towards the word and the verbal, rather than the image and the visual, is explained by the film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum as something related to “the nature of Judaism as an oral culture” (1995, p. 242). Allen admits that he places emphasis on language in his writing because his type of humour is predominantly verbal, but he also believes that dialogue is essential in drama as a means of human expression and communication (Lax, 2007). This,

22 

N. Chepinchikj

in brief, characterises him as a filmmaker who prefers to ‘tell’ rather than to ‘show’ although he agrees that the message of a film should be contained in its action, rather than the dialogue (Lax, 2007, p. 123).

2.3.2 Less Visible Traits of Allen’s Film Style All of the above are visible and highly recognisable features of Woody Allen’s film style, which are quite repetitive in his films. There are a number of traits though that largely impact and define his cinematic discourse, which may be less known or invisible to the viewers. These traits are crucial not only to his film style but also to the approach to and the understanding of the diegetic interactions in his films. The first trait is connected to Allen’s directing style. His approach to directing is minimalist, which he describes as “lazy” because he is extremely hands-off when it comes to directing his actors. He seldom gives any instructions to the actors (Lax, 2007; Schickel, 2003) and allows them to perform his scripts the way they see fit. Therefore, he permits improvisation, modification and even omission of lines from the original script. The idea is that the actors are believable in their roles as real people. This is also a reason why he never rehearses as he finds rehearsals to deaden the scenes and take away the spontaneity from performance (Lax, 2007, p. 260). Furthermore, Woody Allen also admits to lacking the talent and knowledge of guiding and educating actors, which justifies his collaboration with well-renowned and good actors. He prefers to work with actors who understand his vision of a particular scene and comments that it is the quality of the actors he works with that he owes most to (Allen, 2020; Lax, 2007). This is another reason why Allen is confident in the actors’ delivery of scenes, while he takes a back seat and rarely intervenes on the set. Another interesting point is that Allen does not reveal the entire screenplay to the actors (Lax, 2007; Weide, 2012). Each of them only receives their part of the script and is not familiar with the entire story. This is another peculiarity of his style of work, which further contributes to the more spontaneous on-screen performance.

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

23

In terms of shooting, Woody Allen is known to shoot his films in long takes and with very few reshoots. He attributes this to his impatience and lack of meticulousness (Lax, 2007). Long takes are Allen’s preference because they are more seamless although there is normally more preparation involved for these shots. However, cuts are minimised and there is rarely a need for retakes (Schickel, 2003). Unlike other directors, Allen tends to make decisions about shooting and mise-en-scène on the spot, just before the shooting of a scene commences (Lax, 2007). He uses the film script only as a starting point but then makes changes and additions as he starts shooting. In other words, he does not make detailed plans or storyboards for his scenes, which characterises his style of work as very spontaneous. Allen’s creative process is very organic and intuitive. He plays around with ideas until one (or two) of those seem to be leading somewhere and then he commits to the chosen one. It is interesting that he is constantly thinking about film ideas and their development. This is all part of his writing process, which he describes as difficult (Lax, 2007). However, when Allen talks about writing, he actually means developing the idea into a story, rather than writing the script. He only sits down and writes the script after he has finalised the story and he never takes any notes while thinking the story through. That is why he usually writes his scripts very quickly, within four to six weeks. Allen is convinced that the largest part of a film’s success is in the writing and that no matter how good the performance or other elements are the film will not be good unless it has been written well. He enjoys the creative segment of writing a screenplay, but he also acknowledges the sometimes huge divide between his idea and vision for a film and its final cut. He comments that “[i]n the making of a film so much of what you planned on doesn’t work the way you thought it would” (Lax, 2007, p. 65). Nevertheless, the process of playing with ideas and developing the story and characters, first on paper and then in performance, is what he mostly loves about filmmaking. He admits to escaping in the fantasy world of his film creations and transposing himself into those worlds for as long as that process lasts. Another organic component of his writing is the spontaneous shifts and changes in the exact written dialogues when on the set. He

24 

N. Chepinchikj

comments about the difference between the writing of dialogues, which is an activity he does by himself, and the actual performance of those dialogues in front of the camera, which is a collaborative task. “On the set you’re in a reality that you’re not in when you’re writing it because you can react differently and more accurately”, Allen says (Lax, 2007, p. 101). That is why his scripts are merely used as signposts for actors and his actors, including himself, usually alter lines from the dialogue and improvise when they start shooting the scenes. A further confirmation that his screenplays are mere plans for his films and not the final document that ought to be executed as it is written comes from the fact that he constantly changes and adapts various elements of the story, props, settings and even characters once he starts filming. He sometimes adapts his characters to the actors that are going to play them, especially if an actor whom he had in mind for a particular role is unavailable to take the role, or if it is indeed a particular actor he is thinking of for a certain role, such as himself. The way he explains it is that he is “writing the movie as [he] is making the movie” (Lax, 2007, p. 91). With regard to his use of language and dialogue, Allen very rarely uses taboo language and strong expletives are non-existent in his dialogues. He comments that this is due to his personal preference and that the language is commensurate with the effect he wants to make (Lax, 2007). He also tends to use more formal language in his drama films, mostly due to the more serious genre and his different approach to writing this type of film stories. Although Allen’s household name has become a synonym for comedy, he has also produced a number of very serious drama works in his long career and has emphasised his interest in and fascination with this genre on many occasions (Allen, 2004b, 2020; Bailey, 2014; Lax, 2007; Schickel, 2003; Weide, 2012). He has also experimented with cross-genre movies, such as romantic comedies (e.g. The Purple Rose of Cairo, 1985; Alice, 1990; Mighty Aphrodite, 1995), science-fiction comedies (e.g. Sleeper, 1973), mockumentaries (e.g. Zelig, 1983), crime/mystery comedies (e.g. Manhattan Murder Mystery, 1993; The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, 2001; Scoop, 2006), and even a musical (Everybody Says I Love You, 1996).

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

25

When comparing comedy and drama, Allen admits that comedy is generally more difficult to write but, in his opinion, it is also less valuable and satisfying because it does not offer any solutions to problems, apart from humour (Lax, 2007). The difficulty comes from adhering to its steadfast rules and getting the pacing correctly, that is, being able to synchronise the story with the jokes. Personally, however, he finds comedy writing easier and believes it has to do with his talent (Allen, 2020; Lax, 2007). On the other hand, drama writing is more of a struggle for him even though he prefers it as a genre. Over the years, he has written and directed a few drama films with various success among audiences and critics. Some of these films, for example, Interiors (1978) and Stardust Memories (1980a), have also been visibly influenced by the major European filmmakers that Allen admires, such as Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini, respectively. Being acquainted with and aware of Woody Allen’s approach to filmmaking, from the inception of his ideas and the writing process to (and in particular) the actual making of his film projects, is of paramount importance to understanding his cinematic discourse, especially on the level of diegetic interactions between on-screen characters. Therefore, the various elements of his cinematic discourse that make it unique also present a valuable subject of linguistic enquiry.

References Allen, W. (Director). (1969). Bananas [Film]. A Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Production. Allen, W. (Director). (1973). Sleeper [Film]. A Charles H. Joffe Production. Allen, W. (Director). (1975). Love and death [Film]. A Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Production. Allen, W. (Director). (1977). Annie Hall [Film]. Rollins-Joffe Productions. Allen, W. (Director). (1978). Interiors [Film]. Rollins-Joffe Productions. Allen, W. (Director). (1979). Manhattan [Film]. Rollins-Joffe Productions. Allen, W. (Director). (1980a). Stardust memories [Film]. A Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Production.

26 

N. Chepinchikj

Allen, W. (Director). (1980b). A midsummer night’s sex comedy [Film]. A Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Production. Allen, W. (Director). (1983). Zelig [Film]. Orion Pictures Company. Allen, W. (Director). (1985). The purple rose of Cairo [Film]. Orion Pictures Corporation. Allen, W. (Director). (1987). September [Film]. Orion Pictures Corporation. Allen, W. (Director). (1989). Crimes and misdemeanors [Film]. A Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Production. Allen, W. (Director). (1990). Alice [Film]. Orion Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (1992). Husbands and wives [Film]. TriStar Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (1993). Manhattan murder mystery [Film]. TriStar Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (1995). Mighty Aphrodite [Film]. Miramax. Allen, W. (Director). (1996). Everyone says I love you [Film]. Miramax. Allen, W. (Director). (1998). Celebrity [Film]. Sweetland Films; Magnolia Productions. Allen, W. (Director). (1999). Sweet and lowdown [Film]. Sweetland Films; Magnolia Productions. Allen, W. (Director). (2001). The curse of the jade scorpion [Film]. DreamWorks Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (2003). Anything else [Film]. DreamWorks Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (2004a). Melinda and Melinda [Film]. Fox Searchlight Pictures. Allen, W. (2004b [1993]). Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In conversation with Stig Björkman. Rev. ed. Grove Press. Allen, W. (Director). (2005). Match point [Film]. BBC Films; Thema Production SA; A Jada Production. Allen, W. (Director). (2006). Scoop [Film]. Focus Features. Allen, W. (Director). (2010). You will meet a tall dark stranger [Film]. Mediapro, et al. Allen, W. (2020). Apropos of nothing. Arcade Publishing. Bailey, J. (2014). The ultimate Woody Allen film companion. Voyageur Press. Baldry, A. P., & Thibault, P. J. (2006). Multimodal transcription and text analysis. Equinox. Bednarek, M. (2008). Emotion talk across corpora. Palgrave Macmillan. Bednarek, M. (2012). Constructing “nerdiness”: Characterisation in The Big Bang Theory. Multilingua, 31(2–3), 199–229. https://doi.org/10.1515/ multi-­2012-­0010

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

27

Bednarek, M. (2018). Language and television series: A linguistic approach to TV dialogue (The Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series). Cambridge University Press. Bednarek, M. (2019). The multifunctionality of swear/taboo words in television series. In J. L. Mackenzie & L. Alba-Juez (Eds.), Emotion in discourse. John Benjamins. Berliner, T. (1999). Hollywood movie dialogue and the ‘real realism’ of John Cassavetes. Film Quarterly, 52(3), 2–16. Berliner, T. (2013). Killing the writer: Movie dialogue conventions and John Cassavetes. In J.  Jaeckle (Ed.), Film Dialogue (pp.  103–115). Columbia University Press. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman. Bonsignori, V. (2013). English tags: A close-up on film language, dubbing and conversation. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Bonsignori, V. (2018). Using films and TV series for ESP teaching: A multimodal perspective. System, 77, 58–69. Bonsignori, V. (2019). A multimodal analysis of spoken medical English in expert-to-expert interaction in TV programmes. Ibérica, 37, 115–140. Bonsignori, V., & Bruti, S. (2014). Representing varieties of English in film language and dubbing: The case of Indian English. inTRAlinea, Special issue: Across screens across boundaries, 1–12. Brand, J. (Writer), Falsey, J. (Writer), & Smolan, S. (Director). (1990, August 16). Sex, lies and Ed’s tapes (Season 1, Episode 6) [TV series episode]. In J. Brand (Executive Producer), Northern exposure. Cine-Nevada Productions; Universal Television; Falahey/Austin Street Productions. Bubel, C., & Spitz, A. (2006). “One of the last vestiges of gender bias”: The characterization of women through the telling of dirty jokes in Ally McBeal. Humor, 19(1), 71–104. Chierichetti, L. (2017). Lovers’ discourse and identity in audiovisual fiction: The case of LEX. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación (CLAC), 70, 119–139. Couper-Kuhlen, E., & Selting, M. (2001). Introducing interactional linguistics. In M. Selting & E. Couper-Kuhlen (Eds.), Studies in interactional linguistics (pp. 1–22). John Benjamins. Cruickshank, T. (2014). Performance. In P. Stockwell & S. Whiteley (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of stylistics (pp. 456–466). Cambridge University Press.

28 

N. Chepinchikj

Csomay, E., & Petrović, M. (2012). “Yes, your honor!”: A corpus-based study of technical vocabulary in discipline-related movies and TV shows. System, 40, 305–315. Culpeper, J., & McIntyre, D. (2010). Activity types and characterisation in dramatic discourse. In G. Eder, F. Jannidis, & R. Schneider (Eds.), Characters in fictional worlds: Interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 176–207). De Gruyter. Desilla, L. (2012). Implicatures in film: Construal and functions in Bridget Jones romantic comedies. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 30–53. Desilla, L. (2019). Happily lost in translation: Misunderstandings in film dialogue. Multilingua, 38(5), 601–618. https://doi-­org.wwwproxy1.library. unsw.edu.au/10.1515/multi-­2018-­0123 Dynel, M. (2011). “I’ll be there for you!”: On participation-based sitcom humour. In M. Dynel (Ed.), The pragmatics of humour across discourse domains (pp. 311–334). John Benjamins. Dynel, M. (2013). Humorous phenomena in dramatic discourse. The European Journal of Humour Research, 1(1), 22–60. Dynel, M. (2015). Impoliteness in the service of verisimilitude in film interaction. In M. Dynel & J. Chovanec (Eds.), Participation in public and social media interactions (pp. 157–182). John Benjamins. Dynel, M. (2018). Irony, deception and humour: Seeking the truth about overt and covert untruthfulness. De Gruyter Mouton. Ebert, R. (2006). Awake in the dark: The best of Roger Ebert: Forty years of reviews, essays and interviews. Foreword by David Bordwell. University of Chicago Press. Forchini, P. (2012). Movie language revisited: Evidence from multi-dimensional analysis and corpora. Peter Lang. Forchini, P. (2017). A multi-dimensional analysis of legal American English: Real-life and cinematic representations compared. International Journal of Language Studies, 11(3), 133–150. Ford, C. E. (1993). Grammar in interaction: Adverbial clauses in American English conversations. Cambridge University Press. Fox, B. A. (1987). Discourse structure and anaphora. Cambridge University Press. Fox, B. A., & Jasperson, R. (1995). A syntactic exploration of repair in English conversation. In P. W. Davis (Ed.), Alternative linguistics. Descriptive and theoretical modes (pp. 77–134). John Benjamins. Fox, B.  A., Thompson, S.  A., Ford, C.  E., & Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2013). Conversation analysis and linguistics. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 726–740). Wiley-Blackwell.

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

29

Ghia, E. (2019). (Dis)aligning across different lingacultures: Pragmatic questions from original to dubbed film dialogue. Multilingua, 38(5), 583–600. Gibbons, A., & Whiteley, S. (2021). Do worlds have (fourth) walls?: A text world theory approach to direct address in ‘Fleabag’. Language and literature, 30(2), 105–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947020983202 Goodwin, C. (1979). The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 97–121). Irvington. Goodwin, C. (1980). Restarts, pauses, and the achievement of mutual gaze at turn-beginning. Sociological Inquiry, 50(3–4), 272–302. Goodwin, C. (1981). Conversational organization: Interaction between speakers and hearers. Academic Press. Goodwin, C. (1986). Gestures as a resource for the organization of mutual orientation. Semiotica, 62, 29–49. Goodwin, C. (1995). Sentence construction within. In U.  Quasthoff (Ed.), Aspects of oral communication (pp. 198–219). de Gruyter. Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1489–1522. Goodwin, C. (2013). The co-operative, transformative organization of human action and knowledge. Journal of Pragmatics, 46, 8–23. Goodwin, C., & Goodwin, M. H. (1986). Gesture and coparticipation in the activity of searching for a word. Semiotica, 62(1/2), 51–75. Goodwin, M. H. (1980). Process of mutual monitoring implicated in the production of description sequences. Sociological Inquiry, 50, 303–317. Gregori-Signes, C. (2016). “Apparently, women don’t know how to operate doors”: A corpus-based analysis of women stereotypes in the TV series 3rd Rock from the Sun. International Journal of English Studies, 17(2), 21–43. https://doi.org/10.6018/ijes/2017/2/257311 Gregory, M. (1967). Aspects of varieties differentiation. Journal of Linguistics, 2, 177–198. Groeber, S., & Pochon-Berger, E. (2014). Turns and turn-taking in sign language interaction: A study of turn-final holds. Journal of Pragmatics, 65, 121–136. Harrison, C. (2020). ‘The truth is we’re watching each other’: Voiceover narration as ‘split self ’ presentation in The Handmaid’s Tale TV series. Language and Literature, 29(1), 22–38. Hazel, S., Mortensen, K., & Rasmussen, G. (2014). Introduction: A body of resources—CA studies of social conduct. Journal of Pragmatics, 65, 1–9.

30 

N. Chepinchikj

Heath, C. (1984). Talk and recipiency: Sequential organization in speech and body movement. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp.  247–265). Cambridge University Press. Heath, C. (1986). Body movement and speech in medical interaction. Cambridge University Press. Hutchby, I., & Wooffitt, R. (2008). Conversation Analysis (2nd ed.). Polity Press. Kendon, A. (1967). Some functions of gaze direction in social interaction. Acta Psychological, 26, 22–63. Kendon, A. (1972). Some relationships between body motion and speech. In A.  Siegman & B.  Pope (Eds.), Studies in dyadic communication (pp. 177–210). Pergamon. Kendon, A. (1980). Gesture and speech: Two aspects of the process of utterance. In M. R. Key (Ed.), Nonverbal communication and language (pp. 207–227). Mouton. Kendon, A. (1990a). Conducting interaction: Patterns of behavior in focused encounters. Cambridge University Press. Kendon, A. (1990b). Some context for context analysis: A view of the origins of structural studies of face-to-face interaction. In A. Kendon (Ed.), Conducting interaction: Patterns of behavior in focused encounters (pp. 15–49). Cambridge University Press. Kendon, A. (1994). Introduction to the special issue: Gesture and understanding in interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 27, 171–173. Kendon, A. (1997). Gesture. Annual Review of Anthropology, 26, 109–128. Kendon, A. (2007). Some topics in gesture studies. In A. Esposito et al. (Eds.), Fundamentals of verbal and nonverbal communication and the biometric issue. IOS Press. Kozloff, S. (2000). Overhearing film dialogue. University of California Press. Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge. Krysanova, T., & Shevchenko, I. (2019). The intersemiosis of negative emotions in the cinematic discourse: A psycholinguistic perspective. Psycholinguistics, 25(2), 117–137. https://doi.org/10.31470/2309-­1797-­2019-­25-­2-­117-­137 Law, L. (2019). Creativity and television drama: A corpus-based multimodal analysis of pattern-reforming creativity in House M.D. Corpora, 14(2), 135–171. https://doi.org/10.3366/cor.2019.0167 Lax, E. (2007). Conversations with Woody Allen: His films, the movies and movie-­ making. Aurum Press.

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

31

Levinson, S.  C. (2013). Action formation and ascription. In J.  Sidnell & T.  Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp.  103–130). Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Levshina, N. (2017). Online film subtitles as a corpus: An n-gram approach. Corpora, 12(3), 311–338. Liddicoat, A.  J. (2011). An introduction to Conversation Analysis (2nd ed.). Continuum. Macrae, A. (2014). Stylistics, drama and performance. In M. Burke (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of stylistics (pp. 252–267). Routledge. Maras, S. (2009). Screenwriting: History, theory and practice. Wallflower Press. Messerli, T.  C. (2020). Repetition in sitcom humour. In C.  Hoffmann & M.  Kirner-Ludwig (Eds.), Telecinematic stylistics (pp.  87–112). Bloomsbury Academic. Mittmann, B. (2006). With a little help from Friends (and others): Lexico-­ pragmatic characteristics of original and dubbed film dialogue. In C.  Houswitschka, G.  Knappe, & A.  Müller (Eds.), Anglistentag 2005, Bamberg—Proceedings (pp. 573–585). WVT. Mondada, L. (2014a). The local constitution of multimodal resources for social interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 65, 137–156. Mondada, L. (2014b). Instructions in the operating room: How the surgeon directs their assistant’s hands. Discourse Studies, 16(2), 131–161. Mortensen, K., & Hazel, S. (2014). Moving into interaction: Social practices for initiating encounters at a help desk. Journal of Pragmatics, 62, 46–67. Phillips, P. (2000). Understanding film text: Meaning and experience. British Film Institute. Piazza, R. (2011). Let’s cinema speak. Discourse in Italian cinema and beyond. Continuum. Piazza, R., Bednarek, M., & Rossi, F. (2011). Introduction: Analysing telecinematic discourse. In R. Piazza, M. Bednarek, & F. Rossi (Eds.), Telecinematic discourse: Approaches to the language of films and television series (pp. 1–17). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Planchenault, G. (2017). Doing dialects in dialogues: Regional, social and ethnic variation in fiction. In M. A. Locher & A. H. Jucker (Eds.), Pragmatics of fiction (pp. 265–296). De Gruyter Mouton. Quaglio, P. (2009). Television dialogue: The sit-com Friends vs. natural conversation. John Benjamins. Queen, R. (2015). Vox popular: The surprising life of language in the media. Wiley Blackwell.

32 

N. Chepinchikj

Ranzato, I. (2019). The Cockney persona: The London accent in characterisation and translation. Perspectives, 27(2), 235–251. Rasmussen, G. (2014). Inclined to better understanding—The coordination of talk and ‘leaning forward’ in doing repair. Journal of Pragmatics, 65, 30–45. Richardson, K. (2010). Television dramatic dialogue: A sociolinguistic study. Oxford University Press. Rosenbaum, J. (1995). Placing movies: The practice of film criticism. University of California Press. Rossano, F. (2006). Gaze behaviour in multi-unit turns. Paper presented at the 92nd Annual Convention National Communication Association, San Antonio, TX. Rossano, F. (2012). Gaze behavior in face-to-face interaction. (Unpublished PhD Dissertation). Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Rossano, F. (2013). Gaze in conversation. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 308–329). Wiley-Blackwell. Rossi, F. (2002). Il dialogo nel parlato filmico. In Sul dialogo. Contesti e forme di interzione verbale (pp. 161–175). Guerini. Rossi, F. (2006). Il linguaggio cinematografico. Aracne. Rossi, F. (2007). Lingua italiana e cinema. Carocci. Rossi, F. (2011). Discourse analysis of film dialogues: Italian comedy between linguistic realism and pragmatic non-realism. In R. Piazza, M. Bednarek, & F. Rossi (Eds.), Telecinematic discourse: Approaches to the language of films and television series (pp. 21–46). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Sacks, H. (1995). Lectures on conversation: Volumes I and II (G. Jefferson, Ed.). Blackwell. Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735. Sarris, A. (1962). Notes on the auteur theory in 1962. Film Culture, 27(63), 1–8. Schegloff, E. A. (1984). On some gestures’ relation to talk. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 266–296). Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, E. A. (1986). The routine as achievement. Human Studies, 9, 111–151. Schegloff, E. A., Ochs, E., & Thompson, S. A. (1996). Introduction. In E. Ochs, E.  A. Schegloff, & S.  A. Thompson (Eds.), Interaction and grammar (pp. 1–51). Cambridge University Press. Schickel, R. (2003). Woody Allen: A life in film. Ivan R. Dee.

2  Woody Allen’s Cinematic Discourse 

33

Short, M. (1998). From dramatic text to dramatic performance. In J. Culpeper, P. Verdonk, & M. Short (Eds.), Exploring the language of drama: From text to context (pp. 6–18). Routledge. Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation analysis: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell. Silverstein, M. (1976). Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description. In K.  Basso & H.  A. Selby (Eds.), Meaning in anthropology (pp.  11–55). University of New Mexico Press. Stokoe, E. (2013). The (in)authenticity of simulated talk: Comparing role-­ played and actual interaction and the implications for communication training. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 46(2), 165–185. Stokoe, E. H. (2008). Dispreferred actions and other interactional breaches as devices for occasioning audience laughter in television ‘sitcoms’. Social Semiotics, 18(3), 289–307. Streeck, J. (1993). Gesture as communication I: Its coordination with gaze and speech. Communication Monographs, 60(4), 275–299. Streeck, J. (1994). Gesture as communication II: The audience as co-author. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 27(3), 239–267. Taylor, C. J. (2004). The language of film: Corpora and statistics in the search for authenticity. Notting Hill (1998)—A case study. Miscelánea: A journal of English and American Studies, 30, 71–85. Ten Have, P. (2007). Doing conversation analysis: A practical guide (2nd ed.). SAGE. Van Zyl, M., & Botha, Y. (2016). Stylometry and characterisation in The Big Bang Theory. Literator, 37(2), 1–11. Weide, R.  B. (Producer and director). (2012). Woody Allen: A documentary [Film]. Whyaduck Productions, et al. Werner, V. (2020). TV discourse, grammaticality, and language awareness. TESL-EJ (The Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language), 24(3), 1–23. Zabalbeascoa, P., & Corrius, M. (2019). Conversation as a unit of film analysis. Databases of L3 translation and audiovisual samples of multilingualism. MonTI Special issue, 4, 57–85. Zago, R. (2017). English in the traditional media: The case of colloquialisation between original films and remakes. In L. Landolfi, E. Federici, & F. Cavaliere (Eds.), Transnational subjects: Linguistic encounters, Selected papers from XXVII AIA Conference, 2 (pp. 91–104). Liguori Editore.

3 Analytical Approach

Is Knowledge knowable? If not, how do we know? —Woody Allen

This chapter focuses on the methodology and the analytical tools employed in this study as well as the data and how the data were selected. I have investigated five film scenes taken from five different films by Woody Allen (Interiors, 1978; September, 1987; Husbands and Wives, 1992; Melinda and Melinda, 2004a and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, 2010). For anyone who is not familiar with these films, this chapter provides essential background information on them and the particular film scenes from each film.

3.1 Methodology and Analytical Tools This study is constituted primarily as a qualitative type of enquiry into the interactional workings of Allen’s cinematic discourse. It also includes some quantitative elements, mostly in terms of frequency counts, with a view to establishing salience of particular interactional features of cinematic discourse. Being a qualitative study, it addresses particular © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Chepinchikj, Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00945-7_3

35

36 

N. Chepinchikj

questions by investigating individual cases (film interactions) on a microanalytical level, by focusing on select film scenes from certain films by Woody Allen and is, therefore, a case study of Allen’s cinematic discourse. Methodologically speaking, the research design of this study employs two related methods, those being conversation analysis (CA) and its branch, multimodal conversation analysis (MMCA). Both methodological approaches have been appropriately adapted to the nature of cinematic discourse. Conversation analysis (CA) is the analytical tool I used for the verbal portion of the data, while I analysed the embodied resources of interaction by employing multimodal conversation analysis (MMCA). While CA is predominantly used to analyse naturally-occurring interactions, it has also been employed for analysing scripted dialogue in theatre plays (Piazza, 1999), TV (Ergul, 2010; Ohara & Saft, 2003; Oyeleye, 2012; Raymond, 2013; Romero Valenzuela, 2012; Stokoe, 2008) and films (Chepinchikj & Thompson, 2016). CA has also been gaining new ground by being employed in other disciplines, such as translation studies as a tool for analysing audio-visual texts and their translation (Zabalbeascoa & Corrius, 2019). CA is deeply empirical and it relies on the analysis of data to uncover the orderly and sequential workings of talk-in-interaction and the actions that are being accomplished through it. Significantly, observation is the basis for theorising in CA (Sacks, 1984). In Sidnell’s words (2010), “observation is central to CA precisely because CA does not set out to prove this or that theory but rather to get a handle on, and ultimately to describe in some kind of formal language, something in the world” (p. 28). In addition, CA is inductive in nature, which means that there is no a priori theorising (Ten Have, 2007). Instead, it begins with evidence acquired from data and then moves to generating concepts. This is known as the principle of “unmotivated looking” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008, p.  89), which means that there is no particular question in mind, but solely the findings that the data at hand can provide. Thus, the organisation and structure of the interactions in the selected film scenes, as well as the key interactional features in each diegetic interaction emerged from the process of transcription and analysis. In other words, they were identified inductively, having been revealed by the data

3  Analytical Approach 

37

and the process of analysis, without any previous hypothesising and in accordance with the precepts of CA and MMCA. The same applies to the analysis of the social actions in the diegetic interactions, where CA was used as an analytical perspective, due to the interactional orientation of this study. Therefore, the approach to social action in this study is oriented more towards its sequential positioning and co-construction, rather than the illocutionary meaning of each speech act performed in the interaction, as is generally done in pragmatics research studies, focusing on either naturally-occurring interactions (Antaki & Kent, 2015; Dixon, 2015; Zinken, 2015) or cinematic discourse (Dynel, 2011, Piazza, 2006a, 2006b, 2011; Rossi, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2006). Analysing data with CA is carried out on a case-by-case basis and the data can either be individual cases or collections (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008). What is significant is that irrespective of the quantity of data, each case is treated separately because it is unique and can be brought under a generalised account of a sequential pattern or interactional device. In addition to generalisation, CA also analyses single case studies, to arrive at new findings or to test out the existing CA findings. Such is the case with the data for this study. The diegetic interactions in the five film scenes are taken as single case studies because they come from five different films and therefore the findings cannot be generalised onto the entire film opus of Woody Allen or to any other cinematic discourse. CA is essentially “a set of methods for working with audio and video recordings of talk and social interaction” (Sidnell, 2010, p. 20). It works with transcripts of recorded talk and over the decades it has devised a specific transcription system to capture verbal and prosodic features of talk-in-interaction, including the absence of talk, that is, silences. Every single nuance in conversation requires particular attention, as these are very significant in the way talk is heard and responded to by recipients (Sidnell, 2010). Nevertheless, as far as transcription itself is concerned, it is essentially about what the analyst pays attention to, which means that it can never be exhaustive or entirely holistic. In other words, transcription is part of the process of data analysis. For the purposes of this study, I use the CA transcription system devised by Gail Jefferson (1985, 2004). It is the most widely used

38 

N. Chepinchikj

transcription system in CA and the full transcription details and symbols used to analyse the film dialogues are provided in Appendix A to this book. Since the process of CA transcription is meticulous and complicated, before actually transcribing the dialogues in the film scenes that make up my data set, I listened to each dialogue several times in its entirety. Only then did I start transcribing the conversations, for which purpose I had to listen to each dialogue numerous times. The CA transcriptions of the film dialogues capture the verbal and prosodic features, including intonation, stress, volume and pace, as well as pauses in speech. It is significant to stress that I employed only auditory analysis (Walker, 2013) of the prosody, following Jefferson’s (2004) transcription conventions. This means that in the process of analysis I focused solely on identifying intonation, pitch, word stress, vowel sound elongation, pace and volume of speech. Furthermore, all the lines in the transcripts are numbered for easy reference. A full transcript of all the film dialogues is provided in Appendix B to this book. As for the verbal component, I transcribed the words as closely as possible to the participants’ pronunciation. Yet, as CA scholars assert (Heritage & Atkinson, 1984; Psathas & Anderson, 1990; Ten Have, 2007), no transcription is to be a substitute for the actual data, but rather it should be only an aid in approaching the analysis of talk-ininteraction. Therefore, it needs to be emphasised that the actual data are the film scenes, rather than any transcripts done based on those scenes. The novelty in this study, however, is the application of MMCA to film data. MMCA is an extension of CA, which takes into account various semiotic resources of communication in addition to speech and which stress the embodied character of human interaction (Goodwin, 1980, 1981, 1986, 2000, 2007; Mondada, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2014a, 2014b). It is a modified branch of CA, which is generally used to analyse the embodied resources of naturally-occurring interactions, such as gestures, facial expressions, gaze, body posture, movement and handling objects (Goodwin & Goodwin, 2012; Mortensen & Hazel, 2014; Heath & Luff, 2013; Mondada, 2013; Rasmussen, 2014) and how they synchronise with language use. Although MMCA has been predominantly applied to spontaneous interactions, it has only very recently started to be used (Chepinchikj,

3  Analytical Approach 

39

2020) or proposed as a tool for analysing telecinematic discourse (Messerli, 2020). I have chosen it to analyse cinematic data because of the interactional component. What occurs in front of film cameras where actors perform various film scenes is a type of human interaction, albeit a representation, in which the actors use different resources (speech, gaze, gestures, facial expressions, etc.). Since the diegetic environment of the cinematic discourse is the focus and scope of this study, it is very logical to use MMCA for this purpose. With regard to transcription methods utilised in MMCA, there is no one single uniform manner of data transcription and presentation. It applies CA transcription of the talk-in-interaction with various modifications depending on the purpose and needs of analysis, in combination with added transcription symbols for the representation of the various multimodal resources, such as: gaze, gesture, body movement and posture, facial expression and object manipulation. The first such transcription rules were devised by Charles Goodwin (1979, 1981) and later adopted and adapted by other researchers in the MMCA field (Heath, 1986; Rendle-Short, 2002; Schegloff, 1984). Mondada (2004) updated the transcription conventions for the multimodal details. These include various symbols for presenting the temporal synchronisation of the multimodal features with speech, as well as their trajectory and description. One problem when transcribing embodied, multimodal resources of interaction is that they can be transducted1 if presented with verbal glosses. In order to avoid any transduction in the process of data transcription and presentation, I have used the CA transcription method with additional symbols for the embodied semiotic resources, that is, gaze and gesture, which I have borrowed from Goodwin and Goodwin (1986). This was necessary for presentation purposes, since I do not possess the copyright to the film data and therefore, I am unable to visually display the actors’ gestures and gaze by means of film stills. In addition to CA transcription, during the data analysis, I also used the software ELAN for the purposes of analysing the embodied resources  Transduction is the transcription of non-verbal features by verbal means (Bezemer & Mavers, 2011; Kress, 2010). 1

40 

N. Chepinchikj

of interaction. ELAN is a language annotation software developed by the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. It is widely used by many scholars involved in language analysis in general and MMCA in particular (Mondada, 2006, 2007). Both video and audio files can be uploaded in this annotation tool and it is useful for both language and visual analysis, such as gestures and gaze. A benefit of using this software is that it provides for a timed relation between recording (video and audio) and text (transcription). This relation is provided by the format of the tool, that is, the partition format, which is based on an infinite timeline. This is particularly useful for conducting multimodal analysis. Furthermore, ELAN allows a very detailed microanalysis of the selected features that are being investigated. The desired features can be set up in tiers (horizontally) and their occurrence is annotated on a horizontal time-bar. ELAN is also very beneficial for annotating and analysing temporally co-current phenomena, such as gaze direction and gesturing while speaking. On the limitation side, ELAN does not present the turns-at-talk in a linear, sequential manner, as is the case with manual CA transcripts. Therefore, it is difficult to establish and represent the exact points of co-­ occurrence of particular turn constructional units2 within the turns with other semiotic resources, such as gaze and gesture. This is only possible to hear, but not to see in graphical form. During the analysis, I relied on the CA transcription of the spoken segment of interaction, because it is more detailed and organised in turns. However, for the other embodied resources of interaction (gaze and gesture) I used the ELAN annotations, but most importantly, I relied on the video and audio files in ELAN, that is, the respective film scenes. For the entire integrated analysis of each interaction, I utilised the combined tools of CA transcription, ELAN annotation and the video and audio files of the respective film scenes uploaded in ELAN. Despite the combined method of data transcription for the purposes of data analysis, the actual data remain the film scenes themselves.

 Turn constructional units (TCUs) are the building blocks of turns, such as words and utterances.

2

3  Analytical Approach 

41

3.2 Films and Film Scenes I have chosen five different films from Woody Allen’s oeuvre to look at more closely. These five films belong to different decades of Allen’s work and they are all predominantly dramas in genre. These films are: Interiors (1978), September (1987), Husbands and Wives (1992), Melinda and Melinda (2004a) and You Will meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010). When selecting the films for analysis, the general criterion was the film genre, that is, that all the films are predominantly dramas. The reason for this is the factor of verisimilitude in film dialogues (Bednarek, 2018; Dynel, 2013, 2015). Drama films tend to follow the code of realism in their representation (Forchini, 2012, 2017; Richardson, 2010) and hence, they are closer to everyday, naturally-occurring interaction. Another reason for selecting drama films is that Allen’s comedies have already been extensively researched and discussed (Sayad, 2011) since he is mostly known as a comedian and an author of comedies. However, his drama films have not been studied to that extent, especially not from an interactional and linguistic perspective. Nevertheless, as genre is an “abstract generic label” (Moine, 2008, p. 5) and it is very difficult to find instances of pure drama genre among Allen’s films, apart from Interiors and September, the other three selected films are a mixture of drama and other elements, such as comedy and romance (Husbands and Wives, Melinda and Melinda and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger). The selected films are also representative works of Allen’s and significant in his opus because of the themes they address, as well as the centrality of female and male relationships, which is their focus. This is an integral feature of Allen’s cinematic discourse (Bailey, 2014; Lee, 2002), as was already discussed in Sect. 2.3.1 of Chap. 2. All of the selected films centre on female-male relationships in everyday, contemporary, urban settings and they all offer a realistic, and at times quite serious and even tragic, view of life, at least from Allen’s auteur’s perspective. All these films, thus, share a similar outlook on relationships, which most often break up at the end of the film. As for the themes, apart from divorce,

42 

N. Chepinchikj

relationship break-ups and infidelity, all of them feature some serious event, such as a personal failure, deceit or suicide. Interiors (1978) is Woody Allen’s first drama film (2004b). His inspiration for this project came from Ingmar Bergman’s work. While there is a certain resemblance between Interiors and Bergman’s film Autumn Sonata (1978), some critics have gone as far as to speculate that it is “a carbon copy” of it (Cardullo, 2000, p. 429). However, even though Allen attests to this resemblance, the similarity is accidental, since both films appeared in the same year (Allen, 2004b). Nevertheless, Interiors is Allen’s least ‘American’ film, owing to the strong European influence in its artistic execution. Cardullo (2000) criticises Allen with regard to this film for “imposing a stark Swedish ethos on urban American material” (p. 432). This is probably the reason why this film was unpopular among American audiences, although it is a significant piece of dramatic work in its own right. The subject of Interiors is maternal domination and, in the words of Cardullo (2000), the film’s main message is “postulating the destructive consequences of perfectionism in life as in art” (p.  439). It is set in New York and it tells a story of a disintegrating family, whose breakdown is occasioned by the father’s decision to divorce the mother. This decision causes major distress for the mother, Eve (played by Geraldine Paige), and culminates in her suicide. The divorce drama affects all the family members, in various ways and to different extents. Renata (played by Diane Keaton), the eldest daughter, is a talented poet who is having nightmares about the meaning of her life and work. She is also anxious about the possibility of becoming like her mother, who is a domineering and controlling woman, distraught by the separation and ultimate divorce from her husband. Joey (played by Mary Beth Hurt) is the middle daughter, who is the most sensitive of the three and who feels deeply for her mother’s predicaments. She is also very attached to her father and is the one who becomes the most upset with his new girlfriend Pearl (played by Maureen Stapleton), whom he subsequently marries. However, it is Pearl who saves Joey from drowning as she attempts to rescue her mother from committing suicide. Finally, the youngest daughter Flyn (played by Kristin Griffith) is a soap opera actress,

3  Analytical Approach 

43

who lives in California and is the most detached, both physically and personally, from the events in her family. Both Renata and Joey have families of their own. Renata is married to Frederick (played by Richard Jordan), a struggling novelist who is trying to compete with her artistic success, and with whom she has two children. Joey is in a de facto relationship with Mike (played by Sam Waterston), who is also an intellectual. Flyn, unlike her elder sisters, is single, but is being pursued by Frederick, her brother-in-law. September (1987) is another one of Woody Allen’s dramas. It largely resembles his Interiors (1978) from the previous decade, not only as regards the genre, but also in terms of the complex and complicated relationships between the various characters, especially that between Lane (played by Mia Farrow) and her mother Diane (played by Elaine Stritch). Diane is depicted as another example of an overbearing and manipulative mother, similar to Eve in Interiors, but without the tragic consequence of a suicide. In fact, Diane is a spirited and resilient woman who loves life and enjoys all that it has to offer, unlike her daughter Lane, who has spent most of her life recovering from depression due to a shooting incident in her early teenage years, when she assumed the blame for murdering her mother’s gangster lover. September has the quality of a chamber play and it shares some Chekovian traits (Allen, 2004b), particularly regarding the atmosphere it evokes. This is largely aided by the fact that it was entirely shot with interior scenes, which all take place at Lane’s summer house in Vermont. It is there that Lane is spending the last days of summer with her boyfriend Peter (played by Sam Waterston) and her friend Stephanie (played by Diane Wiest). They are unexpectedly joined by Lane’s mother Diane and her current partner Lloyd (played by Jack Warden). This company is also very frequently visited by Lane’s neighbour Howard (played by Denholm Elliott), who is in love with Lane. The story unfolds around the romantic feelings, past regrets, disappointments and reconciliations among the aforementioned characters. While Howard’s feelings for Lane remain unrequited, the same occurs for Lane, who is in love with her boyfriend Peter, but he starts falling in love with Stephanie. Stephanie, on the other hand, is married with children, but has similar feelings for Peter. Thus, the plot of September revolves

44 

N. Chepinchikj

around two love triangles and a disturbed mother-daughter relationship, which is being restored by the end of the film. Allen summarises the entire plot of the film as “a group of middle-aged people in a country house with unfulfilled dreams and unfulfilled passions and sad futures” (Allen, 2004b, p. 179). In addition, the title of the film, as explained by Allen himself, not only signifies the time of the year in which the plot is set but is also a metaphor for the life periods of the characters: “They are entering, not the winter of their lives, but the fall of their lives” (Allen, 2004b, p. 171). Another similarity between these two films (September and Interiors) is found in some of the characters, for example Lane (September) and Joey (Interiors). They are both dominated by their strong mothers and they also share some personality traits. Both Lane and Joey are profoundly sensitive and subdued persons, searching for themselves and for ways to express their rich emotional worlds. However, they both lack artistic talent and are both entertaining the idea of motherhood. In contrast, among the differences between these two films is the camera work. While Interiors employs a more conventional, cross-cutting manner of shooting, executed by Gordon Willis, the camera work in September, which is the work of Carlo Di Palma, is more fluid, consisting of longer scenes and continuing shots. This type of shooting, in addition to being Woody Allen’s trademark and his favourite manner of filming (Allen, 2004b), is particularly helpful for the analysis of the scene taken from this film, because the characters in it are represented on screen together for most of the scene’s duration. This proves immensely convenient for analysing their interaction, especially regarding their embodied action. Husbands and Wives is one of Allen’s most notorious films, both “for its boldness, for its directness and for its raw and rough surface” (Allen, 2004, p. 244), as well as for its technical execution. It was made in 1992 and it is a bitter story about love and romance. There are two middle-­ aged couples around whom the plot of the film revolves: Gabe (played by Woody Allen) and Judy (played by Mia Farrow), and Jack (played by Sydney Pollack) and Sally (played by Judy Davis). The two couples are close friends and both undergo a tumultuous period of betrayal,

3  Analytical Approach 

45

separation and divorce. The only difference between them is that Jack and Sally reunite at the end of the film, unlike Gabe and Judy, who divorce. The film begins with Jack and Sally’s announcement of their consensual separation, which shocks their friends, Gabe and Judy. In addition, this occasions a process of introspection and highly detailed examination of Gabe and Judy’s marriage and their satisfaction and fulfilment about their relationship. Little by little, their marriage dissolves and they find themselves in new circumstances: Judy remarries for the third time and Gabe ends up alone. In the meantime, after staying apart, Jack and Sally realise that they still love each other, so they reunite. Technically, this is a film in which Allen separates from the traditional rules of filmmaking and employs a hand-held camera, making jump-­ cuts,3 instead of conventional cross-cutting, so that the camera work appears quite jerky and random (Allen, 2004b). This disrupted style of filming complements the film’s content and story-line that depicts complicated and disturbed marital relationships. When commenting on the form of this film and the shooting style, Woody Allen (Allen, 2004b, p. 252) says the following: I wanted it to be more dissonant because the internal, emotional and mental states of the characters are dissonant. I wanted the audience to feel that there was a jagged, nervous feeling. An unsettled and neurotic feeling.

With regard to the actual direction and work with the actors on this project, Allen explains that the actors were given free rein to perform the scenes in any way they felt appropriate and move wherever they wished in the mise-en-scène (Allen, 2004b, p. 245). In spite of the fact that the entire film was scripted, as is the case with Allen’s direction, the actors were at liberty to “add words here and there to make the dialogue more colloquial” (Allen, 2004b, p. 246). Melinda and Melinda was released in 2004 and it has a layered narrative structure. It consists of a frame story that involves a conversation  Jump-cut editing refers to abrupt transitions between shots, used to create an effect of discontinuity (Studiobinder, 2020). 3

46 

N. Chepinchikj

between three people, two of whom are writers, about the nature of human life. Their question refers to whether life is essentially tragic or comic. In order to prove their own points of view, the two writers engage in a sort of a contest, in which they each modify the basic story based on a true event, which is narrated by their friend. One of them makes the story a tragic one and the other one turns it into a comedy. What the two stories share is the same principal character. Each of these stories is narrated as a filmed story and they are told in parallel. The principal character in both stories is Melinda (played by Radha Mitchell), who is actually portrayed as having a slightly different personality in the two stories. In the tragic story, Melinda is a depressed and deeply distraught woman, who has abandoned her husband to be with her lover but has been denied the custody of her children. Having nowhere to go, she unexpectedly arrives at her college friends’ apartment in New York, during an important dinner party. Her friends, the married couple Laurel (played by Chloë Sevigny) and Lee (played by Jonny Lee Miller), unwillingly agree to help her, by allowing her to stay with them for a certain period of time. However, since this is a tragic story, instead of mending her life, Melinda manages to completely ruin it, and her friend Laurel also plays a significant role in it. Namely, Laurel begins a clandestine love affair with Melinda’s new boyfriend, Ellis (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), which ultimately drives Melinda to attempt suicide. In the comic story, Melinda (also played by Radha Mitchell) is single and she is the neighbour of a married couple who are also throwing an important dinner party. Susan (played by Amanda Peet) is an ambitious film director, who is pursuing financial aid for her next project, while her husband Hobie (played by Will Ferrell) is a struggling actor, whom nobody wants to employ. Melinda barges on their dinner party, looking for help, after her suicide attempt. From that moment on, both Susan and Hobie befriend their neighbour and try to help her settle her life, by introducing her to prospective and eligible men that she might date. However, in this process, Hobie falls in love with Melinda and ultimately leaves his wife to be with her. Susan, on the other hand, makes Hobie’s decision even easier, as she is having a love affair with her producer. What is peculiar about this film is that it does not have a real beginning or end, since it presents fragmented stories by two writers. Thus,

3  Analytical Approach 

47

there is no final answer to the dilemma posed at the onset of the film, as to the real essence of human life. In the words of Roger Ebert (2005, March 22): Melinda and Melinda is a movie about the symbiosis of the filmmaker and the audience, who are required to conspire in the creation of an imaginary world. He shows us how he does it and how we do it.

Finally, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) is one of Allen’s more recent films and the only one among the five chosen films that is set in London. Regarding its genre, it has been classified as comedy/drama/ romance by the International Movie Database website (IMDb, n.d.).4 In the vein of typical Allen’s films, this film also depicts a cornucopia of characters and several stories that run in parallel. Basically, it is a story about couples and the disintegration of their relationships. While Sally’s parents are getting a divorce, she (played by Naomi Watts) is also undergoing a marriage crisis with her husband Roy (played by Josh Brolin). Sally works at an art gallery and she becomes infatuated with her boss Greg (played by Antonio Banderas), whereas Roy, who is a doctor by education but writer by vocation, falls in love with their neighbour Dia (played by Freida Pinto), who is about to marry her fiancé. At the same time, Sally’s father Alfie (played by Anthony Hopkins) is going through a middle-age crisis. He divorces her mother Helena (played by Gemma Jones) and marries a prostitute called Charmaine (played by Lucy Punch), who is more than half his age. Helena finds it increasingly hard to cope with her abandonment and seeks assistance from a charlatan fortune teller. Circumstances lead her to obtaining a new acquaintance, Jonathan (played by Roger Ashton-Griffiths), who is a widower, and with whom she shares a passion for the occult. When Alfie finally realises that he cannot keep up with the youthful lifestyle he has imposed on himself, and discovers that Charmaine is cheating on him, he leaves her and attempts to get back with Helena. However, Helena rediscovers romance with Jonathan, who proposes to her at the end of the film.

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182350/?ref_=nv_sr_1

4

48 

N. Chepinchikj

Sally and Roy also get a divorce towards the end of the film. He marries Dia, while Sally remains single and disappointed that her mother refuses to help her financially to open her own art gallery. However, she is not the only one whose luck has changed. Roy, who has taken advantage of his friend’s car accident to steal his manuscript and publish it under his own name, learns that his friend is regaining consciousness from the coma he was in. Thus, since Helena’s and Jonathan’s stories are the only ones that ultimately have a happy ending in this film, it seems that Allen is promoting the idea of believing in miracles as a better and happier way to live one’s life.

3.2.1 Film Scene Selection From the previously mentioned five films, I further narrowed down the selection to five film scenes for analysis, one scene from each film. All of them share the following four selection criteria: First, all the represented interactions in the scenes are dyadic, that is, they take place between two represented participants. The represented participants in each interaction are a female and a male, who are a couple (either married or in a relationship). This particular criterion of dyadic interactions was partially breached for one scene, as it was virtually impossible to find such a scene that would align with all the criteria listed here. This is the scene from September, where a third character only briefly appears in the middle of the scene and temporarily interrupts the couple’s conversation. Second, all the dyadic interactions between a female and a male character are due to the centrality of such relations and interactions in Woody Allen’s films. Third, all the represented participants are the main characters in each film. Fourth, all the selected scenes have a similar duration, shown in Table  3.1 below. My intention was to find scenes representing dyadic interactions between the represented participants that would have a reasonable duration. This is a little difficult to achieve because Allen uses continuing shots in most of his films, which ­complicate and blur the definition of a scene, thus creating very lengthy film scenes.

3  Analytical Approach 

49

Table 3.1  The data set with film titles, characters and scene time duration Film

Characters

Scene duration

Interiors (1978)

Joey and Mike 00:17:43–00:19:17 (1.74 min) September (1987) Lane and 00:06:52–00:09:00 Peter (2.48 min) Husbands and Wives (1992) Judy and 00:01:52–00:02:52 (1 min) Gabe Melinda and Melinda (2004b) Laurel and 00:33:42–00:34:28 Lee (0.86 min) You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Sally and Roy 00:06:22–00:07:24 (2010) (1.02 min)

It is important to stress that the interactions in these scenes are not representative of the entire films or of all the interactions that occur between the represented participants throughout the films.

3.2.2 Background to Film Scenes Before discussing the interactions and their features, let us look at some background information on the selected scenes from the five films. The chosen scene from Interiors ( 1978) features Joey and Mike, who are a couple, having a conversation in a domestic setting. This scene is one minute and seventy-four seconds long and is located 17.43 minutes into the film. In terms of the setting and the mise-en-scène, this interaction takes place in Joey and Mike’s living room in their New York apartment. Joey is seated on a sofa for the entire duration of the scene, while Mike is in a semi-lying position at the beginning of the scene, but he stands up and walks over to the kitchen near the end of the interaction. The kitchen and the living room are not separated by walls, which means that their interaction can continue without any interruptions, even though Mike changes his spatial position. In addition, this is the scene which is the most revealing of Joey’s personality. She lacks any artistic talent, unlike her elder sister Renata, but has profound human feelings and sensitivity that are yearning to be expressed in some manner, which is represented in this particular scene.

50 

N. Chepinchikj

The scene from September ( 1987) is 2.48  minutes in length and is placed early in the film, that is, at six minutes and fifty-two seconds into it. Since the entire film is set indoors, this scene is also an interior one and it occurs in the living room of Lane’s summer house in Vermont. It depicts an interaction between Lane and her boyfriend Peter, who are among the protagonists in the film. Their conversation is interrupted for a brief moment by Lloyd, who is asking for ice cubes, but who inevitably overhears their conversation. Unlike the scene in Interiors, this one is more dynamic, since both Lane and Peter change their spatial arrangement throughout the scene. At the beginning of the scene, Peter is at the entrance to the living room and Lane crosses from the adjacent room to join him there. Later, she walks over to the other end of the living room, thus physically distancing herself from Peter. Halfway through the scene though, Peter joins Lane and they remain standing opposite each other until the end of their interaction, when Lane walks out of the living room. The scene from Husbands and Wives (1992) features two co-­participants, Gabe and Judy, who are a married couple. It is the opening scene in the film and it lasts for one minute. This scene introduces the principal characters in the film, Gabe and Judy. It takes place in their home—in their living room. As they are waiting for their friends Jack and Sally to arrive so as to go out to dinner, Gabe and Judy are engaged in doing different activities. While Judy is sorting out some books and placing them on bookshelves, Gabe is watching television, but is very soon provoked by the content of a TV advertisement and starts a conversation. Both Gabe and Judy are constantly moving throughout the scene. While Judy is fetching books from another room and arranging them on bookshelves, Gabe is standing or walking around the living room, but they do not come within close proximity of each other, until the end of the scene. In addition, their interaction is relatively brief and it is interrupted by Jack and Sally’s arrival. The scene from Melinda and Melinda (2004a) comes from the tragic story in the film and it represents an unexpected encounter between Laurel and her husband Lee, who are among the protagonists in the film, in a street in New York. Unlike the other selected scenes, this is an exterior one. It takes place in the first half of the film—33 minutes into it.

3  Analytical Approach 

51

Lee, who is an actor, has just been offered a role that he longed for and now he shares his good news about it with his wife. This scene shows the interaction that emerges from this encounter. In addition, being an exterior scene, it is more dynamic in terms of spatial arrangement and movement of the represented participants. Namely, Laurel and Lee are walking while interacting, apart from the beginning of the interaction, where they are both standing facing each other. The last selected scene from You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) is taken from Sally’s and Roy’s story-line, who are among the protagonists in the film. It is located at six minutes and twenty-two seconds into the film and it is one minute and two seconds long. The interaction takes place in Sally’s and Roy’s London home. The scene depicts an argument that occurs between the spouses sparked by Roy’s firm decision to leave his current job as a driver, after having had a car accident. There is a great deal of movement and spatial rearrangement of the participants in this scene. It begins with Roy’s entering the flat and walking into the kitchen to where Sally is. Later, he leaves the kitchen, but is followed by Sally into the bedroom. All through the scene, the characters are mostly on their feet and moving from one room to another and around the rooms.

References Allen, W. (Director). (1978). Interiors [Film]. Rollins-Joffe Productions. Allen, W. (Director). (1987). September [Film]. Orion Pictures Corporation. Allen, W. (Director). (1992). Husbands and wives [Film]. TriStar Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (2004a). Melinda and Melinda [Film]. Fox Searchlight Pictures. Allen, W. (2004b). Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In conversation with Stig Björkman. Rev. ed. Grove Press. Allen, W. (Director). (2010). You will meet a tall dark stranger [Film]. Mediapro, et al. Antaki, C., & Kent, A. (2015). Offering alternatives as a way of issuing directives to children: Putting the worse option last. Journal of Pragmatics, 78, 25–28.

52 

N. Chepinchikj

Bailey, J. (2014). The ultimate Woody Allen film companion. Voyageur Press. Bednarek, M. (2018). Language and television series: A linguistic approach to TV dialogue. The Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series. Cambridge University Press. Bergman, I. (Director). (1978). Autumn sonata [Film]. Personafilm; Filmédis, incorporated television company (ITC); Suede Film. Bezemer, J., & Mavers, D. (2011). Multimodal transcription as academic practice: A social semiotic perspective. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 14(3), 191–206. Cardullo, B. (2000). Autumn interiors, or the ladies Eve: Woody Allen’s Ingmar Bergman complex The Antioch Review, 58(4), 428–440. https://doi. org/10.2307/4614055 Chepinchikj, N. (2020). Gaze as a resource in initiating and completing sequences of interaction in Woody Allen’s cinematic discourse. Ampersand, 7, 100067. Chepinchikj, N., & Thompson, C. (2016). Analysing cinematic discourse using conversation analysis. Discourse, Context and Media, 14, 40–53. Dixon, S. (2015). Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!: Object requests, ownership and entitlement in a children’s play session. Journal of Pragmatics, 82, 39–51. Dynel, M. (2011). Stranger than fiction?: A few methodological notes on linguistic research in film discourse. Brno Studies in English, 37(1), 41–61. https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2011-­1-­3 Dynel, M. (2013). Humorous phenomena in dramatic discourse. The European Journal of Humour Research, 1(1), 22–60. Dynel, M. (2015). Impoliteness in the service of verisimilitude in film interaction. In M. Dynel & J. Chovanec (Eds.), Participation in public and social media interactions (pp. 157–182). John Benjamins. Ebert, R. (2005, March 22). Melinda and Melinda [Web film review]. Retrieved from http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/melinda-­and-­melinda-­2005 Ergul, H. (2010). Interaction, gender and cultural expectations in a Turkish marriage TV show. ARECLS, 2010(7), 59–79. Forchini, P. (2012). Movie language revisited: Evidence from multi-dimensional analysis and corpora. Peter Lang. Forchini, P. (2017). A multi-dimensional analysis of legal American English: Real-life and cinematic representations compared. International Journal of Language Studies, 11(3), 133–150. Goodwin, C. (1979). The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 97–121). Irvington.

3  Analytical Approach 

53

Goodwin, C. (1980). Restarts, pauses, and the achievement of mutual gaze at turn-beginning. Sociological Inquiry, 50(3–4), 272–302. Goodwin, C. (1981). Conversational organization: Interaction between speakers and hearers. Academic Press. Goodwin, C. (1986). Gestures as a resource for the organization of mutual orientation. Semiotica, 62, 29–49. Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1489–1522. Goodwin, C. (2007). Participation, stance and affect in the organization of activities. Discourse & Society, 18(1), 53–73. Goodwin, C., & Goodwin, M. H. (1986). Gesture and coparticipation in the activity of searching for a word. Semiotica, 62(1/2), 51–75. Goodwin, C., & Goodwin, M. H. (2012). Car talk: Integrating texts, bodies and changing landscapes. Semiotica, 191(1/4), 257–287. https://doi. org/10.1515/sem-­2012-­0063 Heath, C. (1986). Body movement and speech in medical interaction. Cambridge University Press. Heath, C., & Luff, P. (2013). Embodied action and organisational interaction: Establishing contract on the strike of a hammer. Journal of Pragmatics, 46, 24–38. Heritage, J., & Atkinson, J.  M. (1984). Introduction. In J.  M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 1–15). Cambridge University Press. Hutchby, I., & Wooffitt, R. (2008). Conversation analysis (2nd ed.). Polity Press. IMDb. (n.d.). You will meet a tall dark stranger. http://www.imdb.com/title/ tt1182350/?ref_=nv_sr_1 Jefferson, G. (1985). An exercise in the transcription and analysis of laughter. In T.  A. Van Dijk (Ed.), Handbook of discourse analysis (Vol. 3, pp.  25–34). Academic Press. Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G.  H. Lerner (Ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation. John Benjamins. Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Routledge. Lee, S. H. (2002). Eighteen Woody Allen films analyzed: Anguish, god and existentialism. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Messerli, T.  C. (2020). Ocean’s Eleven scene 12—Lost in transcription. Perspectives, 28(6), 837–850.

54 

N. Chepinchikj

Moine, R. (2008). Cinema genre (A.  Fox & H.  Radner, Trans.). Blackwell Publishing. Mondada, L. (2004). Téléchirurgie et nouvelles pratiques professionnelles: Les enjeux interactionnels d’opérations chirurgicales réalisées par visioconférence. Sciences Sociales et Santé, 22(1), 95–126. Mondada, L. (2006). Participants’ online analysis and multi-modal practices: Projecting the end of the turn and the closing of the sequence. Discourse Studies, 8(1), 117–129. Mondada, L. (2007). Multimodal resources for turn-taking: Pointing and the emergence of possible next speakers. Discourse Studies, 9(2), 194–225. Mondada, L. (2009). Emergent focused interactions in public places: A systematic analysis of the multimodal achievement of a common interactional space. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 1977–1997. Mondada, L. (2013). Embodied and spatial resources for turn-taking in institutional multi-party interactions: Participatory democracy debates. Journal of Pragmatics, 46, 39–68. Mondada, L. (2014a). The local constitution of multimodal resources for social interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 65, 137–156. Mondada, L. (2014b). Instructions in the operating room: How the surgeon directs their assistant’s hands. Discourse Studies, 16(2), 131–161. Mortensen, K., & Hazel, S. (2014). Moving into interaction: Social practices for initiating encounters at a help desk. Journal of Pragmatics, 62, 46–67. Ohara, Y., & Saft, S. (2003). Using conversation analysis to track gender ideologies in social interaction: Toward a feminist analysis of a Japanese phone-in consultation TV program. Discourse & Society, 14(2), 153–172. https://doi. org/10.1177/0957926503014002855 Oyeleye, A.  L. (2012). Interaction management in Nigerian television talk shows. Interactional Journal of English Linguistics, 2(1), 149–161. Piazza, R. (1999). Dramatic discourse approached from a conversational analysis perspective: Catherine Hayes’s Skirmishes and other contemporary plays. Journal of Pragmatics, 31, 1001–1023. Piazza, R. (2006a). The representation of conflict in the discourse of Italian melodrama. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 2087–2104. Piazza, R. (2006b). They are what they talk. The verbal representation of children and adolescents in Italian cinema. Spunti e Ricerche, 23, 84–103. Piazza, R. (2011). Let’s cinema speak: Discourse in Italian cinema and beyond. Continuum. Psathas, G., & Anderson, T. (1990). The ‘practices’ of transcription in conversation analysis. Semiotica, 78, 75–99.

3  Analytical Approach 

55

Rasmussen, G. (2014). Inclined to better understanding—The coordination of talk and ‘leaning forward’ in doing repair. Journal of Pragmatics, 65, 30–45. Raymond, C. W. (2013). Gender and sexuality in animated television sitcom interaction. Discourse & Communication, 7(2), 199–220. Rendle-Short, J. (2002). Talk and action in the computer science seminar (Unpublished PhD thesis). Department of Linguistics, ANU. Richardson, K. (2010). Television dramatic dialogue: A sociolinguistic study. Oxford University Press. Romero Valenzuela, Á. (2012). A descriptive analysis of overlapping in attitudinal terms in two types of interview. Lenguas Modernas 35. (Primer Semestre 2010), 21–69. Universidad de Chile. Rossi, F. (1999). Le parole dello schermo. Analisi linguistica del parlato di sei film dal 1948 al 1957. Bulzoni. Rossi, F. (2002). Il dialogo nel parlato filmico. Sul dialogo. Contesti e forme di interzione verbale. Guerini, 161–175. Rossi, F. (2003). Il parlato cinematografico: Il codice di compromesso. In N.  Maraschio & T.  Poggi Salanti (Eds.), Italia linguistica anno mille Italia linguistica anno duemila. Atti del XXXIV Congresso internazionale di studi della Società di linguistica italiana (SLI) (pp. 449–460). Bulzoni. Rossi, F. (2006). Il linguaggio cinematografico. Aracne. Sacks, H. (1984). Notes on methodology. In J.  M. Atkinson & J.  Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 21–27). Cambridge University Press. Sayad, C. (2011). The auteur as fool: Bakhtin, Barthes, and the screen performances of Woody Allen and Jean-Luc Godard. Journal of Film and Video, 63(4), 21–34. Schegloff, E. A. (1984). On some gestures’ relation to talk. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 266–296). Cambridge University Press. Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation analysis: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell. Stokoe, E. H. (2008). Dispreferred actions and other interactional breaches as devices for occasioning audience laughter in television ‘sitcoms’. Social Semiotics, 18(3), 289–307. Studiobinder. (2020, May 3). Ultimate guide to film terms: The definitive glossary of film terminology. https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/movie-­ film-­terms/#j Ten Have, P. (2007). Doing conversation analysis: A practical guide (2nd ed.). SAGE.

56 

N. Chepinchikj

Walker, G. (2013). Phonetics and prosody in conversation. In J.  Sidnell & T.  Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp.  455–474). Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Zabalbeascoa, P., & Corrius, M. (2019). Conversation as a unit of film analysis. Databases of L3 translation and audiovisual samples of multilingualism. Mon TI Special Issue 4, 57–85. Zinken, J. (2015). Contingent control over shared goods. ‘Can I have x’ requests in British English informal interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 82, 23–38.

4 Organisation of Interaction

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. —Woody Allen

Human interaction is orderly and follows a certain structure (Sacks, 2004; Schegloff, 2007), which I have already touched upon in the previous chapters. Since this is true of spontaneous conversations, in this chapter I investigate if such an orderly structure is also at play in diegetic interactions and if so, what that structure looks like. The discussion that follows starts from what is already known about the organisation of human interactions in their naturally-occurring settings and builds on that knowledge to reveal a similar structure of diegetic interactions. Namely, at the basic level of organisation, diegetic interactions also exhibit a turn-by-turn structure of exchanges between interlocutors, while at the higher level, these interactions are organised into sequences. This organisation predominantly refers to speech, but embodied resources of interaction also participate in both the basic and the higher level of organisation, thereby shaping the structure and the boundaries of turns and sequences.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Chepinchikj, Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00945-7_4

57

58 

N. Chepinchikj

4.1 Turns-at-talk Generally, conversations are made up of exchanges of turns by various interlocutors, in a turn-by-turn structure (Sacks et al., 1974). The turn-­ at-­talk, or simply turn, is the basic unit of conversation and it is subject to the turn-taking system. Within this system, turns-at-talk are “distributed within an ‘economy’ of opportunities to speak” (Sidnell, 2010, p.  36). Thus, the turn-taking system of conversations is “locally managed” and “party administered” (Sidnell, 2010, p. 39). This system also provides for the coherence and orderliness of talk-in-interaction and it is organised with the rule of one party speaking at a time (Sacks, 2004). The turns are based on the principle of “grammatical well-formedness” (Sidnell, 2010, p. 40), in order to account for hearability and intelligibility. They are built from turn-constructional units (TCUs), which are defined as “sentential, clausal, phrasal and lexical constructions” (Keevallik, 2014, p. 104, following Sacks et al., 1974). This means that turns can have various lengths, that is, they can range from being composed of one word only to entire sentences (Sidnell, 2010). Another important feature of TCUs is that they are context dependent; that which qualifies as a TCU is meaningfully defined by the context of speech. Thus, turns can sometimes also consist of only interjections or vocalisations, such as ‘hmmm’ or ‘oh’, so long as they are meaningful in the speech context (Keevallik, 2014). While turns have traditionally been understood in terms of grammar and the various combinations of TCUs, they can be constructed with a combination of semiotic resources, such as speech and gaze or gesture (Keevallik, 2014; Mondada, 2007) and these can serve to either complete a turn or even solely constitute it. In the latter case, we are talking about multimodal (embodied) turns (Hazel et al., 2014). This is in line with the argument that the organisation of turns-at-talk and the turn-taking system depend on multimodal resources for organising the talk into meaningful units (Lerner, 2003; Mondada, 2014a). Hence, turns can be constructed from a combination of syntactic and embodied resources (Iwasaki, 2011; Keevallik, 2013, 2014; Stukenbrock, 2014) and can be expanded both by adding grammatical and lexical elements as well as

4  Organisation of Interaction 

59

gesturally (Goodwin, 1979, 1981, 1986). These different types of resources are used in an emergent, dynamic and incremental manner in response to the requirements of interaction and setting, which are complex multimodal Gestalts, systematically organised and appropriate to the context (Mondada, 2014a, 2014b). Both turns-at-talk and complex multimodal actions are designed moment-by-moment in an emergent manner. These processes are also progressively shaped through time. As mentioned in the previous chapters, from the perspective of multimodal conversation analysis (MMCA), there is nothing pre-existing and pre-organised when it comes to interaction (Mondada, 2014a, 2014b). This is also valid for resources such as grammar, which emerges through interaction and is co-constructed through joint effort on the part of all participants involved—not merely the speaker (Goodwin, 1979, 1981, 1986). Turns, as basic units of interaction, are understood as “a temporally unfolding, interactively sustained domain of multimodal conduct through which both the speaker and recipients build in concert with one another relevant actions that contribute to the further progression of the activity in progress” (Hayashi, 2005, p.  21). Turns are seen as being dynamic in nature (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1987; Hayashi, 2005; Iwasaki, 2011; Keevallik, 2014) and as combinations of verbal and ‘bodily-visual’ elements (Keevallik, 2014; Mondada, 2007). However, the latter elements do not necessarily have “an elaborate internal […] structure that corresponds to verbal units” (Keevallik, 2014, p.  104). According to Heath et al. (2010, p. 74): Unlike talk, bodily conduct is not necessarily structured in terms of distinct turns, but the location of a particular movement within the emerging interaction remains critical to the ways in which an action, whether spoken, visible or a combination of both, is produced and understood by participants themselves.

Notwithstanding the variety of resources involved in constructing a turn, what matters is the action that a turn performs. Whether the turn is purely verbal or a combination of verbal and embodied elements, it ought to “amount to a complete action” (Keevallik, 2014, p.  115). In

60 

N. Chepinchikj

other words, it is not about what the turn is made up of but what it does (i.e. what the speaker intends to convey or do with it). Turning to the five diegetic interactions and their organisation, all of them follow the turn structure of conversations. All of them are built from turns as their basic unit of the spoken component of the interactions. The interactions are sequentially organised and each next turn depends on the prior, thus developing a meaningful interaction. The number of turns varies among the scenes, as well as the number of turns-­ at-­talk per interlocutor, as can be seen in Table 4.1. Some of the turns in the interactions are very short and simple (e.g. single-word utterances or non-lexical vocalisations), whereas others are complex and lengthy. An example of the former can be seen in Excerpt 4.1 below, which is taken from the interaction in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Here, Roy produces a sigh (a non-lexical vocalisation) in line 2, instead of a response to Sally’s question (line 1). The turn in question is indicated by an arrow. On the other hand, a complex, multi-unit turn is exemplified in Excerpt 4.2, which is the longest turn-at-talk in the Husbands and Wives Table 4.1  Number of turns-at-talk per interlocutor and in total for each interaction

Film scene Interiors September Husbands and Wives Melinda and Melinda You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

Number of turns by female interlocutors

Number of turns by male interlocutors

Total number of turns

8 10 4

7 11 5

15 21 12a

8

8

16

11

9

20

The total number of turns includes the three turns made by the speakers on TV

a

1

Sally: What are you doing home, anyway,

2→

Roy: Ohh

Excerpt 4.1  You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 1–2)

4  Organisation of Interaction  1

61

Gabe: >Jesus, they’re so full of it you know¿ You-you-you CAN’T TEACH WRITING, it’s

2

not something you can TEACH, you know you can only expose the students to

3

good literature and hope it inspires them. The ones that can WRITE can WRITE

4

when they come to my class and the others never learn,
I can’t keep my mind on it. I can’t concentrate. (1.0) I sit there all day reading

8

other people’s manuscripts and half way through I lose interest.< I get

9

HEADACHES from the (.) words >and then I’m supposed to sit down and< (.) write

10

a-an opinion. >It’s not fair to the authors,
I can’t keep my mind on it. I can’t concentrate. (1.0) I sit there all day reading

8

other people’s manuscripts and half way through I lose interest.< I get

9

HEADACHES from the (.) words >and then I’m supposed to sit down and< (.) write

10

a-an opinion. >It’s not fair to the authors,
°She experienced a little hearing loss in her left ear from the gunshot.< Noise trauma.°

Excerpt 4.8  September (Scene 2, lines 21–23; 28–29)

4  Organisation of Interaction  16

Peter: =Maybe it’s that she’s a survivor. °And the book I’m trying to write is about

17 18 19

67

survivors.°= Lane: =You’re right. She’s a survivor. She went on with her life, but I get stuck with the nightmares.

Excerpt 4.9  September (Scene 2, lines 16–19) 18

Lane: =You’re right. She’s a survivor. She went on with her life, but I get stuck with the

19

nightmares.

20 → (1.0) 21 22

Lloyd: Excuse me. (1.0) Uh (0.75) Diane wanted some ice cubes and (0.75) you seemed to be out.

Excerpt 4.10  September (Scene 2, lines 18–22)

of these cases occur before and after Lloyd’s interruption. Thus, the first inter-turn gap (line 20) follows Lane’s turn in lines 18–19 and Lloyd uses it conveniently to interrupt Lane’s and Peter’s conversation (Excerpt 4.10). The next inter-turn gap (line 24) follows Lane’s SPP to Lloyd’s FPP in the adjacency pair and it is directly attributable to Lloyd. What it suggests is that Lloyd hesitates before he finally launches his ‘sequence-closing third’1 (Schegloff, 2007; Sidnell, 2010), which produces an assessment comment aimed at Lane and related to her mother. This particular comment by Lloyd is unrelated to the adjacency pair per se, but it directly confirms that he has overheard Lane’s and Peter’s previous conversation (see Excerpt 4.11 below). Similarly, the next inter-turn gap (line 27) follows Lloyd’s second and last turn with which he leaves the interactional environment. What is noteworthy about this gap is that it is the longest in the entire interaction (whole eight seconds). This suggests that Lane, who self-selects as next speaker, is waiting for Lloyd to be completely gone so that she can safely resume her interaction with Peter, without being overheard.  A sequence-closing third is a minimal post-expansion of an adjacency pair, where the basic pair, containing a first and a second pair part, is closed with another final turn by the speaker who produced the FPP (Schegloff, 2007). 1

68 

N. Chepinchikj 24 →

(2.50)

25

Lloyd: And you’re wro:ng if you think your mother didn’t suffer terribly over that whole

26 27 →

affair. .Hhh (8.0)

Excerpt 4.11  September (Scene 2, lines 24–27) 39

Peter: °I’m sorry°,

40 →

(1.50)

41

Lane: °Huh. I’m sorry.° I- I’ll get you those pages. And they’re goo:d you know, despite

42

what you think. I’m not gonna let you tear them up,

Excerpt 4.12  September (Scene 2, lines 39–42)

The last inter-turn gap occurs near the end of the interaction (line 40). It follows Peter’s turn in line 39, which contains an apology (see Excerpt 4.12). This gap is attributable to Lane, since it is her turn to speak. The gap suggests an awkward moment which is bridged by Lane’s next turn, which echoes Peter’s apology and swiftly shifts the topic of conversation, before closing the interaction. Some of the inter-turn gaps (e.g. in lines 24, 40) are problematic and directly attributable to the following speaker. In addition, all the inter-­ turn gaps are interactionally relevant, as they signal interruptions in the course of the interaction, as well as points of hesitation that have an impact on its further development.

4.1.1.3  Husbands and Wives Unlike the previous interactions, the organisation of this one reveals an abundance of self-selection for the speaker’s role. Both represented participants self-select as next speakers throughout the interaction. However, there is also perceivable conversational struggle and competition to (1) self-select and (2) hold the floor for as long as possible. Gabe is actually the one who fares better at holding the conversational floor, as his turns

4  Organisation of Interaction  6

TV: Learn to write screenplays, (.) television scripts, (.) plays, (.) novels and...

7→

Gabe: >Jesus, they’re so full of it you know¿ You-you-you CAN’T TEACH WRITING, it’s

8

not something you can TEACH, you know you can only expose the students to

9

good literature and hope it inspires them. The ones that can WRITE can WRITE

10

when they come to my class and the others never learn,
What makes it worth it is that (.) every now and then you get a gifted pupil.

15

There’s- there’s this young girl in my class who wrote a (.) FABULOUS short story

16

called “Oral Sex in the Age of Deconstruction” and it’s full of insights and romantic

17

and,
Jesus, they’re so full of it you know¿ You-you-you CAN’T TEACH WRITING, it’s

8

not something you can TEACH, you know you can only expose the students to

9

good literature and hope it inspires them. The ones that can WRITE can WRITE

10

when they come to my class and the others never learn,
The director just kept [insisting] and the producers finally

3

gave in.
The character’s a [loser.
h[Let’s] not fight about this. I just meant that nobody can play the part like you can.
Lee, I’m really really happy for you. I know how much you wanted this.

18

Can’t we just leave it at that¿
I can’t handle it if it’s

[Oh]

23

confirmed, yet again that all those nice things predicted about me were wro:ng, that

24

I was a flash in the pan,
I can’t keep my mind on it. I can’t concentrate. (1.0) I sit there all day reading

(SPP)

8

other people’s manuscripts and half way through I lose interest.< I get

9

HEADACHES from the (.) words >and then I’m supposed to sit down and< (.) write

10

a-an opinion. >It’s not fair to the authors,
who used

14

to beat ‘er up all the time, you think that’s< (.) compelling¿ was it the shooting,

15

>because you know that wasn’t fascinating,< that- THAT WAS PATHETIC.=

16 17 18 19

Peter: =Maybe it’s that she’s a survi:vor. °And the book I’m trying to write is about survivors.°= Lane: =You’re right. She’s a survivor. She went on with her life, but I get stuck with the nightmares.

Excerpt 4.31  September, Scene 2 (lines 12–19) 1

Peter: Did you by any chance finish those chapters I gave you¿

(FPP)

2

Lane: Ye:ah! Almost↑ They’re ↑wonderful

(SPP)

3

Peter: I’ve been thinking about them and I’m discouraged.=

(expansion 1)

4

Lane: =Oh you shouldn’t be↑ you’re wro:ng,=

(expansion 2)

5

Peter: =I jus’ wanna START OVER. Again.

(expansion 3)

6

Lane: You can’t tear up everything you write you know↑ otherwise of course you have

7 8 9

to take (.) tranquilisers to calm down,

(expansion 4)

Peter: It seems so futile, I was supposed to be finished by now. (1.25) Next week is Labour Da:y, I have to be back at my job the day after,

(expansion 5)

Excerpt 4.32  September (Scene 2, lines 1–9)

An example of a minimally post-expanded adjacency pair is presented in Excerpt 4.31 above, where Lane’s FPP (lines 12–15) is followed by Peter’s conditionally relevant SPP (lines 16–17) and then minimally expanded by Lane’s sequence-closing third (lines 18–19). The other adjacency pairs are non-minimally post-expanded, which means that the basic pair of actions (FPP and SPP) is followed by more than one turn from both participants that expand on the same action that was initially introduced in the FPP of the adjacency pair. Such an example is the first adjacency pair in the interaction (lines 1–2), which is further expanded by both participants for another five turns (lines 3–9) (Excerpt 4.32).

4  Organisation of Interaction 

83

Even though Peter makes an attempt to close the sequence after his comment in line 3, Lane hurries to continue the sequence by adding an additional comment in her following turn (line 4), which she latches to Peter’s attempted sequence-closing third (line 3). Peter’s next move mirrors Lane’s in such a manner that he also uses the same device (latching talk) to continue the sequence with a further expansion, since his previous attempt failed. The initial adjacency pair is further expanded by another two turns by Lane and Peter, respectively, before Lane shifts the topic and thus begins a new sequence. The final sequence evolves through a different, storytelling type of sequential action. It begins after a very long inter-turn gap (line 27), when Lane resumes her interaction with Peter (lines 28–29). It ends with Lane’s final turn, which closes the interaction. This sequence consists of longer turn-by-turn accounts (lines 30–34) and storytelling (lines 35–38; see Appendix B, Scene 2 for the full transcript). Storytelling is another type of sequencing of talk-in-interaction, where the recipient orients to the telling of the speaker, which is prolonged (Schegloff, 2007). This is exactly what both Lane and Peter are doing when they are in the recipient role. Peter is silent while Lane is delivering her story (lines 35–38; see Appendix B), whereas she is also listening to Peter’s account (lines 30–34; see Excerpt 4.33), except for producing an audible inbreath in overlap during his turn projection. The manner in which Peter designs his turn is also significant. He prefaces his account with a sort of announcement of what he is about to say, which simultaneously constitutes the theme (lines 30–31), before he moves onto the new information—rheme (lines 33–34).

30 31

Peter: °The only point I wanted to make and I didn’t mean to upset you, (1.25) .hhh is [that]

32

Lane: [.Hhh]

33

Peter:

34

and this is just one of the cruelties of living.°

Excerpt 4.33  September (Scene 2, lines 30–34)

84 

N. Chepinchikj

Significantly, Peter makes a pause (line 30) and an audible inbreath at the end of his theme, before he proceeds with the second part of his turn (the rheme). On the other hand, Lane’s inbreath in overlap co-occurs with Peter’s “that” which is the beginning of his rheme. Thereby, both Lane and Peter mark the boundary between the theme and the rheme in Peter’s turn, by employing non-verbal means, such as audible inbreaths and a gap. Similarly to Interiors, the basis of this interaction are the adjacency pairs, which become expanded in various ways. Apart from them, Peter also initiates a sequence in the format of storytelling. One of the sequences is initiated by Lloyd, who interrupts Lane’s and Peter’s conversation and Lane closes the last sequence (and the entire interaction) by walking out of the room.

4.2.3  Husbands and Wives This interaction from the opening scene in Husbands and Wives is organised in two sequences. The first one is initiated by Gabe (line 7) and it mainly consists of storytelling (see Excerpt 4.34), while the second sequence is initiated by Judy (line 19) and it consists of a minimally 1

TV:

4

TV: = [(inaudible)]

5

Gabe: [No, he- he just plays hide-and-seek],

6

TV: Learn to write screenplays, (.) television scripts, (.) plays, (.) novels and...

7→

Gabe: >Jesus, they’re so full of it you know¿ You-you-you CAN’T TEACH WRITING, it’s

8

not something you can TEACH, you know you can only expose the students to

9

good literature and hope it inspires them. The ones that can WRITE can WRITE

10

when they come to my class and the others never learn,
gonna wanna take us for Chinese food again.=

(SPP)

21

Judy: =I think Sally is getting a little tired of our pasta places.

(sequence-closing third)

Excerpt 4.35  Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 18–21)

post-­expanded adjacency pair (Excerpt 4.35). Looking at the scene in its entirety, the interaction is preceded by a pre-interaction segment, which opens the scene and the film itself and includes the talk produced by the TV programmes that Gabe is watching, as well as his turn in line 5, which is self-directed speech, where Gabe comments for himself on the TV contents. This sequence is structured as storytelling, since Gabe begins the interaction by telling (lines 7–10), rather than asking. Judy hardly ever participates in this sequence, only by adding a comment (line 11). This sequence is the longer of the two and it closes with the interruption of Gabe’s talk by the doorbell (line 18; see Excerpt 4.35). After the doorbell interruption, Judy makes an announcement of their friends’ arrival, which she immediately latches onto the sound of the doorbell (line 19). Her turn resembles a FPP to which Gabe responds with a comment in line 20, thus constituting the SPP in this non-­standard adjacency pair. Finally, Judy closes the sequence and the interaction with a rejoinder comment (line 21), adding a post-expansion element of a sequence-closing third. The organisation and structure of this interaction indicates an asymmetry, due to the self-selection, turn length and complexity as well as the competition for the conversational floor, which is also reflected in the sequences. The first sequence is longer than the second one: Gabe initiates and dominates it in terms of holding the conversational floor and the amount of interactional input, as it has the quality of storytelling. On the other hand, Judy barely says anything and only once initiates talk.

86 

N. Chepinchikj

4.2.4  Melinda and Melinda Adjacency pairs are the building blocks of the sequences in this interaction. There are as many as four adjacency pairs, which are all expanded in some way (minimally or non-minimally). While most of them are unmarked, that is, SPPs follow FPPs and are conditionally relevant to them, some of them are marked by conditionally irrelevant second pair parts or the SPP is completely missing, which signals a lack of interactional co-operation. An example of the former is evident after Laurel makes an assessment comment (line 7) and Lee produces a FPP (line 9) in the form of a question, which is prefaced by the ‘change-of-state’ token ‘oh’ (Heritage, 1984). This ‘change-of-state’ token signals a surprise and unawareness that Lee intends to prod into with his FPP. Even though Laurel produces a SPP in her next turn (line 10), it is not a conditionally relevant answer to his enquiry. What Laurel does is evade a straightforward answer by redirecting the discussion to reminding Lee of a statement regarding his role that he has made on some previous occasion. Her SPP is followed by Lee’s other-initiated self-repair (SROI) comment and explanation (line 11). Finally, Laurel rushes with an overlap to pacify the conversation, by producing a suggestion and an other-initiated self-repair (SROI) of her comment in line 7, which she hopes will satisfy Lee’s enquiry posed in his FPP (line 9). Thus, she provides a supposedly satisfactory and conditionally relevant SPP to Lee’s FPP (line 9) after a deflection (line 10). The adjacency pair here is insert-expanded, which means that it is positioned between the initial FPP and its corresponding SPP (Schegloff, 1972, 2007; Stivers, 2013) (Excerpt 4.36). The following adjacency pair is also marked in the way that a SPP is missing. Lee launches a new adjacency pair, by making a further enquiry into the same topic, that is, what Laurel’s opinion of him is. His new FPP is rephrased as a tag question (line 14, Excerpt 4.37), but Laurel’s SPP is actually missing and it is an attempt to evade answering his question (line 15). Nevertheless, Lee repeats his question in his next turn. This time, he prefaces it with a directive (“I’m asking”, line 16) and rephrases his

87

4  Organisation of Interaction  7

Laurel: I know, you’re certainly natural for the character¿

8

(0.5)

9→

Lee: Oh why would you say that.

10

Laurel: You’ve said it like a hundred times.

11

Lee: I said I could act the hell out of it. >The character’s a [loser.
h[Let’s] not fight about this. I just meant that nobody can play the part like you can.
Lee, I’m really really happy for you. I know how much you wanted this.

18

Can’t we just leave it at that¿
you know I fell asleep at the wheel.
°She experienced a little hearing loss in her left ear from

29 30

101

the gunshot.< Noise trauma.° Peter: °The only point I wanted to make and I didn’t mean to upset you, (1.25) .hhh is

31

[that]

32

Lane: [.Hhh]

33

Peter:

34 35 →

and this is just one of the cruelties of living.° Lane: Right. And in your book that idea is moving. (1.50) .hhh >But the story of a

36

fourteen-year old girl who kills her mother’s lover is< (1.20) sleazy. And the trial

37

was sleazy, and he was sleazy, and- and (0.94) my mother was (0.70)

38

completely unconcerned.

39

Peter: °I’m sorry°,

40

(1.50)

41 →

Lane: °Huh. I’m sorry.° I- I’ll get you those pages. And they’re goo:d you know, despite

42

what you think. I’m not gonna let you tear them up,

Excerpt 5.4  September (Scene 2, lines 28–42)

The two topic shifts in this interaction are produced by one participant, Lane. Significantly, both topics receive equal attention by both participants and they are co-operatively discussed, even though Lane’s choice of topic receives more talk time (ten turns-at-talk), as opposed to eight turns that discuss Peter’s book. Lastly, the topic introduction and one of the topic shifts occur through elicitation, which in both cases introduce self-oriented topics.

5.1.3  Husbands and Wives One of the key interactional features in this opening scene of Husbands and Wives is the management of topic shifts. Gabe imposes the topic of conversation because he initiates the interaction (line 7; Excerpt 5.5), thus nominating the topic of conversation that is speaker-oriented. Although his topic selection is prompted by the TV advertisement on

102 

N. Chepinchikj

6

TV: Learn to write screenplays, (.) television scripts, (.) plays, (.) novels and...

7→

Gabe: >Jesus, they’re so full of it you know¿ You-you-you CAN’T TEACH WRITING, it’s

8

not something you can TEACH, you know you can only expose the students to

9

good literature and hope it inspires them. The ones that can WRITE can WRITE

10

when they come to my class and the others never learn,
What makes it worth it is that (.) every now and then you get a gifted pupil.

[(inaudible)]

15

There’s- there’s this young girl in my class who wrote a (.) FABULOUS short story

16

called “Oral Sex in the Age of Deconstruction” and it’s full of insights and romantic

17

and,
gonna wanna take us for Chinese food again.=

21

Judy: =I think Sally is getting a little tired of our pasta places.

Excerpt 5.6  Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 18–21)

advantage of this interruption to change the topic of conversation. Incidentally, Gabe continues the new topic proposed by Judy in his next turn-at-talk (line 20). This interaction offers an invaluable insight into occasioning topic shifts in diegetic interactions. In this particular instance, the participants are nominating topics and maintaining them despite the interlocutor’s lack of interest and minimal participation, as illustrated in the first sequence of the interaction (Excerpt 5.5). In addition, the participants use external interruptions as opportunities for occasioning topic shifts and overtaking the conversational floor, as is the case in the second sequence.

5.1.4  Melinda and Melinda Topic shifts are also a salient interactional feature in this interaction. What is noteworthy is that all of them are produced by one participant, Lee. At the very beginning of the interaction, Laurel elicits the topic from Lee (line 1; Excerpt 5.7), by asking him an elicitation question that serves as a topic initiator. Laurel’s question is an ‘other-attentive question’ (Morris-Adams, 2014), as it is oriented towards her interlocutor and it is also neutral as to the topic that Lee will introduce (Button & Casey, 1985; Sidnell, 2010). Thus, Lee uses his SPP turn (lines 2–3) as a self-­ oriented topic initiator, by making an announcement about his new acting job. This is a somewhat unusual position for an announcement, as, according to Maynard (1980), announcements are usually made at the beginning of a sequence in FPP position. While this occurrence is an example of initiating a topic in SPP position, Lee also makes a topic shift at the beginning of a sequence, that is,

104 

N. Chepinchikj

1

Laurel: Hi! What are you doin’ down here.

2→

Lee: I got it. I got the part. >The director just kept [insisting] and the producers finally

3

gave in.
I can’t keep my mind on it. I can’t concentrate. (1.0) I sit there all day reading 8

other people’s manuscripts and half way through I lose interest.< I get

9

HEADACHES from the (.) words >and then I’m supposed to sit down and< (.) write

10

a-an opinion. >It’s not fair to the authors,
who used

14

to beat ‘er up all the time, you think that’s< (.) compelling¿ was it the shooting,

15

>because you know that wasn’t fascinating,< that- THAT WAS PATHETIC.=

Excerpt 5.19  September (Scene 2, lines 11–15)

5  Verbal Features of Interaction 

115

As for the relationship between prosody and the social actions that Lane and Peter perform in the course of their interaction, there is a pattern that applies to both participants. This pattern suggests that the interlocutors display the same or very similar features of word stress, change of intonation, louder talk and shifts to a faster pace when orienting to their own speech. Conversely, when orienting to their interlocutor’s talk, both participants modify their prosody, thus aligning their actions with their interlocutor’s speech. An example of the former pattern is Lane’s account in lines 35–38 (Excerpt 5.20). Here, she is recounting the traumatic incident from her teenage years, comparing it to Peter’s book. The prosody that she uses varies throughout her turn-projection. She changes her intonation from flat to continuing and back to flat at turn completion. She also uses word stress and changes the pace by speeding up in the middle of her turn. This particular prosodic make-up also suggests emotional stance towards her talk. However, when Lane responds to Peter’s talk, her prosody is completely different. Such is her animated talk in lines 2 and 4 (Excerpt 5.21). In response to Peter’s anxiety regarding his book, Lane produces encouraging talk that, at the same time, offers positive appraisal. What is 35

Lane: Right. And in your book that idea is moving. (1.53) .hhh >But the story of a

36

fourteen-year old girl who kills her mother’s lover is< (1.21) sleazy. And the trial

37

was sleazy, and he was sleazy, and- and (0.94) my mother was (0.72)

38

completely unconcerned.

Excerpt 5.20  September (Scene 2, lines 35–38) 2

Lane: Ye:ah! Almost↑ They’re ↑wonderful

***

4

Lane: =Oh you shouldn’t be↑ you’re wro:ng,=

Excerpt 5.21  September (Scene 2, lines 2; 4)

116 

N. Chepinchikj

particularly significant here is her use of prosody. Lane employs word stress, high pitch rises, vowel sound elongation and a range of intonation contours from continuous to high. Prosodic shifts, as one salient interactional feature in this interaction, suggest a relationship with the participants’ social actions and are particularly indicative of their co-constructed conversation, in such ways that both of them display orientation and alignment with each other’s talk. In addition, the interlocutors use prosody to display emotions and stance towards their talk, which is sequential and triggered by a prior action.

5.2.3  Husbands and Wives Prosody is also a relevant feature in this interaction. Not surprisingly, prosodic shifts are found in Gabe’s talk more than in Judy’s and they play an important role in expressing his stance towards what he is saying. They also play a critical role in the projection of his turns, especially as turn-­ holding devices. Prosodic shifts in Gabe’s talk occur in all his turns and are characterised by changes in pace, volume, stress and intonation. They are also closely related to the social actions he performs. To illustrate (see Excerpt 5.22), Gabe’s initial turn, with which he opens the conversation, begins with a quick pace which persists throughout his turn (lines 7–10). He also uses added word stress and emphasises certain words and phrases by using loud volume of speech. Finally, his intonation throughout this turn is mostly continuing, even at the end of his turn. All these prosodic markers clearly indicate his emotional investment in what he is saying and reflect the interactional move of complaining and explaining. They are also used as turn-holding devices. In other words, Gabe performs a ‘rush-through’ (Schegloff, 1985, 1998), with his prosodic gestalt employed in this turn. His continuing intonation and his 7

Gabe: >Jesus, they’re so full of it you know¿ You-you-you CAN’T TEACH WRITING, it’s

8

not something you can TEACH, you know you can only expose the students to

9

good literature and hope it inspires them. The ones that can WRITE can WRITE

10

when they come to my class and the others never learn,
What makes it worth it is that (.) every now and then you get a gifted pupil.

15

There’s- there’s this young girl in my class who wrote a (.) FABULOUS short story

16

called “Oral Sex in the Age of Deconstruction” and it’s full of insights and romantic

17

and,
gonna wanna take us for Chinese food again.=

Excerpt 5.25  Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, line 20)

quick pace of speech particularly indicate that he is holding his turn and thus preventing Judy from taking over the conversational floor. Later in the interaction, when he is defending himself against Judy’s criticism and denying her claim (line 12), Gabe is using word stress and high pitch shifts on two occasions within the turn (Excerpt 5.23). When he continues the conversation on the topic of talented students (lines 14–17; Excerpt 5.24), Gabe speeds up the pace of his talk, very similarly to his turn at the beginning of the interaction (lines 7–10; see Excerpt 5.22 above) and he also uses word stress for emphasis, since he is making an evaluation. What differs is that he does not finish his turn, because he is interrupted by the doorbell. Very similarly, in his last turn in the interaction (line 20), Gabe speeds up the pace in the second half of his turn, which follows his social action of complaining (Excerpt 5.25). In sum, the prosodic shifts in this interaction are closely related to three phenomena. First, they express the stance that the speaker is taking regarding what is being said. Second, they are associated with turn-­ projection and holding the conversational floor by the current speaker. This is particularly noticeable in those Gabe’s turns where he uses fast pace of speech (lines 7–10, 14–17, 20) and continuing unfinished intonation in turn-final position (lines 10 and 17). Third and final, the prosodic changes are related to and reflective of the speaker’s social actions.

118 

N. Chepinchikj

5.2.4  Melinda and Melinda Similarly to the previously discussed diegetic interactions, prosody plays a key role in this one, too. Its use and variations shape the participants’ turns and define their meaning, depending on their social actions and emotional stance. The prosodic shifts in this interaction also mark its mood, which changes throughout its course and is closely related to the topics discussed as well as the sequences. Thus, in the first sequence, the prosody sets the mood of the interaction to one of exhilaration, enthusiasm and joy. This kind of mood emanates from the content, that is, the topic of conversation (Lee’s good news about his new job). Hence, Lee employs such prosodic shifts that reflect the content of his utterances and show his stance: quick pace of speech (lines 2–3 and 6), words stress (lines 2–3 and 6), and elongation of vowel sounds (line 6). This is also evident in Laurel’s speech, where she uses word stress (lines 1, 5 and 7), elongation of vowel sounds (line 5), high pitch shifts (line 5) and also smiling voice (symbolised in the transcription with £) (Excerpt 5.26). However, as the mood changes to tense in the next sequence, so does the prosody of both participants. Since this part of the conversation is an argument between the interlocutors, Lee’s prosodic shifts correspond to the tense and confrontational mood of the interaction. Thus, he employs falling intonation in questions (lines 9 and 14), word stress (lines 9, 11, 14, 16), pace shifts (line 11) and loud volume of speech (line 16) (Excerpt 5.27). 1

Laurel: Hi! What are you doin’ down here.

2

Lee: I got it. I got the part. >The director just kept [insisting] and the producers finally

3

gave in.
It’s a big shot for me Laurel,
The character’s a [loser.
h[Let’s] not fight about this. I just meant that nobody can play the part like you can.
you

13

know I fell asleep at the wheel.
I can’t handle it if it’s

24

confirmed, yet again that all those nice things predicted about me were wro:ng, that

25

I was a flash in the pan,
But the story of a

36 →

fourteen-year old girl who kills her mother’s lover is< (1.20) sleazy. And the trial

37 →

was sleazy, and he was sleazy, and- and (0.94) my mother was (0.70)

38

completely unconcerned

Excerpt 5.36  September (Scene 2, lines 35–38) 30 → 31

Peter: °The only point I wanted to make and I didn’t mean to upset you, (1.25) .hhh is [that]

32

Lane: [.Hhh]

33

Peter:

34

and this is just one of the cruelties of living.°

Excerpt 5.37  September (Scene 2, lines 30–34)

5  Verbal Features of Interaction  8→ 9

129

Peter: It seems so futile, I was supposed to be finished by now. (1.25) Next week is Labour Da:y, I have to be back at my job the day after,

Excerpt 5.38  September (Scene 2, lines 8–9)

opportunity to take over the speakership, which she forgoes. Instead, she remains silent and Peter continues his turn (Excerpt 5.38). What we can see in this interaction is a wide variety of uses of intra-­ turn gaps, which signal hesitation, demarcate boundaries in talk and are also used as turn-yielding devices and employed in lexical retrieval. What is significant is that all these are interactionally relevant as they highlight points within the turn-projection that can be challenged by the recipient or that indicate the further course of the current turn. Gaps, be it inter-turn or intra-turn, show a variety of uses and effects on the diegetic interactions. In addition to foreshadowing dispreferred responses to first-pair parts in adjacency pairs, they can also be used to redirect topics, hold the current turn, express hesitation or tentativeness and mark the boundary between a theme and a rheme. Sometimes, intra-­ turn gaps are introduced when a speaker is searching for a particular word.

References Berger, A. (1992). Popular culture genres: Theories and texts. Sage. Button, G., & Casey, N. (1985). Topic nomination and topic pursuit. Human Studies, 8, 3–55. Chafe, W. (1985). Some reasons for hesitating. In D.  Tannen & M.  Saville-­ Troike (Eds.), Perspectives on silence (pp. 77–92). Ablex. Clark, H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge University Press. Clark, H., & Clark, E. (1977). Psychology and language. An introduction to psycholinguistics. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Clark, H., & Fox Tree, J. (2002). Using uh and um in spontaneous speaking. Cognition, 84, 73–111. Corley, M., & Stewart, O. W. (2008). Hesitation disfluencies in spontaneous speech: The meaning of um. Language and Linguistics Compass, 4, 589–602. Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2001). Interactional prosody: High onsets in reason-for-­ the-call turns. Language in Society, 30(1), 29–53.

130 

N. Chepinchikj

Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2004). Analysing language in interaction: The practice of never mind. English Language and Linguistics, 8(2), 207–237. Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2009). A sequential approach to affect: The case of “disappointment”. In M.  Haakana, M.  Laakso, & J.  Lindström (Eds.), Talk in interaction: Comparative dimensions (pp. 94–123). Finnish Literature Society. Couper-Kuhlen, E., & Ford, C. (2004). Sound patterns in interaction: Cross-­ linguistic studies from conversation. John Benjamins. Cowie, R., Douglas-Cowie, E., Savvidou, S., McMahon, E., Sawey, M., & Schröder, M. (2000, September 5–7). ‘FEELTRACE’: An instrument for recording perceived emotions in real time. In R. Cowie, E. Douglas-Cowie, & M.  Schröder (Eds.), Proceedings, ISCA workshop on speech and emotion (pp. 19–24). Newcastle, N. Ireland. Crow, B.  K. (1983). Topic shifts in couples’ conversations. In R.  T. Craig & K. Tracy (Eds.), Conversational coherence. Sage Publications. Cruttenden, A. (1997). Intonation. Cambridge University Press. Desilla, L. (2012). Implicatures in film: Construal and functions in Bridget Jones romantic comedies. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 30–53. Drew, P., & Holt, E. (1998). Figures of speech: Figurative expressions and the management of topic transition in conversation. Language in Society, 27(4), 495–522. Ford, C.  E., & Thompson, S.  A. (1996). Interactional units in conversation: Syntactic, intonational, and pragmatic resources for the management of turns. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff, & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Interaction and grammar (pp. 134–184). Cambridge University Press. Goffman, E. (1983). The interaction order. American Sociological Review, 48, 1–17. Goodwin, C. (1979). The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 97–121). Irvington. Goodwin, C. (2013). The co-operative, transformative organization of human action and knowledge. Journal of Pragmatics, 46, 8–23. Goodwin, M. H., & Goodwin, C. (2000). Emotion within situated activity. In N. Budwig, I. Č. Užgiris, & J. V. Wertsch (Eds.), Communication: An arena of development (pp. 33–49). Ablex Publishing Corporation. Heritage, J. (1984). A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In J.  M. Atkinson & J.  Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 299–345). Cambridge University Press. Holt, E., & Drew, P. (2005). Figurative pivots: The use of figurative expressions in pivotal topic transitions. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 38(1), 35–61.

5  Verbal Features of Interaction 

131

Jefferson, G. (1984). On stepwise transition from talk about a trouble to inappropriately next-positioned matters. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp.  346–369). Cambridge University Press. Jefferson, G. (1988). On the sequential organization of troubles-talk in ordinary conversation. Social Problems, 35(4), 418–441. Kelly, J., & Local, J. K. (1989). Doing phonology. Manchester University Press. Kozloff, S. (2000). Overhearing film dialogue. University of California Press. Liddicoat, A.  J. (2011). An introduction to conversation analysis (2nd ed.). Continuum. Lindsey, L. L. (2011). Gender roles: A sociological perspective. Pearson Prentice Hall. Local, J. K. (1992). Continuing and restarting. In P. Auer & A. Di Luzio (Eds.), Contextualization of language (pp. 273–296). John Benjamins. Local, J. K., Kelly, J., & Wells, W. H. G. (1986). Towards a phonology of conversation: Turn-taking in Tyneside English. Journal of Linguistics, 22, 411–437. Local, J. K., & Walker, G. (2008). Stance and affect in conversation: On the interplay of sequential and phonetic resources. Text & Talk, 28(6), 723–747. https://doi.org/10.1515/TEXT.2008.037 Long, M. H. (1981). Questions in foreign talk discourse. Language Learning, 31(1), 135–157. Maltz, D. N., & Borker, R. A. (1982). A cultural approach to male-female miscommunication. In J.  J. Gumperz (Ed.), Language and social identity (pp. 195–216). Cambridge University Press. Maynard, D. (1980). Placement of topic changes in conversation. Semiotica, 30, 263–290. Maynard, D. (2003). Bad news, good news: Conversational order in everyday talk and clinical settings. University of Chicago Press. Morris-Adams, M. (2008). Coherence and understanding in informal conversations between native and non-native speakers of English. Unpublished PhD thesis. Aston University. Morris-Adams, M. (2014). From Spanish paintings to murder?: Topic transitions in casual conversations between native and non-native speakers of English. Journal of Pragmatics, 62, 151–165. Morris-Adams, M. (2016). Negotiating topic changes: Native and non-native speakers of English in conversation. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 26(3), 366–383. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12134 O’Connell, D., & Kowal, S. (1983). Pausology. In W. Winter (Ed.), Computers in language research 2 (pp. 222–301). Mouton.

132 

N. Chepinchikj

Ochs, E. (1996). Linguistic resources for socializing humanity. In J. J. Gumperz & S.  C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp.  407–437). Cambridge University Press. Ogden, R. (2001). Turn-transition, creak and glottal stop in Finnish talk-in-­ interaction. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31, 139–152. Ogden, R. (2006). Phonetics and social action in agreements and disagreements. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 1752–1775. Ogden, R., Hakulinen, A., & Tainio, L. (2004). Indexing ‘nothing much’ with stylisation in Finnish. In E. Couper-Kuhlen & C. Ford (Eds.), Sound patterns in interaction: Cross-linguistic studies from conversation (pp. 299–334). John Benjamins. Phillips, P. (2000). Understanding film text: Meaning and experience. British Film Institute. Piazza, R., Bednarek, M., & Rossi, F. (2011). Introduction: Analysing telecinematic discourse. In R. Piazza, M. Bednarek, & F. Rossi (Eds.), Telecinematic discourse: Approaches to the language of films and television series (pp. 1–17). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Pomerantz, A. (1984). Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 57–101). Cambridge University Press. Raymond, C. W. (2013). Gender and sexuality in animated television sitcom interaction. Discourse & Communication, 7(2), 199–220. Rossi, G. (2020). Other-repetition in conversation across languages: Bringing prosody into pragmatic typology. Language in Society, 49, 495–520. https:// doi.org/10.1017/S0047404520000251 Ruusuvuori, J. (2013). Emotion, affect and conversation. In J.  Sidnell & T.  Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp.  330–349). Wiley-Blackwell. Sacks, H. (1972). An initial investigation of the usability of conversational materials for doing sociology. In D. N. Sundown (Ed.), Studies in social interaction (pp. 31–74). Free Press. Sacks, H. (1995). Lectures on conversation: Volumes I and II (G. Jefferson, Ed.). Blackwell. Sacks, H., & Schegloff, E. A. (1979). Two preferences in the organization of reference to persons in conversation and their interaction. In G.  Psathas (Ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 15–21). Irvington. Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735.

5  Verbal Features of Interaction 

133

Schegloff, E. A. (1985). Discourse as an interactional achievement: Some uses of ‘uh huh’ and other things that come between sentences. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Analysing discourse (pp. 71–93). Georgetown Round Table in Language and Linguistics. Georgetown University Press. Schegloff, E. A. (1998). Reflections on studying prosody in talk-in-interaction. Language and Speech, 41(3–4), 235–263. Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis. Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, E.  A., & Sacks, H. (1973). Opening up closings. Semiotica, 7, 289–327. Selting, M. (1996). On the interplay of syntax and prosody in the constitution of turn-constructional units and turns in conversation. Pragmatics, 6(3), 357–388. Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation analysis: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell. Stenström, A. (1990). Pauses in monologue and dialogue. In J. Svartvik (Ed.), The London-Lund corpus of spoken English: Description and research (pp. 211–252). Lund University Press. Stenström, A. (2011). Pauses and hesitations. In G.  Andersen & K.  Aijmer (Eds.), Pragmatics of society (pp. 537–567). De Gruyter. Szczepek Reed, B. (2011). Beyond the particular: Prosody and the coordination of actions. Language and Speech, 55(1), 13–34. Szczepek Reed, B. (2020). Reconceptualizing mirroring: Sound imitation and rapport in naturally occurring interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 167, 131–151. Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. William Morrow. Trömel-Plötz, S. (1991). Selling the apolitical. Discourse & Society, 2(4), 489–502. Walker, G. (2013). Phonetics and prosody in conversation. In J.  Sidnell & T.  Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp.  455–474). Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Wichmann, A. (2011). Prosody and pragmatic effect. In G.  Andersen & K. Aijmer (Eds.), Pragmatics of society (pp. 181–213). De Gruyter.

6 Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered? —Woody Allen

Gaze, or the use of sight and its direction, is a crucial embodied resource used in human interaction. Human gaze is a highly evolved system, whose use surpasses mere perceptual and communicative functions (Rossano, 2013). Gaze, its use and function have been researched extensively from a number of perspectives, in various disciplines. However, gaze in human interaction, which is the focus of this chapter, has been mostly studied by social psychologists or kinesics researchers (e.g. Birdwhistell, 1970; Scheflen, 1975). Conversation analysis (CA) built its interest and research into gaze, based on the assumption by the kinesiologist Birdwhistell (1970) that every movement is meaningful and ought to be treated as such, applying it with regard to order everywhere throughout interaction (Sacks, 1992). Two important assumptions taken from the kinesics approach to gaze (Scheflen, 1975) are the following: 1. The dichotomy according to which language is communicative, while every other visible behaviour simply works as a cue for who is speaking or what is supposed to happen next is wrong.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Chepinchikj, Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00945-7_6

135

136 

N. Chepinchikj

2. A participant does not speak, gesture, smile and hold a posture simultaneously to form a single message with redundant parts. Rather each modality is employed for specific purposes, some of which may be purely communicational, others might be regulatory and others again might be used to induce or sustain specific relationships between the participants in the interaction. (Rossano, 2013, p. 311)

From the standpoint of CA and interactional use of gaze, three dimensions have been studied so far (Rossano, 2013): 1 . the relationship between gaze and conversation participation 2. the regulatory functions of gaze 3. the role of gaze in action formation. In this book, we will solely look at dimensions one and three, as they apply to the diegetic interactions from Allen’s five film scenes. The second dimension has already been discussed elsewhere (Chepinchikj, 2020) in relation to the role of gaze in initiating and completing sequences of interaction. This discussion draws on the same data, that is, the five film scenes examined in this book. Regarding the relationship between gaze and participation roles (speaker and listener/recipient) and frameworks (engagement and disengagement) in conversation, research shows that there is a close relationship between gaze and speaker and listener/recipient roles. In fact, recipients tend to look more at speakers than vice versa (Argyle & Cook, 1976; Argyle & Dean, 1965; Argyle & Graham, 1976; Bavelas et  al., 2002; Exline, 1963; Goodwin, 1981; Kendon, 1967). On this point, Kendon (1967) found that listeners gaze longer at speakers and that their gaze is interrupted by brief glances away, whereas speakers alternate gazes to and away from the listener at approximately equal length. Kendon (1967) also investigated the orderliness of gaze and his work suggests that gaze is usually arranged over the course of a turn-at-talk in the following manner: the speaker looks away at the beginning of talk but gazes steadily at the recipient as the turn approaches completion, while the recipient looks away from the speaker at this point. This arrangement provides for an easy transition of the floor from the current speaker to the recipient as the next speaker, following the same pattern of gaze distribution.

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze 

137

Goodwin (1979) suggested two rules regarding gaze and its direction with reference to interaction. The first rule states, that “the gaze of a speaker should locate the party being gazed as an addressee” (Goodwin, 1979, p.  99). The second rule asserts that “when a speaker gazes at a recipient he should make eye contact with that recipient” (Goodwin, 1979, p. 106). Gazing at the speaker is also considered a sign of listening and orientation towards them. Nevertheless, what is normal in naturallyoccurring conversations is that during a turn-at-talk, listeners regularly look both at the speaker and away from them, shifting their gaze as the turn progresses. All this suggests that participants’ gaze is not independent, but it is interrelated within a normative order of interaction. Other findings (Goodwin, 1981) indicate that speakers gaze at recipients at the end of phrases, but they look away from them at points of hesitation. Once they re-establish the normal flow of speech, they gaze back at the recipients. Goodwin (1981) also discusses gaze as a display of (dis)engagement and attention in conversation. Thus, looking away from the co-participant is noticeable and potentially sanctionable because it demonstrates reduced engagement in the conversation. However, if there is a competing activity that co-occurs with talk, such as eating, then, looking away is less sanctionable. As far as mutual gaze is concerned, this tends to be quite short, usually lasting for less than a second (Kendon, 1967). The primary reason for the mutual gaze, according to Kendon (1967), is based on the participant’s knowledge “that he is affecting [the other] in some way and that he is, thereby, making progress in whatever he is attempting to do” (pp. 59–60). This argument serves as a confirmation of the function of gaze as a means of monitoring, regulating and expressing. The approach to gaze in naturally-occurring types of interactions from the Multimodal Conversation Analysis (MMCA) perspective is one of sociality, where gaze is considered a social act (Goodwin, 1981) and, as such, it is constrained by its social character, playing a role in shaping the organisation and meaningfulness of turns. It is also regarded as an integral part of interaction, where gaze is interconnected with speech and other semiotic resources. In Goodwin’s (2001) words, the sense and relevance of gaze are “established through their embeddedness in other meaning-making tasks and practices” (p. 160). Let us now have a closer look at what transpires with gaze in diegetic interactions.

138 

N. Chepinchikj

6.1 Gaze in Interiors Gaze is a key embodied interactional feature in this interaction. However, it is not feasible to follow the gaze direction of both participants at all times during this scene because of the camera work and editing. This means that the actors’ gaze can be observed only when either of them is shown on screen. Due to the alternating shots, the two characters are never shown both on screen at the same time, but they are represented individually in the shots. Therefore, the analysis has been limited to the gaze of the character who is represented on screen, without any speculations about the gaze and its direction of the off-screen character. Regarding the direction of gaze, several different functions and uses of it are observed. Gaze plays a role in action formation and it displays a significant relationship with the participant roles of speaker and recipient and with the participation framework of engagement and/or disengagement in the interaction. Therefore, we shall first look at how speakers and listeners use gaze before moving to its function in the participation framework and, finally, discuss the role of gaze in action formation. The various uses and functions of gaze in this scene are summarised in Table 6.1 below.

6.1.1 Gaze and Participant Roles Joey and Mike use gaze differently depending on their participant role (speaker or recipient), but differences have also been identified between their gaze behaviour for the same role. Thus, when Mike is in the speaker’s role, he most frequently gazes at Joey (see Table 6.1 below for details). The only time Mike does not gaze at Joey while speaking is the feedback comment he provides in third position early in the conversation (line 3; see Appendix B). Here he is gazing at his materials, giving precedence to his reading activity. On the other hand, when Joey is in the speaker’s role, she hardly ever gazes at her interlocutor. She most frequently averts her gaze from Mike. However, she gazes at him during her answer to Mike’s initial questions (line 2), even though her glances directed to Mike are quite short and

Joey

Gazing away from recipient at turn beginning and throughout turn-projection (l. 4, 14–15) Briefly closes eyes during turn-­projection (l. 9, 20) Gaze withdrawal during inter-turn gaps (l. 17) Gazing away from recipient during SPP-­projection (l. 18)

Gazing away from recipient at topic shifts (l. 4, 20) Shifts gaze to recipient mid-way in turn-­projection (l. 7–10) Gazing at recipient at emphatic points in the turn (e.g. at emphatic words/phrases) (l. 9, 12)

Shifts gaze to recipient at turn Gazing away from Showing very beginning but varies gaze speaker little direction to and from recipient (l. 23–24) engagement during turn-­projection (l. 2) (l. 2, 12)

Engagement Oscillating visible disengagement (l. 4, 7–10, 14–15, 18, 20–21, 25–26)

Disengagement

Gaze and participatory framework

Speaker

Recipient

Gaze and participants’ roles

Table 6.1  Gaze and its functions in the interaction between Joey and Mike in Interiors (1978)

(continued)

Gaze withdrawal used to reflect emotional/ mental state, that is, alignment with own speech (l. 7–10, 14–15, 20–21) Gazing at interlocutor used for emphasis of talk (l. 9, 12) Gazing at interlocutor to indicate confrontation (l. 12) Gazing up—Addressing a higher force (l. 20)

Action formation

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze 

139

Action formation

Gazing at recipient for the entire Shifts gaze away turn duration (l. 11, 16) from speaker in prepara tion to begin a turn as the next speaker (l. 19) Gazing away from recipient (l. 3, 19) Shifts gaze to recipient mid-way in turn-­projection (l. 19) Gazing at recipient at turn-­ completion (l. 19)

Use of gaze shifts to prioritise actions (e.g. l. 1, 3, 6, 19, 23)

Gazing at speaker Shows high visual One instance of full Use of gaze to/away from (l. 7, 18) engagement (l. visual disengagement interlocutor to mark 1, 11, 13, 16, 19, (l. 3) and one of beginnings/ends of 22, 23) partial actions (l. 1, 3, 19, 22) disengagement (l. 6)

Disengagement

Engagement

Recipient

Speaker

Closes eyes at turn-­completion (l. 21) Mike Shifts gaze to recipient before the start of the conversation and before turn beginning (l. 1, 11, 23)

Gaze and participatory framework

Gaze and participants’ roles

Table 6.1 (continued)

140  N. Chepinchikj

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze  7

141

Joey: =>I can’t keep my mind on it. I can’t concentrate. (1.0) I sit there all day reading

8→

{other people’s manuscripts and half way through I lose interest.< I get

9

HEADACHES} from the (.) words >and then I’m supposed to sit down and< (.) write

10

a-an opinion. >It’s not fair to the authors,
who used to

14

beat ‘er up all the time, you think that’s< (.) compelling¿ was it the shooting,

15

>because you know that wasn’t fascinating,< that- THAT WAS PATHETIC.=

***

18 Lane: =You’re right. She’s a survivor. {She went on with her life, but I get stuck with the 19

nightmares.}

Excerpt 6.6  September (Scene 2, line 12–15; 18–19)

This particular occurrence though changes her embodied action and visual behaviour. This is observable in her next turn (lines 28–29), where she gazes away from Peter and later (lines 35–38), when she only gazes at him during the incremental and emphatic stretch of talk that she produces (see Sect. 5.2 on prosodic shifts in Chap. 5), where her gaze reinforces the emphasis in her talk (Excerpt 6.7). She remains looking away as she begins her last turn (lines 41–42; Excerpt 6.7), but gazes at Peter once again as she is about to walk out the door. This gaze co-occurs with her evaluative comment of his book, which serves to confirm her verbal praise. Lloyd, when in the speaker’s role, shifts his gaze to and from Lane, but gazes at her at turn-completion (both in lines 21–22 and 25–26). This gaze direction supports the claim of gazing at the recipient at turn-­ completion with the intention of indicating that the speaker has finished talking and ceding their speakership role to their recipient (Kendon, 1967; Rossano, 2006, 2012, 2013). He also gazes at Lane at turn beginning in line 25. Here, his use of gaze suggests reinforcement of his words (Excerpt 6.8). Turning to the relationship between gaze and the recipient’s role, there is a variety in visual behaviour as regards gaze direction. Peter is looking at Lane as she talks at the beginning of the interaction, up until the

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze  35

153

Lane: Right. And in your book that idea is moving. (1.50) .hhh >But the story of a

36

fourteen-year old girl who kills her mother’s lover is< (1.20) {sleazy. And the trial

37

was sleazy, and he was sleazy,} and- and (0.94) my mother was (0.70) completely

38

{unconcerned.

***

41

Lane: °Huh. I’m sorry.° I- I’ll get you those pages. {And they’re goo:d you know, despite}

42

what you think. I’m not gonna let you tear them up!

Excerpt 6.7  September (Scene 2, lines 35–38; 41–42) 21 Lloyd: Excuse me. (1.0) Uh (0.75) {Diane} wanted some ice cubes {and (0.75) you seemed 22

to be out.

23 Lane: Uhm, (0.50) there’s a (.) there’s an ice machine {just out- outside the back door.} 24 (2.50) 25 Lloyd: {And you’re wro:ng if you think your mother didn’t suffer terribly over that whole 26

affair. .Hhh}

Excerpt 6.8  September (Scene 2, lines 21–26)

moment when he turns around and walks into the living room. Thus, he receives Lane’s second pair part (SPP) (line 2) to his initial question with complete gaze attention, but then he averts his gaze and physically distances himself from the participation framework. When he re-joins Lane in the other part of the room, Peter mostly gazes at her in the recipient’s role. He also looks at Lane as she is about to complete her turn (line 15), thus anticipating her turn-completion and awaiting for the most appropriate Transition Relevance Place (TRP) to take over the floor.

154 

N. Chepinchikj

During Lloyd’s interruption of Lane’s and Peter’s interaction, Peter is in the role of a mere listener. His visual behaviour, however, exhibits his engagement and attention to what Lane and Lloyd are saying and doing. He interchanges his gaze direction between Lloyd and Lane in alternation, in addition to following Lane’s gesture with his gaze. He also keeps looking at Lloyd as he walks away, before shifting his gaze and looking down. Half-way during Lane’s turn (line 28–29), Peter shifts his gaze towards her, once again anticipating the completion of her turn and preparing himself for the speaker’s role. He also fully engages in the ensuing segment of the interaction, by gazing steadily at Lane (lines 35–38) and he only shifts his gaze when she does so and when she turns to walk away. As for Lane, she exhibits a greater extent of visual attention as a recipient in the first part of the interaction. She is gazing constantly and persistently at Peter, even when he averts his gaze from her, reorients his bodily position and moves away from her. However, once she physically distances herself from him, her gaze orients to other activities (a drink preparation) and she only gazes at Peter in her recipient role during his turn in lines 16–17, but she does so in alternation with gaze shifts and eyes closed, since she is also engaged in drinking, as a competing action. Lane also turns her gaze towards Lloyd, when he addresses her with an excuse (line 21), but we cannot see whether she retains her gaze upon him as he speaks, owing to the camera position in this shot.3 The same is valid when Lloyd produces his next turn (lines 25–26) as a sequence-closing third. He is the only character on the screen, so we cannot determine the gaze behaviour of either Lane or Peter. In the last sequence of their interaction, after Lloyd has left their interactional environment (and the scene), Lane’s gaze is more seldom directed at Peter when she is the recipient of his turns. For example, during Peter’s next turn (line 30–34), which is his longest in the entire interaction, Lane gazes down and only once glances at Peter, as he utters the verb phrase “to annihilate them” (line 33). This change in gaze behaviour by Lane, from the beginning towards the end of the interaction, is in alignment with her emotional shifts throughout the conversation, as well as the social actions she performs. At the beginning, she is more joyful and vivacious as she  The camera is showing Lloyd at this point (lines 21 and 22).

3

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze 

155

praises Peter’s writing and this is observable verbally, prosodically and visually. Her utterances are short, using positive adjectives (line 2) and encouraging words (line 4), animated with rising intonation (line 2), elongated vowels (line 4) and pitch shifts (lines 2 and 4; see Excerpt 6.5 above). In addition, her gaze is invariably directed towards Peter even though his body is turned away from her and there is no eye contact between them. However, in the later part of the conversation, particularly with the shift in topic from Peter’s writing to Lane’s mother, her gaze is most frequently turned away from Peter (and Lloyd). Moreover, her turns become longer, consisting of more TCUs; her pace, volume and intonation fluctuate more frequently; she stresses her words more often and more emphatically; and makes more pauses as she speaks. All these features suggest her emotional attachment to the topic and her reliving of past events, which subsequently change her interactional behaviour.

6.2.2 Gaze and the Participation Framework Regarding the participation framework, the co-participants in this diegetic interaction use gaze as an interactional resource in various ways: either to signal engagement or disengagement from the interaction. Peter, who initiates the interaction with Lane, exhibits a high level of engagement at the beginning of the interaction, which is particularly observable through his gaze direction, that is, he is looking at Lane. However, he is also the one who makes the first attempt to disengage from the interaction, especially from the eye contact with Lane, when he turns around and walks into the living room, thus turning his back on his interlocutor. At the onset of this scene, both Peter and Lane are gazing at each other and are fully engaged in the interaction, which is in fact one of the rare moments of mutual gaze between them. Lane, as opposed to Peter, insists on maintaining eye contact and full engagement with him, thus following him into the living room, but soon abandons her project and distances herself from his sight by going into the other section of the room, which is separated by a wall from where Peter is. During the time they are outside each other’s visual field, both interlocutors maintain their interaction, which is observable from the

156 

N. Chepinchikj

organisation of their turns, although they are visually disengaged from one another. Peter is off screen, so there is no way of knowing where his visual focus is, but Lane is engaged in preparing herself a drink. At this point in the interaction, she is attending to three actions simultaneously: preparing a drink, listening to Peter and talking to him. After Peter re-joins her in the same part of the room, there is a changed interactional dynamic, both in terms of talk and gaze. Lane shifts the topic at line 10, which is followed up by Peter, but which causes Lane to alter her visual behaviour. She no longer gazes at Peter as she did at the start of the interaction, but rather she most frequently averts gaze, looking down, or even closing her eyes. Thus, Lane shows a high degree of visual detachment. Peter, on the other hand, shows a high level of engagement, by gazing at Lane, both as a speaker and a recipient. At the point when Lloyd addresses them verbally, both Lane and Peter visually engage with him, thus suspending their talk-in-interaction. Lloyd’s gaze is most frequently directed at Lane but hers is very rarely directed at him. Even though she responds to his request both verbally and gesturally, her gaze does not align with him completely, since she is gazing away, especially towards the place she is pointing to. Peter, in contrast, is attending to Lloyd’s and Lane’s interaction with his gaze, by gazing at them in alternation. Finally, before Lane and Peter resume their suspended interaction, they are both gazing towards Lloyd, so as to ensure that he has left and that he is not listening to their conversation. Once Lane self-selects as the next speaker and restarts the interaction, her gaze is more frequently directed elsewhere (mostly looking down), showing visual disengagement. It is clear that she is uncomfortable about discussing her mother and the incident that occurred in her teenage years, so she has difficulties gazing at Peter. The only time when she does so, she uses gaze for adding emphasis to her verbal expression. As for Peter, he employs gaze to show alignment with Lane and to express support and consolation, in addition to his words. Thus, he is fully engaged with the interaction and offers Lane his commiseration both verbally (lines 30–34 and 39) and visually. The use of gaze indicates the extent of the participants’ engagement or disengagement in the interaction and this varies in its course. Both Lane

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze 

157

and Peter occasionally show their departing intentions by withdrawing gaze from their interlocutor. Conversely, gaze direction towards the interlocutor suggests higher engagement and alignment with their talk.

6.2.3 Gaze and Action Formation Lastly, gaze also has an impact on action formation in this interaction. Gazing towards the interlocutor serves to initiate the interaction (Peter in line 1), as well as to indicate attention and full engagement with it (e.g. Lane in lines 2, 4, 6 and 41–42; Peter in lines 16–17 and 30–34). In all these cases, the gaze direction establishes the focus of attention for the participants and articulates visually the actions of praise, support and commiseration. Gaze direction also shows the visual priority between two competing activities, such as Lane’s drink preparation while still talking to Peter, or her drinking, which also receives gaze attention. The speakers also very frequently use gaze for emphasis. Such instances are Lane gazing at Peter at select points, that is, key words, during her account of the past incident (lines 35–38) and Lloyd gazing at Lane with eyes wide open as he utters the stressed and elongated “wro:ng” in line 25. Finally, gaze is employed as a pointing device, similar to a gesture. An example of this is when Lloyd gazes at his empty glass to reinforce his gesturing and his utterance, “Diane wanted some ice cubes” (line 21). The same happens when Lane looks towards the place she is pointing to with her outstretched arm and index finger, which is aimed at giving Lloyd directions on where to find the ice machine. In summary, gaze is found to be a key feature of interaction in this particular diegetic interaction. It plays a number of roles and assists in directing the focus of attention of the participants at every point in the interaction. Moreover, gaze is differently used by speakers, recipients and listeners, and it also largely determines the engagement in the interaction and the participants’ alignment with the co-participant’s talk and actions. Finally, gaze impacts the action formation and is used in giving priority to competing activities.

158 

N. Chepinchikj

6.3 Gaze in Husbands and Wives Gaze plays a number of salient roles in the course of this interaction, shaping its structure and organisation, but also directing attention, showing engagement or disengagement from the interaction, alignment or misalignment with the interlocutor and shaping actions. Before discussing these uses of gaze, I need to point out that the camera work in this film does not allow for an exhaustive analysis of gaze, due to the shot composition of the scene. Namely, the camera moves from character to character in a series of continuing shots, but the two characters are not together on screen, due to their different physical location: Gabe is in the living room and Judy moves from the dining room to another part of the living room. It is only in the last segment of the scene, that is, at 58.530 seconds into the scene, that Gabe joins Judy and they are both shown on screen. Therefore, I was not able to follow Gabe’s and Judy’s gaze when they were off screen, which is why I have only taken into account the on-screen gaze behaviour by both participants. Since gaze has a number of different functions and relationships in the interaction, the discussion below follows this order: the relationship between gaze and the participants’ roles of speaker and recipient; the relationship between gaze and the participation framework of engagement and disengagement; and the role of gaze in action formation. A full list of all these functions and roles of gaze is presented in Table 6.3 below.

6.3.1 Gaze and Participant Roles As mentioned above, the camera work in this scene is an obstacle to a full investigation into the use of gaze in this interaction. Therefore, the discussion regarding the use of gaze in the two participant roles (speaker and listener) is incomplete. What I present here is only to the extent of the on-screen presence of the actors and the observable and analysable use of their gaze in this scene. Gabe and Judy behave differently in terms of gaze direction and use when in the role of the speaker. Gabe gazes very frequently towards Judy

Briefly makes eye contact with recipient (l. 21)

Gazing away from interlocutor (l. 11, 19, 21)

Gazing away from speaker (l. 7–10, 16–17)

Briefly closes eyes during turn-­ projection (l. 21) Shifts gaze away from interlocutor (l. 21) Gabe Shifts gaze to recipient N/A before the start of the conversation and before turn beginning (l. 7)

Judy

Engagement

Shows high Partial visual and engagement in bodily interaction; aligns disengagement (l. verbally and 14, 20) visually with interlocutor; also bodily alignment (l. 7–10, 12, 14–17, 21)

Showing very little Complete visual engagement (l. 21) detachment from interlocutor; misalignment from interlocutor; visual disengagement (l. 11, 19)

Disengagement

Gaze and participatory framework

Speaker

Recipient

Gaze and participants’ roles

(continued)

Gazing at interlocutor, prioritising interaction (l. 7–10, 12, 14–17, 21)

Very brief gaze at interlocutor used for reorientation of actions (l. 21) Gaze shift to reorient to next action (answering the door) (l. 21)

Gaze direction indicates prioritising of actions: gazing away from interlocutor, prioritising shelving books (l. 7–10, 11, 12, 16–17, 18, 19, 21)

Action formation

Table 6.3  Gaze and its functions in the interaction between Judy and Gabe (Husbands and Wives, 1992)

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze 

159

Shifts gaze away from speaker in preparation to begin a turn as the next speaker (l. 19)

Gazing away from recipient during restarts (l. 7)

Gazing at recipient for most of the turn-­ projection (l. 7–10, 12, 14–17) Shifts gaze away from recipient at turn-­ completion (l. 12) Gazes away from recipient at turn beginning, until he approaches her (l. 20) Gazes away from recipient at turn beginning, prioritising another activity (l. 14) Shifts gaze to recipient during turn-­ projection (l. 14)

Engagement

Recipient

Speaker

Disengagement

Gaze and participatory framework

Gaze and participants’ roles

Table 6.3 (continued)

Gaze shift to reorient to next action (answering the door) (l. 21)

Gaze shift to prioritise another action (piling up files) (l. 14)

Gaze shift to maintain speakership (l. 7)

Action formation

160  N. Chepinchikj

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze 

161

7 Gabe: >Jesus, {they’re so full of it you know¿} You-you-you CAN’T TEACH {WRITING, it’s} 8

not something you can TEACH, you know you can only expose the students to

9

good literature and hope it inspires them. The ones that can WRITE can WRITE

10

when they come to my class and the others never learn,
What makes it worth it is that (.) every now and then {you get a gifted pupil. 15

There’s- there’s this young girl in my class} who {wrote a (.) FABULOUS short story

16

called “Oral Sex in the Age of Deconstruction” and it’s full of insights and romantic

17

and,
gonna wanna take us for Chinese food again.={

Excerpt 6.9  Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, lines 7–10; 12; 14–17; 20)

and maintains his gaze in her direction for the most part of the turns he produces. This can be observed in almost all his turns: at the beginning of the interaction and throughout his initial turn (lines 7–10); when he replies to Judy’s criticism (line 12); for most of the duration of his following turn (lines 14–17) and when he approaches Judy at the end of the interaction (line 20; Excerpt 6.9). The only instances when Gabe gazes away from his interlocutor are the following: before the start of the interaction, when he makes a comment while watching TV (line 5); when he is performing another activity, that is, placing files on a chair (line 14) and as he is walking towards the entrance door after the doorbell rings (line 20). In this last instance, due

162 

N. Chepinchikj 21 Judy: =I think Sally is getting a little {tired} of our pasta places.

Excerpt 6.10  Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, line 21)

to physical barriers (the wall dividing the kitchen and the living room), Gabe is unable to gaze at Judy, but he quickly resumes looking at her, after he has joined her in the section of the living room where she is. Judy, on the other hand, gazes away from Gabe when in the speaker’s role. She only once gazes at him very briefly, for 0.390 seconds, in the course of her last turn (line 21), as she utters “tired” (Excerpt 6.10). This is also the only time in the entire interaction that they establish eye contact. This clearly shows that Gabe and Judy utilise gaze in different ways when in the speaker’s role. In fact, their gaze behaviour is entirely opposite: while Gabe mostly gazes at Judy, she hardly ever looks at him. Regarding the recipient’s role and gaze behaviour, it is impossible to make any claims, owing to the missing data on it. In other words, Gabe is never shown on screen when he is in the role of the recipient. Therefore, his gaze behaviour cannot be analysed in those instances. With respect to Judy, she is mostly in the role of the recipient. However, she never directs her gaze to Gabe in this role. Hence, due to inconclusive findings regarding this role for both participants, no definite conclusions can be drawn for this diegetic interaction.

6.3.2 Gaze and the Participation Framework There is a strong connection between gaze and the engagement or disengagement of the co-participants in this interaction. Gabe exhibits major engagement in the interaction and is more inclined to align himself both verbally and visually with his interlocutor in order to maintain the interaction. His gaze is mostly directed to Judy and he also physically approaches her on several occasions during the interaction to establish and sustain his visual contact with her even though Judy is not gazing at him. Gabe is in fact utilising several resources to establish and sustain engagement in the entire course of the interaction. He is the one who initiates the interaction; he nominates the topic of conversation that

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze 

163

directly relates to his own professional interest; his turns are more frequent and longer; and his gaze aligns with his interlocutor. He also uses gestures as an additional resource, which will be discussed in the next chapter. In a word, Gabe is more invested in the conversation and, therefore, it is no wonder that he is more engaged in the interaction. Judy, on the other hand, exhibits complete visual disengagement from the interaction. She hardly ever glances at Gabe and her gaze is entirely focused on the activity that she is performing throughout the scene, that is, arranging and placing books on bookshelves. However, even though her gaze is occupied with her primary activity, it does not mean that she is not paying aural attention to Gabe’s talk or other sounds in the interactional environment, such as the sound of the doorbell (line 18). Nevertheless, she remains primarily in the role of a recipient/listener, rather than a speaker. Thus, Judy exhibits a high degree of detachment and misalignment from Gabe. This, on the other hand, frequently gives the impression of Gabe having a conversation with himself.

6.3.3 Gaze and Action Formation How the two participants use gaze and where they direct it clearly shows what action they are performing. This is particularly observable in Judy’s visual behaviour, since her gaze is at all times focused on her primary activity—that of arranging books on bookshelves, rather than on interacting, which she regards as a secondary action. Gabe, on the other hand, focuses his gaze mostly on Judy, thus indicating that maintaining an interaction is his primary action. When his gaze briefly shifts away from her and focuses on arranging his files, his primary activity is replaced by a competing activity and he orients visually to another action. Nevertheless, unlike Judy, this is a very short reorientation for Gabe (2.53 seconds). Gaze is a major interactional feature in this scene, which has a wide range of functions and roles and it is differently employed by the two participants in the course of the interaction. While Gabe orients his gaze to Judy to initiate, maintain and engage in the ongoing interaction, Judy does the opposite. She withdraws gaze entirely from her interlocutor and prioritises another activity (sorting books on bookshelves), thus exhibiting visual disengagement from the interaction.

164 

N. Chepinchikj

6.4 Gaze in Melinda and Melinda Gaze is a crucial interactional resource, amply used by both participants in this interaction. It is also easier to trace the gaze direction and visual behaviour by both participants simultaneously due to the camera work in this scene. In other words, both participants are shown on screen for almost the entire duration of the scene, except for its beginning, that is, for the first 04.930 seconds, when only Laurel is on screen. Gaze plays a determining role in the development and organisation of the interaction between Laurel and Lee. It is linked to the participants’ roles of speaker and recipient, and the participation frameworks of engagement and disengagement. It also plays an essential part in action formation. A full display of these gaze roles and functions for this interaction is given in Table 6.4 below.

6.4.1 Gaze and Participant Roles The gaze behaviour of the speakers in this interaction largely varies and it is closely related to the participants’ arrangement (Scheflen, 1964) in which the two participants are placed. Namely, at the beginning of the interaction, that is, in the first sequence, Laurel and Lee are standing face-­to-­face in the street, which impacts their gaze direction to a large extent. Since it is easier to direct gaze at the interlocutor at all times in this type of interactional arrangement, both participants are gazing at each other and maintaining eye contact for the entire duration of the first sequence (lines 1–7). Thus, the speakers’ gaze in this initial stage of the interaction is constantly directed at their interlocutor. This is true for both Laurel and Lee as speakers. Their gaze behaviour indicates high engagement in the interaction and in what is being said and it is also fully aligned with the other interlocutor. However, Laurel alters this formation structure from face-to-face to side-by-side by turning around and starting walking, as she makes the comment in line 7 (Excerpt 6.11). This, consequently, impacts the gaze 7 Laurel: }I know, you’re certainly natural for the character¿

Excerpt 6.11  Melinda da and Melinda (Scene 4, line 7)

Gazing away from interlocutor in turn initial position (l. 7, 10, 12) Shifts gaze away from interlocutor at turn beginnings (l. 10)

Gazing intensely at interlocutor while speaking (l. 1, 5)

Laurel Gazing at interlocutor before initiating interaction (l. 1)

Engagement

Shifts gaze away from interlocutor mid-way through turnprojection (l. 11) Gazing away from interlocutor (l. 19–20)

Shows engagement during Lee’s questions (l. 9 and 14), when she entreats him (l. 17) and at the end of the interaction (l. 23)

Gazing intently Showing full at interlocutor engagement at the (l. 2–3, 6, 9, start of the 11) interaction (l. 1–7)

Shows disengagement during Lee’s explanation (l. 11), his insisting on a reply (l. 15 and 16), when he apologises and makes an invitation (l.19–20), as well during her reply to it (l. 21)

Disengagement

Gaze and participatory framework

Speaker

Recipient

Gaze and participants’ roles

(continued)

Gazing away from interlocutor as a strategy to end a sequence (l. 7, 18) Gazing at the interlocutor as a strategy to end a sequence (l. 13, 15)

Gazing at interlocutor to express interest in the discussion (l. 2–3, 4, 5, 6)

Gazing at interlocutor to show surprise (l. 1)

Action formation

Table 6.4  Gaze and its functions in the interaction between Laurel and Lee (Melinda and Melinda, 2004)

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze 

165

Shifts gaze to interlocutor near turn-completion (l. 13, 18) Gazing away from interlocutor at turn beginning (l. 7, 10, 12, 15) Shifts gaze to interlocutor at turn beginning (l. 17) Gazing away from interlocutor for the entire turn (l. 21)

Gazing away from interlocutor when producing an overlap (l. 12)

Disengagement

Engagement

Recipient

Speaker

Gazing at interlocutor at turn-completion (l. 1, 5, 10, 13)

Gaze and participatory framework

Gaze and participants’ roles

Table 6.4 (continued)

Gazing away from interlocutor to show detachment from an argument (l. 15, 16) Gazing away from interlocutor to show irritation and annoyance (l. 21) Use of gaze to interlocutor to persuade (l. 17)

Action formation

166  N. Chepinchikj

Lee

Shifts gaze to interlocutor mid-way in their turnprojection (l. 19–20)

Gazing away from interlocutor (l. 11)

Shifts gaze to interlocutor at turn-completion (l. 9, 12)

Gazing intently at interlocutor (l. 2–3, 6, 14, 16)

Engagement

Shifts gaze Shows full Visible disengagement: away from engagement at the after Laurel’s interlocutor at start of the assessment comment the end of interaction (l. 1–7) (l. 9) and when he speaker’s turn apologises (l. 19) (l. 7) Gazes away Fully engaged while from insisting on a interlocutor at response from turn Laurel (l. 14 and beginning (l. 16), when making a 10, 21) dinner invitation (l. 19–20) and when complaining about Melinda (l. 23–24) Gazes at interlocutor during turnprojection (l. 12–13, 15) Shifts gaze away from interlocutor at turn-comp letion (l. 13)

Disengagement

Gaze and participatory framework

Speaker

Recipient

Gaze and participants’ roles

(continued)

Gazing away from interlocutor to indicate reflection (l. 9, 10, 18)

Uses gaze to interlocutor for emphasis (l. 23–24)

Gazes at interlocutor to insist on accomplishing his interactional goal (l. 14–17)

Gazes at interlocutor to announce news (l. 2–3, 6)

Action formation

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze 

167

Shifts gaze away from interlocutor mid-way through their turn (l. 17)

Gazing away from interlocutor at turn beginning (l. 9, 11, 19, 23)

Gazing at interlocutor at turn-completion (l. 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 16, 20)

Engagement

Recipient

Speaker

Disengagement

Gaze and participatory framework

Gaze and participants’ roles

Table 6.4 (continued)

Gazing away from interlocutor to indicate recalling information (l. 21, 22, 23)

Gazing away from interlocutor while apologising (l. 19)

Action formation

168  N. Chepinchikj

6  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gaze 

169

direction and coincides with Laurel’s attempt at closing the sequence. Now, both participants start walking in addition to interacting and this imposes constraints on the gazing at the interlocutor. This type of arrangement continues until the end of the scene. Subsequently, as soon as the participants’ arrangement is altered, this fully engaged interactional environment changes. Laurel shifts her gaze away from Lee as soon as she begins her turn (line 7). Her gaze shift co-­ occurs with her body repositioning, since she turns around, leaving the face-to-face formation, and starts walking. As the side-by-side arrangement impacts the interlocutors’ direction of gaze, the speakers vary their gaze direction. When in the speaker’s role, Laurel varies her gaze direction. She gazes away from Lee when she begins her turn in line 10, but she shifts her gaze towards Lee as she reaches completion (Excerpt 6.12). Thereby, she indicates that she is ceding her speakership position and handing over the conversational floor to her interlocutor. Similarly, when she produces her following turn (lines 12–13), she is gazing away and she also looks up as she says “Let’s not fight about this.” (line 12). Her gaze direction at this point signals her annoyance with the topic of conversation and her attempt to settle the 10 Laurel: You’ve said it {like a hundred times.

***

12 Laurel: 13

>h[Let’s] not fight about this. I just meant that {nobody can play the part like you can.Lee, I’m really really happy for you. I know how much you wanted this. 18

}Can’t we just leave it at that¿
The character’s a [loser.you

13

know I fell asleep at the wheel.I can’t handle it} if it’s 24

confirmed, yet again {that all those nice things predicted about me were wro:ng,} that

25

I was {a flash in the pan,
you

13

know I fell asleep at the wheel.I can’t keep my mind on it. I can’t concentrate. (1.0) I sit there all day reading [______________] 8

[_____________][______

{other people’s manuscripts and half way through I lose interest.< I get _______________________.................................___________] [___

9

HEADACHES} from the (.) words >and then I’m supposed to sit down and< (.) write _○_________]

10

[__________________________]

a-an opinion. >It’s not fair to the authors,< [_________]

Excerpt 7.1  Interiors (Scene 1, lines 7–10)

25 Joey: I hate it. It’s STUPID. (1.5) I feel a RE:AL need to express something but I don’t [__○____○______○______________________ 26

know what it is I wanna express↑ (0.75) or how to express it! __________________________]

[_______________]

Excerpt 7.2  Interiors (Scene 1, lines 25–26)

Batons are the predominant gestures in this interaction. They belong to the larger category of illustrators. According to Ekman and Friesen (1969), batons are directly tied to speech and specifically “time out, accent or emphasize a particular word or phrase” (p. 68). All of them are produced by Joey and they are all concurrent with speech. These gestures serve to emphasise her words and/or phrases, such as her baton which coincides with the word “concentrate” (line 7; Excerpt 7.1).3 She produces this gesture by spreading her fingers and palms wide apart while holding them in parallel. Here, in addition to emphasis, her gesture conveys the sense of helplessness and her willingness to resign. The only deictic gesture is also made by Joey. It coincides with her stretch of talk “HEADACHES from the (.)” (line 9), during the production of  Due to copyright, the author is unable to produce visuals of the gestures the actors are making throughout these scenes. This, in turn, makes it extremely difficult to illustrate the various gestures and the transcription symbols only indicate where these gestures occur but not what they actually look like. 3

194 

N. Chepinchikj

Table 7.3 Complete display of gestures in Joey and Mike’s interaction in Interiors (1978) Type of gesture

Frequency Function

Joey Emblem (head shake) Baton

1 10

Deictic gesture

1

Regulators (head nods 2 and head shakes)— responsive gestures Mike Emblem 1 Ideograph

1

Conveying negation (line 18) Emphasis; accentuation of certain words/phrases; accentuation of entire TCUs (lines 2, 7–10, 12, 20–21, 25–26) Pointing to her head; added emphasis (line 9) Response to received talk (lines 23–24) Emphasis; emotional reaction (line 6) Facilitates the flow of Mike’s speech; related to the pace of talk; taking over speakership (line 11)

which she points to her head by touching it with all the fingers of her left hand. She produces this gesture very briskly and vigorously, thus emphasising the word “headaches” both prosodically and gesturally. Finally, Joey also produces the sole responsive gesture towards the end of the interaction, that is, during Mike’s turn in lines 23–24. She nods her head that serves as a regulator. As Mike makes the suggestion about photography and her talent and interest in that field, Joey starts nodding her head and produces two nods, which would usually indicate agreement with Mike, but here, as it becomes evident once she replaces her head nods with head shakes, she is being ironic. In other words, Joey does not really agree with Mike but nods her head in contradiction to show that he is mistaken about her interests. The interaction between Joey and Mike shows a variety of gesticulation that both participants use, but it is Joey who gestures far more than Mike (see Table 7.3). Although she uses different types of gestures, they are prevalently baton illustrators and serve to emphasise and accentuate parts of the content of what Joey is saying. Furthermore, most gestures, apart from one, are concurrent gestures (Berger & Rae, 2012), that is, they co-occur with speech. The only one that is independent of speech, and thus a responsive gesture (Berger & Rae, 2012), is the head nod by Joey when she is the

7  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gestures 

195

recipient of Mike’s speech (lines 23–24). Finally, neither of the co-participants attends to their own gestures as they make them, that is, they do not gaze at their gesturing hands. As far as attending to each other’s gestures, the nature of the shots in this scene does not allow for such an analysis.

7.2 Gestures in September Gestures do not abound in this diegetic interaction, but they are still salient. The type of gestures and the number of occurrences for each participant are given in Table 7.4. Most gestures are produced with the head rather than by hands or arms. They are both head nods and head shakes, with a slight statistical advantage of the latter. On the other hand, arm gestures are produced only once by Peter and twice by Lane. Both arm gestures that Lane makes are illustrators (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). One of them is an ideograph and the other is a deictic gesture. Her ideograph traces the path of her thought and coincides with the stretch of talk “you can’t tear up everything” (line 6; Excerpt 7.3). This, in fact, illustrates the impossibility of Peter’s task of rewriting the entire manuscript. Lane’s second arm gesture, on the other hand, is a full-fledged deictic illustrator, produced during her responsive action to Lloyd (line 23). She raises her left arm and protrudes her index finger to point towards the Table 7.4  Body parts involved in producing gestures and their incidence Body parts involved in the gesture

Number of occurrences for Peter

Number of occurrences for Lane

Number of occurrences for Lloyd

Head Arms Hands Total

5 1 0 6

6 2 0 8

1 0 3 4

6 Lane: {You can’t tear up everything you write you know↑} otherwise of course you have [_____________________]

Excerpt 7.3  September (Scene 2, line 6)

196 

N. Chepinchikj

location of the ice machine, which is, incidentally, outside the house and not visible from the living room, where the interlocutors are. Nevertheless, Lane gazes in the direction of her pointing finger as if to facilitate the deictic action she is performing both gesturally and verbally. While there is no way of knowing whether Lloyd follows her gesture with his gaze, because he is off screen, Peter is attending to her gesturing arm with his gaze, even though for a very brief moment. Thus, Lane manages to make the location of her pointing arm as well as the deictic gesture itself interactionally relevant and simultaneously a focus of attention in the current interaction. Peter’s only arm gesture is also an ideograph. He makes it at the completion of his turn that explains the type of book he is writing (lines 16–17; Excerpt 7.4). Peter uses this gesture as a means to signal the completion of his turn. In addition, his gesture is neither attended by him, nor does it receive any visible attention by Lane, but she does immediately begin her turn at this point, latching it to Peter’s, which can suggest that his gesture is aiding her in taking over the speaker’s role from him. Lloyd, on the other hand, uses mostly his hands to gesture in the short sequence in which he interrupts Lane’s and Peter’s conversation. All the hand gestures that he makes are illustrators: deictic gestures, batons and ideographs. As an illustration, when producing his first deictic gesture, Lloyd is pointing to the empty whisky glass that he is holding in his right hand. As he does so, he also gazes at the empty glass so as to highlight his gesture. This gesture precedes the words to which it refers (“ice cubes”, line 21; Excerpt 7.5). Thus, this points to Schegloff’s (1984) claim that gestures usually precede the articulation of words and/or phrases to which they refer. Moreover, this deictic gesture that simultaneously points to and shows the object (an empty whisky glass) serves as a metaphorical 16 Peter: { =Maybe it’s that she’s a survi:vor. °And the book I’m trying to write is about [___nod_______] 17

survivors.°= [________]

Excerpt 7.4  September (Scene 2, lines 16–17)

7  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gestures 

197

21 Lloyd: Excuse me. (1.0) Uh (0.75) {Diane} wanted some ice cubes {and (0.75) you [_____________] 22

[____]

seemed to be out.

Excerpt 7.5  September (Scene 2, lines 21–22) Table 7.5  Types of head nod gestures by participant Types of head nods

Number of occurrences for Peter

Number of occurrences for Lane

Number of occurrences for Lloyd

Emblems Regulators

2 0

2 1

1 0

Table 7.6  Types of head shake gestures by participant Types of head shake gestures

Number of occurrences for Peter

Number of occurrences for Lane

Emblems Illustrators

1 2

0 3

pre-announcement of the verbally expressed object (ice cubes) that Lloyd is enquiring about on behalf of Lane’s mother Diane. It also complements his request visually. As already mentioned, the head gestures are the most frequently used type of gesticulation in this interaction. Significantly, however, the coparticipants use them differently and, therefore, they have various meanings. They are all represented in Tables 7.5 and 7.6 above, for more convenience and easier reference. The head nods can be roughly classified into two groups: those that have features of emblems and those that function as regulators. There is only a single occurrence of the latter type, which Lane produces as a listener. She makes a series of nods as she is listening to Peter explain the subject matter of his book (lines 16–17). This is a typical instance of a head nod used as a gestural equivalent of the continuer mm-hmm (Ekman & Friesen, 1969) and in this particular case, it also anticipates Lane’s next turn.

198 

N. Chepinchikj

The emblematic head nods, on the other hand, occur five times in the course of the interaction and they are made by Peter, Lane and Lloyd alike. For example, Peter nods as he speaks (line 11), indicating confirmation of the content of his utterance. His nod is simultaneous with the stressed “definitely”, which gives it gestural emphasis. Regarding head shakes, they can be classified either as emblems or more broadly, as illustrators. There is only one occurrence of an emblematic head shake in the interaction. It is produced by Peter and it coincides with his turn-constructional unit (TCU) “and I didn’t mean to upset you” (line 30). It suggests denial, which complements the content of his TCU. However, Lane is not paying attention to his gesture, because her gaze is turned away from Peter’s face. The rest of the head shakes in the interaction can be characterised as illustrators. This means that they are not closely linked to the content of the utterances, but they rather emphasise their significance (as per Ekman & Friesen, 1969). Such is the head shake by Peter as he explains the facts of life to Lane (line 34), which receives her gaze attention. Similarly, Lane makes a series of head shakes as she is recounting her personal story (lines 35–38). The first one coincides with the stretch of talk “>But the story of a fourteen-year old girl” (lines 35–36) and in fact anticipates the contradiction which is verbally expressed by ‘but’. The following two head shakes accompany both the talk and the intra-turn gap in line 36 (“is< (1.20) sleazy”) and serve to place emphasis on the already stressed word, which Lane is searching for during the pause. Even though the participants in this interaction do not gesture amply, the gestures they do make are all in the service of the development and organisation of their turns and the interaction, more generally. They are sometimes employed for emphasis, while at other times they are used in responsive actions (such as the deictic gestures) or as providing feedback to their interlocutors (such as the regulators). However, due to the overabundance of head gestures (nods and shakes), this interaction is a perfect example of the various functions these gestures can perform in communicating, interacting and informing (Table 7.7).

7  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gestures 

199

Table 7.7  Types, frequency and functions of the gestures in the interaction between Lane, Peter and Lloyd (September, 1987) Type of gesture Lane Ideograph

Frequency Function 1

Deictic gesture

1

Emblem (head nods) Regulator (head nod)

2

Illustrator (head shake)

3

Peter Ideograph

1

1

Emblem (head nods)

2

Emblem (head shake)

1

Illustrator (head shake)

2

Lloyd Deictic gesture/ baton

2

Ideograph

1

Emblem (head nod)

1

Traces the path of her thought (line 6); concurrent with speech Points to the place where the object referred to is located; concurrent with speech (line 23) Shows agreement with Peter’s prior talk (lines 18, 35); concurrent with speech Shows that she is listening to and following Peter’s talk (lines 16–17); responsive gesture Anticipates forthcoming talk and emphasises certain words and phrases (lines 35–37); concurrent with speech Signals his turn completion (line 17); concurrent with speech Indicates confirmation of the content of his speech (lines 11, 16); concurrent with speech; Suggests denial with respect to the contents of his TCU (line 30); concurrent with speech Expresses agreement with his words (line 30); accompanies the act of apologising; concurrent with speech (line 39) Points indirectly to the object in question; complements his verbal request (line 21); a combination of pointing and emphasis (line 25); concurrent with speech Aids the flow of speech; concurrent with speech (lines 21–22) Supports and confirms his speech (line 25); concurrent with speech

7.3 Gestures in Husbands and Wives Even though not pervasive in this interaction, gestures are another salient interactional feature. In addition to being scarce, the gestures are limited to being used by only one of the interlocutors—Gabe. This comes as no

200 

N. Chepinchikj

surprise, bearing in mind that he has most of the talk time and the fact that most gestures are produced by speakers rather than recipients (Kendon, 2007). An additional constraining factor in this interaction is that Judy, who is mostly in the recipient role, has her hands engaged in holding or arranging books in the course of the entire interaction, which makes it almost impossible for her to produce any gestures involving her hands or arms. Gabe produces a total of four gestures throughout the interaction. They are all either hand or arm gestures, involving either one or both hands/arms. All of them are illustrators, with the majority of batons and one ideograph (Table 7.8). All Gabe’s gestures co-occur with speech and they either emphasise certain words and phrases (in the case of batons, lines 7 and 15), or they help him trace his thoughts (in the case of his single ideograph, line 20). In the case of Gabe’s batons, these also provide an embodied emphasis of the already prosodically accented words and phrases (Excerpt 7.6). All gestures in this diegetic interaction coincide with speech, that is, they are concurrent gestures (as per Berger & Rae, 2012), and most of them are used to additionally emphasise either single words or phrases, which are also receiving prosodic emphasis within the respective turns. Since Gabe is mostly in the speaker’s role and Judy’s hands are busy throughout the interaction, it is not surprising that it is Gabe who makes all the gestures. In addition to emphasising the verbal content, most of Gabe’s gestures reflect his affective stance, such as the first and the second baton (Table 7.9). Thus, they also serve to show stance towards what is being said as well as simple emphasis. Table 7.8  Types of gestures produced by Gabe (Husbands and Wives, 1992) Type of gesture

Number of occurrences for Gabe

Batons Ideographs Total

3 1 4

20 Gabe: Ah gee (.) I guarantee Jack is >gonna wanna take us for Chinese food again.={ [______________]

Excerpt 7.6  Husbands and Wives (Scene 3, line 20)

7  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gestures 

201

Table 7.9  Gesture types, frequencies and functions (Husbands and Wives, 1992)

Gabe

Type of gesture

Frequency Function

Baton

3

Ideograph

1

Emphasis; accentuation of certain words/phrases; accentuation of entire TCUs (lines 7, 15) Tracing one’s own line of thought (line 20)

7.4 Gestures in Melinda and Melinda Both interlocutors use gestures profusely throughout this diegetic interaction. Most of them belong to the illustrators group of embodied action, according to Ekman and Friesen’s classification (1969). They are either batons or ideographs. There is also one instance of a regulator (Table 7.10). The numbers in Table 7.10 clearly show that both participants gesticulate almost equally in the course of their interaction. The only regulator is produced by Laurel as a head nod at the end of the interaction when Lee is talking about Melinda (lines 23–24; Excerpt 7.7). Laurel indicates agreement with what Lee is saying by nodding her head, even though she is not gazing at him at this moment. Still, Lee is able to see her gesture since his gaze is directed at her. This gesture is also the only instance in this interaction of gesticulation not accompanying speech, that is, this particular gesture is responsive (as per Berger & Rae, 2012). All the other gestures in this interaction are concurrent ones, where their production accompanies speech. This means that it is the speakers who make them and, since they are illustrators, they either emphasise certain words and phrases or indicate the flow of the speaker’s thoughts and/ or feelings (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). The former are represented by the batons and the latter by the ideographs. Significantly, both these types of illustrators, unlike the rest in the group (spatial, deictic, kinetographs and pictographs), are dependent on speech and have no meaning on their own. To illustrate the batons, Lee produces his first two in a row, in the early stages of the interaction, when he replies to Laurel’s query by sharing his good news (line 2; Excerpt 7.8). He raises both his hands holding them in parallel with one another and shakes them so as to accentuate the words that co-occur (“I got the part.”, line 2). Immediately after this

202 

N. Chepinchikj

Table 7.10 Types of gestures produced by Laurel and Lee (Melinda and Melinda, 2004) Type of gesture

Number of occurrences for Laurel

Number of occurrences for Lee

Batons Ideographs Regulators Total

4 4 1 9

6 5 0 11

23 Lee: Oh °yeah right. Okey. Je:sus.° I think it’s time Melinda {met someone (.) moved on, [__________] 24

[_○_____]

I’d like a little privacy} in the apartment.

(Laurel’s nod:

[_____________] )

Excerpt 7.7  Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 23–24) 2 Lee: {I got it. I got the part. >The director just kept [insisting] and the producers finally [________________] 3

[______]

[____

gave in.< ______]

Excerpt 7.8  Melinda and Melinda (Scene 4, lines 2–3)

gesture, Lee produces another baton with his right hand, making an emphasis on “insisting” (line 2), which he is also stressing prosodically. It is obvious that Lee is employing gestures for emphasis of his speech and thus conveying the significance of his words as well as the emotional impact the event he is retelling has on him. As for the ideographs in this interaction, both participants produce several throughout its course. For example, Laurel makes her first ideograph as she abandons the face-to-face framework and turns around. She raises her right hand with her open palm as she turns around and produces her assessment of Lee’s acting abilities (line 7). This ideograph serves to convey her progression of thought which is also observable from her words. However, Lee is not paying attention to her gesture, because he retracts his gaze from Laurel just before she starts making it.

7  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gestures 

203

Table 7.11  Types, frequency and functions of the gestures in the interaction between Laurel and Lee (Melinda and Melinda, 2004) Type of gesture Laurel Baton

Lee

Frequency Function 4

Ideograph

4

Regulator (head nod)— responsive gesture Baton

1

Ideograph

5

6

Emphasis; accentuation of certain words/phrases; emotional response; concurrent with speech (lines 1, 10, 12–13, 17) Gives rise to speech and/or the process of thought and expression; concurrent with speech (lines 7, 13, 18, 21) Indicates agreement with the interlocutor’s speech (line 24)

Emphasis; accentuation of certain words and phrases; emotional reaction (lines 2, 6, 11, 19, 23) Aiding progression of thought; (lines 2–3, 6,19, 19–20, 23)

Additionally, this particular gesture occurs at the turn and sequence completion point, thus aiding the process of completion. In summary, the gesticulation in this interaction abounds in embodied actions, which mostly accompany speech and illustrate it in several ways. Both Laurel and Lee either give rise to their speech by gesticulating (batons) or employ gestures to aid their processes of thought and expression (ideographs) (Table 7.11). Furthermore, most of the gestures go unnoticed and do not occasion a direct response by the interlocutor, with very few exceptions. Hence, it seems that both participants are mostly using gestures more for their own benefit, rather than for establishing rapport with one another.

7.5 Gestures in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Bearing in mind the nature of this interaction—a spousal quarrel, it is no wonder that both participants gesticulate greatly throughout it. Most of the gestures are concurrent with speech and they are predominantly pragmatic gestures (as per McNeill, 1992; Streeck, 1993, 1994), that is

204 

N. Chepinchikj

illustrators (as per Ekman & Friesen, 1969). There is only one instance of a responsive gesture (as per Berger & Rae, 2012), which is a regulator. While both participants use gestures, Roy gesticulates twice as much as Sally (see Table 7.12). A further, more detailed display of the gestures in this interaction can be found in Table 7.13. Looking at Table 7.12, most of Roy’s and Sally’s gestures are ideographs. This type of gestures, belonging to the larger category of Table 7.12  Types of gestures by Roy and Sally (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, 2010) Type of gesture

Number of occurrences Number of occurrences for for Roy Sally

Ideographs Batons Regulators Total

8 4 1 13

4 2 0 6

Table 7.13  Types, frequency and functions of Sally’s and Roy’s gestures (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, 2010) Type of gesture Sally Ideograph

Roy

Frequency Function 4

Baton

2

Ideograph

8

Baton

4

Regulator (head 1 shake)— responsive gesture

Give rise to speech and/or the process of thought and expression (l. 14, 19–20, 28, 29); concurrent with speech; show stance (l. 19); fill in intra-turn gaps and co-occur with outbreaths (line 29) Emphasis; accentuation of certain words/ phrases; concurrent with speech (l. 26, 29) Give rise to speech and/or the process of thought and expression (l. 1, 10, 12, 13, 19, 21, 23, 24); concurrent with speech; show stance (l. 1, 21); co-occur with restarts (l. 12); occur in turn-initial (l. 1, 23) and turn-final positions (l. 10); Emphasis; accentuation of certain words and phrases; (l. 15, 24, 25); some extend beyond the accentuated speech (l. 25) A head shake indicating disagreement with the interlocutor’s speech (l. 29)

7  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gestures 

205

illustrators, are associated with tracing the path of thoughts as they emerge in the course of an interaction (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). In addition to tracing thoughts, the ideographs used here show stance to what is being conveyed verbally, but also in terms of the emotional state of the participant. Such examples are Roy’s first ideograph in the interaction (line 1), with which he expresses stance and emotion regarding his speech, as well as his gesture in line 21, which is concurrent with his sigh in overlap, but actually expresses stance to what Sally is saying (line 19) (Excerpt 7.9). Other functions of the ideographs are related to specific points of occurrence during turn-projection. Thus, some of these gestures fill in intra-turn gaps and co-occur with outbreaths. Such is the case with Sally’s ideograph in line 29, at the end of the interaction. Sally produces this gesture as she makes two micropauses surrounding an outbreath, which temporarily stop her speech and turn-­projection. The ideograph at this point suggests to be replacing speech, filling in the turn space with a nonverbal feature, instead of a verbal one. Another occurrence of gestures coincides with the production of restarts (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1986). This is exemplified in Roy’s gesticulating as he makes a restart in line 12. This is an ideograph that cooccurs with his several restarts on “and- and- and- then- and then” (line 12). The production of this gesture suggests that he is employing nonverbal means in his search for words, which take place during his repeated restarts. Other gestures coincide with turn beginnings or turn completions. Roy provides an example of both the former and the latter. He 19

Sally: {I mean, (.) how many times can you write and [tear up] and rewrite these [________]

20

CHAPTERS, [_________]

21→ Roy:

[Oh] [________]

Excerpt 7.9  You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, lines 19–21)

206 

N. Chepinchikj

gesticulates in turn-initial position in line 23, thereby reinforcing his admission which he is also expressing verbally. On the other hand, the gesture that he uses in turn-final position is the ideograph produced in line 10. This gesture illustrates the result and consequence of his actions. Batons are the other group of illustrators that are widely used in this interaction. As opposed to ideographs, these are involved in gestural marking of certain words, phrases or entire turns-at-talk. The batons used by Sally and Roy indicate the same function of emphasis and accentuation. Some of them, in addition to emphasising single words or phrases, also extend beyond their articulation and end with the completion of the turn. Such an example is Roy’s baton that emphasises his phrase “a flash in the pan” (line 25). Considering that this is the final phrase in his current turn, the gesture ends with the completion of his turn. Furthermore, Roy’s baton in line 15 (Excerpt 7.10) is also used to assist the intended closing of the ongoing sequence. Thus, gestures can also have a regulatory function of closing sequences, similarly to gaze (Chepinchikj, 2020). Finally, the only occurrence of a responsive gesture in this interaction is a regulator. Regulators are gestures that maintain the conversational flow and they are usually produced by recipients (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). The only regulator is produced by Roy during Sally’s turn in line 29. He produces a head shake, which suggests that Roy is listening to Sally’s talk even though he is not gazing at her. This regulator indicates Roy’s disagreement with Sally’s words. Gesticulation abounds in this interaction, mostly in the form of illustrators, which accompany speech and illustrate it in various ways. Since the nature of this interaction is a spousal quarrel, the gestures that both participants make attest to their stance towards their own utterances, their emotional state as well as the interaction in general. The fact that most of their gestures accompany talk also validates the nature of the illustrators as gestures that are intimately tied to speech, illustrating message content, emphasising or tracing ideas (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). 15

Roy: °Look° (.) I need time to work on my BOOK, [_○_]

Excerpt 7.10  You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Scene 5, line 15)

7  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gestures 

207

Moreover, some of the gestures fill in intra-turn gaps and co-occur with restarts and outbreaths, which all indicate points of hesitation or emotional overflow that hinders the production of speech. Such instances are Roy’s ideograph in line 12, which coincides with his restart, and Sally’s ideograph in line 29, which co-occurs with her micropauses and her outbreath. In conclusion, the gestures discussed in these diegetic interactions can be accommodated into the speech auxiliary theory (Kendon, 2007; McNeill, 1992), considering their use by the represented participants. Namely, most of the gestures used are pragmatic (McNeill, 1992), which means that they accompany speech and they are tightly linked to it. Thus, gesticulation is used here as an additional embodied feature of conducting interaction, which is very closely connected to the use of language (Kendon, 2007). Thereby, most of the gestures produced are concurrent with speech and, in terms of the classification of non-verbal behaviour by Ekman and Friesen (1969), they largely fall under the category of illustrators. This type of gestures, as already mentioned above, has no meaning on its own, that is, it is used to complement speech in various ways. Furthermore, they are intentionally produced and communicative in purpose. They are also spontaneous and idiosyncratic (Kendon, 2007) as well as directly tied to content and prosody (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). Participants use them for the purposes of either emphasising certain words and phrases or for facilitating the flow of their speech and expression. At times, they also play a role in lexical retrieval4 (Butterworth & Beattie, 1978; Kraus et al., 1991; Morrel-Samuels & Krauss, 1992). Finally, they are also attached to emotional expression. Thus, participants make use of both prosodic and gestural interactional features to convey various feelings and emotional states. This kind of gesticulation is common for all the interactions analysed, which points to the application of method acting (Taylor, 2004) in conveying the various interactional nuances arising from the interactional situations in these scenes and which bears these diegetic interactions a solid resemblance of real-life, spontaneous exchanges.  An example of this use of gestures can be found in the interactions in Melinda and Melinda and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.

4

208 

N. Chepinchikj

Nonetheless, not all the gestures encountered here are concurrent with speech. There are also a number of instances of responsive gestures, which are interactionally relevant, as they indicate that a recipient is engaged in interaction and is in alignment with their interlocutor (Berger & Rae, 2012). These take the form of regulators (Ekman & Friesen, 1969), which occur in all the interactions, except the one in Husbands and Wives. The regulators are most frequently in the form of head nods and they show the recipient’s attention to the speaker’s talk. In addition, they are organised in such ways as to align with the speakers’ turns (Berger & Rae, 2012; Goodwin, 1980). Similarly to gaze, some gestures encountered in these diegetic interactions have more than one function at the same time. Such is the case with those gestures that play a significant role in the organisation and management of talk-in-interaction (Berger & Rae, 2012; Kendon, 1994b, 1997; also McNeill, 1985, 1992). Even though they are not organised on turnby-turn basis, they coincide with speech and thus, they accompany their respective turns by aiding the speakers in projecting their turns-at-talk and emphasising given TCUs, as is the case with the batons and ideographs. This is in line with Kendon’s (2007) claim that “[t]ogether with speech, gestures are used as an available resource for the construction of the units of action out of which a conversation is fashioned” (p. 114). Moreover, some gestures are employed at the boundaries between sequences, thus facilitating the process of sequence completion and also symbolising it (Streeck, 1996). An example of this can be found in Melinda and Melinda and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Hence, gestures, just as speech, follow and adjust to the ‘recipient design’ (Kendon, 1994a; Sacks et al., 1974). Following from all of the above, it is clear that gestures play a crucial role in organising and unfolding diegetic interactions between represented participants in Woody Allen’s cinematic discourse. They are mostly directly connected to speech and are salient features of the speakers’ expression and communication. In addition to facilitating speech and turn-projection, gestures are employed as strategic interactional resources at sequence boundaries and are closely tied to emotional expression. All this attests to the actors’ abilities to emulate the various interactional

7  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gestures 

209

behaviours, pertaining to the interactional situations and environments represented in these diegetic interactions, and to make them realistic and credible.

References Allen, W. (Director). (1978). Interiors [Film]. Rollins-Joffe Productions. Allen, W. (Director). (1987). September [Film]. Orion Pictures Corporation. Allen, W. (Director). (1992). Husbands and wives [Film]. TriStar Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (2004). Melinda and Melinda [Film]. Fox Searchlight Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (2010). You will meet a tall dark stranger [Film]. Mediapro, et al. Bavelas, J. B. (1992). Redefining language. Non-verbal linguistic acts in face-toface dialogue. B. Aburey Fisher Memorial Lecture. University of Utah. Bednarek, M. (2010). The language of fictional television: Drama and identity. Continuum. Berger, I., & Rae, J. (2012). Some uses of gestural responsive actions. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 1821–1835. Butterworth, B., & Beattie, G. W. (1978). Gesture and silence as indicators of planning in speech. In R. Campbell & P. Smith (Eds.), Recent advances in psychology of language: Formal and experimental approaches (pp. 347–360). Plenum. Chepinchikj, N. (2020). Gaze as a resource in initiating and completing sequences of interaction in Woody Allen’s cinematic discourse. Ampersand, 7, 100067. Condon, W. S. (1976). An analysis of behavioral organization. Sign Language Studies, 13, 285–318. Duranti, A. (1986). The audience as co-author: An introduction. Text, 6(3), 239–247. Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behaviour: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. Semiotica, I, 49–98. Goodwin, C. (1979). The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 97–121). Irvington. Goodwin, C. (1980). Restarts, pauses, and the achievement of mutual gaze at turn-beginning. Sociological Inquiry, 50(3–4), 272–302.

210 

N. Chepinchikj

Goodwin, C., & Goodwin, M. H. (1986). Gesture and coparticipation in the activity of searching for a word. Semiotica, 62(1/2), 51–75. Keevallik, L. (2014). Turn organization and bodily-vocal demonstrations. Journal of Pragmatics, 65, 103–120. Kendon, A. (1972). Some relationships between body motion and speech. In A. Siegman & B. Pope (Eds.), Studies in dyadic communication (pp. 177–210). Pergamon. Kendon, A. (1980). Gesture and speech: Two aspects of the process of utterance. In M. R. Key (Ed.), Nonverbal communication and language (pp. 207–227). Mouton. Kendon, A. (1985). Some uses of gestures. In D. Tannen & M. Saville-Troike (Eds.), Perspectives on silence (pp. 215–234). Ablex. Kendon, A. (1990a). Conducting interaction: Patterns of behavior in focused encounters. Cambridge University Press. Kendon, A. (1990b). Some context for context analysis: A view of the origins of structural studies of face-to-face interaction. In A. Kendon (Ed.), Conducting interaction: Patterns of behavior in focused encounters (pp. 15–49). Cambridge University Press. Kendon, A. (1994a). Introduction to the special issue: Gesture and understanding in interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 27(3), 171–173. Kendon, A. (1994b). Do gestures communicate?: A review. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 27(3), 175–200. Kendon, A. (1997). Gesture. Annual Review of Anthropology, 26, 109–128. Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture—Visible action as utterance. Cambridge University Press. Kendon, A. (2007). Some topics in gesture studies. In A. Esposito et al. (Eds.), Fundamentals of verbal and nonverbal communication and the biometric issue. IOS Press. Kraus, R. M., Morrel-Samuels, P., & Colasante, C. (1991). Do conversational gestures communicate? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 743–754. McClave, E. (1991). Intonation and gesture (PhD Thesis). Georgetown University. McNeill, D. (1985). So you think gestures are nonverbal? Psychological Review, 92, 350–371. McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago University Press.

7  Embodied Features of Interaction: Gestures 

211

Morrel-Samuels, P., & Kraus, R. M. (1992). Word familiarity predicts temporal asynchrony of hand gestures and speech. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, Cognition, 18, 615–622. Nobe, S. (1996). Cognitive rhythms gestures and acoustic aspects of speech (PhD Thesis). University of Chicago. Rimé, B., & Schiaratura, L. (1991). Gesture and speech. In R. Feldman & B. Rimé (Eds.), Fundamentals of nonverbal behaviour (pp. 239–281). Cambridge University Press. Sacks, H., & Schegloff, E. A. (2002 [1971]). Home position. Gesture, 2(2), 133–146. Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735. Schegloff, E. A. (1984). On some gestures’ relation to talk. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 266–296). Cambridge University Press. Streeck, J. (1993). Gesture as communication I: Its coordination with gaze and speech. Communication Monographs, 60(4), 275–299. Streeck, J. (1994). Gesture as communication II: The audience as co-author. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 27(3), 239–267. Streeck, J. (1996). How to do things with things: Objets trouvé and symbolization. Human Studies, 19, 365–384. Taylor, C. J. (2004). The language of film: Corpora and statistics in the search for authenticity. Notting Hill (1998)—A case study. Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies, 30, 71–85.

8 Social Actions and Gender Considerations

“My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.” —Woody Allen

One of the principal purposes of human interaction is engaging in social action with others and accomplishing goals through talk (Sacks, 1995). In addition to this basic purpose, there are many others, particularly encountered in performed or represented interactions, like the ones on which this book is focusing. Many of these functions were covered in Chap. 2, where I discussed the similarities and differences between spontaneous interactions and film dialogues. Still, despite the multiple purposes of diegetic interactions, they also represent social actions that underlie all human interaction. Therefore, in this final chapter, I turn to those social actions, the features used to perform them as well as the interactional goals of the co-participants in the five film scenes. The focus is on the manner in which they co-construct their talk-in-interaction in relation to one another. Since conversation analysis (CA) treats talk as a social event where interlocutors use speech to accomplish various social actions, it follows that every interaction has meaning and purpose. In pragmatics, using spoken utterances is equated to undertaking actions and these various © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Chepinchikj, Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00945-7_8

213

214 

N. Chepinchikj

utterances are referred to as speech acts (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969). Social actions is the CA term for speech acts. These refer to the use of speech (TCUs) for various purposes and accomplishing different actions, such as greeting, complaining, making announcements, requesting information, complimenting and many more. Each of these social actions also requires a response or a complementary action from the interlocutor, such as greeting, providing information, accepting invitations, offers and many more. For each social action, there is a corresponding preferred and dispreferred counterpart action, which is expressed in the basic sequential organisation of adjacency pairs. Although this explains the nature and process of naturally-occurring interactions, we have already seen that diegetic interactions also follow a similar structure (see Chap. 4). As previously mentioned, diegetic interactions are representations of realistic human interactions. Thus, apart from being a work of art, a film also aims at bringing verisimilitude (see Chap. 2) to the fore, where what is captured on camera resembles, to some extent, an imagined real-life event (Queen, 2015) and this is especially visible in the drama genre. Therefore, at another level of analysis, we can also talk about the actors on screen representing various social actions by delivering their dialogues and embodying the represented interactions with their performance. In addition to the various social actions being enacted through these diegetic interactions, we can also talk about their motivations, which correspond to the interactional goals of the represented participants. These are the “why” behind the social actions, whereas the resources (verbal and embodied) are the “how”. However, the participants do not necessarily achieve all their interactional goals in these interactions. Whether this transpires or not is contingent on a few factors, the key one being interactional collaboration between the interlocutors. In other words, the higher the interactional collaboration between the participants is, the more likely it is for them to accomplish their interactional goals. Nevertheless, the ultimate factor, obviously, lies with the pre-determined story-line created by Allen.

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

215

8.1 Social Actions in Interiors When discussing the social actions that Joey and Mike perform in this diegetic interaction, apart from what they are doing (their social actions) it is also important to talk about how they are accomplishing these actions (the combinations of features used) and why they are performing those actions (their interactional goals). To begin with, Joey and Mike have different interactional goals and they use certain interactional strategies to accomplish them. All of these are displayed in Tables 8.1 and 8.2 below. Mike starts the conversation showing concern for Joey and the issues with her mother (line 1). He actually assumes that that is on her mind. Therefore, Joey’s demeanour prompts him to enquire about her well-being at the moment. However, even though Joey gives an appropriate response to his question, the real matter that is troubling her is her job. Therefore, she changes the topic of conversation to that particular issue (line 4) and uses gaze, gestures and prosody, in addition to words, to shape and steer the remainder of the interaction in such a way that is going to be favourable to her personal matter. Mike does attend to the topic and the interaction as a whole although his immediate reaction to Joey’s announcement is not particularly sympathetic (line 6) and it is also accompanied by a gesture. In fact, he is assisting Joey in her search for answers and ideas, by making suggestions, offers and attending to her with his gaze. However, when he ends Table 8.1  A display of Mike’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals Social actions (Mike) Asks a question and offers a candidate (l. 1) Makes comments, offers and asks questions

Interactional features used (Mike) Interactional goals (Mike)

Initiates an adjacency pair Commences conversation; (provides FPP); gazes at shows concern for Joey (l. 1) interlocutor Initiates adjacency pairs; Maintains conversation and self-selects as next orients to Joey’s speaker; gazing at interactional contributions interlocutor (l. 11; 16; 19) Topic redirection (l. Inter-turn gap followed by Current topic evasion 22; 23–24) a question/suggestion; gazing at interlocutor

216 

N. Chepinchikj

Table 8.2  A display of Joey’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals Social actions (Joey) Topic shift (line 4)

Explanation and complaint (l. 7–10)

Brainstorming ideas and expressing thoughts (l. 14–15) Topic shift (lines 20–21)

Answer and elaboration to Mike’s question/ suggestion (l. 25–26)

Interactional features used (Joey)

Interactional goals (Joey)

Latching, inbreath, intra-turn gap; gazing away from interlocutor (line 4) Change of pace, added word stress, change of volume; varying gaze direction; gesturing (l. 7–10) Change of volume, restarts; gazing away from interlocutor (l. 14–15) Lower volume; intra-turn gaps; word stress; repair; gesturing; gazing away from interlocutor (l. 20–21) Change of volume; added word stress; change of pitch and intonation; intra-turn gaps; gazing away from interlocutor; gesturing (l. 25–26)

Work concerns

Work concerns

Work concerns

Discussing children

Frustration at failure to accomplish her previous goal of discussing children

the sequence of the conversation regarding this topic, Joey shifts the topic to discussing personal matters, such as starting a family (lines 20–21). This strategy remains unsuccessful and Joey fails to accomplish her goal because Mike avoids a discussion on the newly introduced topic. Instead of providing a response, he redirects the course of the conversation back to the previous topic of discussing Joey’s career options (lines 23–24), by making a suggestion regarding her interest in and talent for photography. Furthermore, Mike begins and also maintains the conversation for the most part, by asking questions (lines 1 and 23), providing solace (line 3), making comments (lines 11, 19, 23 and 24), and making offers (line 16). He exhibits greater orientation towards his interlocutor, by showing interest in Joey’s problems and concerns, which is performed through the questions, comments and the offer he makes to her, as well as by aligning his gaze with her. He is also conversationally co-operative, since he never interrupts or overlaps with Joey’s speech, even though some of Joey’s

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

217

turns are long and interspersed with a number of pauses (e.g. lines 18, 20, 21, 25). However, Mike successfully evades a further discussion on the topic of children, which Joey introduces (line 20), despite the fact that this issue seems to be really important to her. Joey, on the other hand, talks about the issues that matter the most to her. Her turns are mostly emotionally charged, which is evident from the prosody in her talk, particularly when she discusses her current work (lines 7–10), her career choices (lines 14–15 and 25–26) and her desire for a child (lines 20–21). Even though she joins the conversation when prompted by Mike and her first turn is actually a second pair part (SPP) (line 2) in an adjacency pair that Mike initiates (line 1), she quickly shifts the course of the interaction and changes the topic of conversation to the one that suits her better (line 4). Regarding orientation, Joey is self-oriented throughout the conversation, as she talks exclusively about topics that matter to her, using more emotional language and expression, both in content and in prosody (e.g. “Sometimes I think if we had a child”; “Oh Go:d” in line 20). Furthermore, she never asks Mike a question and her gaze behaviour reveals only partial engagement in the interaction, where she is attending to her own talk, rather than to her interlocutor. Nevertheless, she provides SPPs to all of Mike’s first pair parts (FPPs) despite the fact that not all of them are the preferred SPPs, such as her rejection of Mike’s offer to work with him (line 18). Therefore, it can be concluded that she is conversationally co-­ operative, notwithstanding her self-interest in the talk-in-interaction. Joey is the one who concludes the conversation, but her last turn (lines 25–26) clearly indicates that she has not reached a solution to her problem, nor has Mike been very helpful in that respect. Thus, she is left with an unresolved issue concerning how to express her emotions and what type of work she would like to do. In addition, as her interactional goal of discussing children is obstructed by Mike (lines 23–24), Joey answers and elaborates on Mike’s question, instead of discussing her proposed topic. In conclusion, the two co-participants jointly construct the interaction, each driven by their own goals, which clearly diverge. Both of them also perform different social actions by employing a host of both verbal and embodied interactional features, thus exhibiting the multimodal

218 

N. Chepinchikj

nature of their interaction. Lastly, the success of their social actions and the accomplishment of their interactional goals varies in the course of the interaction and is dependent on the interactional input of their interlocutor, as well as—and sometimes even more than—their own.

8.2 Social Actions in September The social actions that the represented participants enact in the course of this interaction are closely tied to their interactional goals since it is their goals that drive the social actions. The interactional goals of all the three participants (Lane, Peter and Lloyd) are mostly self-oriented and self-­ motivated. Peter initiates the interaction with Lane because he is interested in her opinion and assessment of the book that he is currently writing. However, in contradiction with her praise, he is completely dissatisfied with it and even goes as far as to attempt to discontinue the current topic of discussion and end the ongoing sequence, by employing embodied action (line 3). Nonetheless, when Lane expands the current sequence and provides him with her support (line 4) and some advice (lines 6–7), Peter persists in his view of the situation (line 5) and continues to talk about his work, expressing his frustration and anxiety about his writing process (lines 8–9). Thus, the first part of the interaction, which coincides with the first post-expanded sequence, is in fact all about Peter, his book and his feelings and thoughts about it. When Lane switches the topic of conversation, she also shifts the interactional focus of attention from Peter to herself. Now it is Lane who talks about what troubles her: jealousy that her boyfriend is fascinated by her mother whom she cannot stand; her animosity towards her mother; and her own painful past. This transition drastically alters Lane’s verbal, prosodic and embodied action. Whereas she is more vivacious at the beginning of the interaction, using positive praise words, raised intonation and high pitch shifts, in the next sequence she exhibits emotional distress, uses more negative words, changes the pace and volume of speech and employs more word stress. However, Lane’s shift in behaviour is largely linked to the different social actions that she performs (praise and support for Peter (see lines 2,

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

219

4, 6–7) versus complaining about her mother and expressing disdain for her (see lines 12–15, 18–19)). In addition, and very significantly, these different social actions are also connected to their sequential position in the interaction (as per Couper-Kuhlen, 2001; Curl & Drew, 2008; Heritage, 2012; Levinson, 2013; Schegloff, 2007), that is Lane’s praise and support are triggered by Peter’s previous question about her opinion (line 1), as well as his self-criticism (lines 3, 5, 8–9). On the other hand, her complaints and emotional outburst are also triggered by Peter’s prior turn (line 11). Similarly, Lane continues discussing her mother and her own traumatic experience owing to the shooting incident in the last sequence of the interaction, after Lloyd’s intrusion. In so doing, she vents out her frustration and anxiety about the events from her teenage years that also involve her mother. Hence follows Lane’s interactional self-orientation. Lloyd also demonstrates interactional self-orientation. He interrupts Lane’s and Peter’s intimate conversation to enquire about a rather more trivial matter, that is, ice cubes for Diane’s drink. In addition, the comment that he makes in the sequence-closing third (lines 25–26) also suggests self-motivation. In other words, Lloyd is taking Diane’s side and defending her in front of her daughter. Nevertheless, it is not all about pursuing personal goals in this interaction. Lane is showing support and giving praise to Peter’s writing at the beginning of the conversation (see lines 2, 4, 6–7) and at the very end, when she returns to that same initial topic (lines 41–42). In a similar vein, Peter is being sympathetic towards Lane in the second part of the conversation, when Lane’s mother and Lane’s past are being discussed. He exhibits commiseration and offers her sympathy not only verbally but also in gaze, gesture and with appropriate prosodic choices (see lines 16–17, 30–34, 39). Thus, when in the role of recipients of their interlocutor’s actions, both Lane and Peter show full alignment and attention to their interlocutor and are completely engaged in the interaction (see Tables 8.3, 8.4 and 8.5 below for a full summary of social actions). Conversely, when both of them have the role of steering the interaction according to their personal interactional goals, they exhibit disengagement from the interaction, particularly regarding embodied action.

220 

N. Chepinchikj

Table 8.3  A display of Peter’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals Social actions (Peter) Interactional features used (Peter) Personal enquiry; initiates the interaction (l. 1) Expresses self-­ criticism and dissatisfaction (l. 3 and 5) Complaint and explanation (l. 8–9)

Provides response to Lane’s comment (l. 11) Provides a response and explanation (l. 16–17) Provides feedback following Lane’s prior talk (l. 30–34) Expresses sympathy with an apology (l. 39)

Asks a question as a FPP in an adjacency pair; hedges his question (“by any chance”); uses gaze as summons; uses final semi-rising intonation Produces a potential sequence-closing third (l. 3) which fails; varies the volume (l. 5); latches talk (l. 5); shifts gaze away from interlocutor Makes prosodic shifts (varies intonation, elongates vowel sounds); produces an intra-turn pause as a signal of turn completion, which is not picked up by Lane; absence of gaze owing to physical distance and barrier Produces a conditionally relevant SPP; uses word stress; gestures; gazes at interlocutor Produces a SPP; latches talk; varies volume; uses word stress and vowel elongation; gazes at interlocutor; gestures Produces a multi-unit turn; uses softer volume; changes pace; makes an intra-turn gap; produces an audible inbreath; mostly gazes at interlocutor Uses softer volume; uses continuing intonation; shakes his head; gazes at interlocutor

Interactional goals (Peter) Seeks opinion on his book

Seeks reassurance and support Sequence expansion

Expresses his opinion Tries to console and appease Lane Tries to console and appease Lane Sympathises with Lane

Finally, the participants show a high degree of responsiveness and collaboration, especially when they are exhibiting orientation and alignment with the talk and action by their interlocutor. Conversely, they show a great extent of self-orientation and misalignment from their interlocutor when their talk and actions are motivated by their own personal goals.

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

221

Table 8.4  A display of Lane’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals Social actions (Lane) Interactional features used (Lane) Responds to Peter’s Produces SPP; uses animated and enquiry and continuing intonation, vowel provides positive sound elongation, high rise pitch assessment of his shift; gazes at interlocutor work (l. 2 and 4) Produces a Uses word stress; makes a comment; makes a micropause; uses a high rise pitch suggestion (l. 6–7) shift; ends with a continuing intonation; gazes at interlocutor; gestures Makes a topic shift Prefaces turn with a discourse (l. 10) marker (“oh”); ends with a continuing intonation; uses word stress; gazes away from interlocutor Asks a question and Uses Wh-questions; makes restarts; complains (l. varies intonation (rising, 12–15) continuing, flat); uses word stress; changes pace; varies volume; makes micropauses; gazes mostly at interlocutor Produces an Produces a sequence-closing third; agreement and an latches her talk; uses word stress; assessment uses flat intonation; shifts gaze to comment (l. 18–19) interlocutor mid-way through turn Provides a response Produces a conditionally relevant to Lloyd’s request SPP; prefaces turn with a (l. 23) continuer and an intra-turn gap; makes restarts; no word stress; gestures; shifts gaze to interlocutor near turn completion Resumes interaction Varies pace and volume (between with Peter; soft and very soft); uses word comments on stress; flat intonation; gazes away Lloyd’s prior talk (l. from interlocutor 28–29)

Interactional goals (Lane) Shows orientation towards her interlocutor; shows support and praise Shows further support for Peter

Tries to change the topic to a more personal issue (self-oriented topic) Expresses her emotional stance towards her mother

Expresses her emotions

Provides a response

Expresses stance

(continued)

222 

N. Chepinchikj

Table 8.4 (continued) Social actions (Lane) Interactional features used (Lane) Agrees with Peter and recounts her past event (l. 35–38)

Apologises and reiterates positive assessment of Peter’s book (l. 41–42)

Interactional goals (Lane)

Expresses emotion Makes a restart; uses word stress; and stance produces several intra-turn gaps; makes an audible inbreath; varies pace and intonation (flat and continuing); varies gaze direction to and from interlocutor Closes the sequence Shifts topic; varies volume and and the intonation; uses word stress; uses interaction vowel sound elongation; makes a restart; shifts gaze to and from interlocutor

Table 8.5  A display of Lloyd’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals Social actions (Lloyd)

Interactional features used (Lloyd)

Interactional goals (Lloyd)

Enquires Prefaces his turn with an apology; Interrupts the produces several intra-turn gaps; uses about ice interaction between flat intonation and word stress; gazes cubes Lane and Peter; to and from interlocutor; gestures makes a request (l. 21–22) Makes an assessment Produces a sequence-closing third; uses Defends Lane’s comment (l. 25–26) word stress and vowel sound mother elongation; ends his turn with an audible inbreath; gestures; gazes at interlocutor throughout turn projection

8.3 Social Actions in Husbands and Wives Similarly to the previous two scenes, the participants’ social actions in this interaction are also motivated by their interactional goals and accomplished by means of co-deploying various interactional features. Gabe’s and Judy’s social actions are the driving forces behind the interaction, which is how they jointly construct and achieve its realisation. The overall display of the social actions, interactional features and interactional goals of both participants is shown in Tables 8.6 and 8.7 below.

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

223

Table 8.6  A display of Gabe’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals Social actions (Gabe)

Interactional goals (Gabe)

Interactional features (Gabe)

Produces a self-­ Overlaps talk with TV; gazes at directed comment (l. TV; produces a restart 5) Initiates interaction Addresses interlocutor with a by complaining and multi-unit turn; introduces a explaining; topic of personal interest; nominates a topic of makes restarts; change of pace; personal interest (l. added word stress; loud volume; 7–10) continuing intonation contour; gazes at interlocutor; gestures Defensive reaction to Change of pace; added word criticism (l. 12) stress; continuing intonation contour; shifts gaze to interlocutor Continues the same Another multi-unit turn; change topic with of pace; added word stress; evaluation and an continuing intonation contour; example (l. 14–17) gazes at interlocutor; gestures

Complaint (l. 20)

Change of pace; approaches interlocutor; gestures

Watching TV (l. 1–6) Initiates a conversation based on personal interest

Defence and denial

Maintains interaction; continues conversation on the topic of his choice Maintains interaction; picks up a topic initiated by his interlocutor

Table 8.7  A display of Judy’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals Social actions (Judy)

Interactional features (Judy)

Interactional goals (Judy)

Criticises interlocutor Latching talk; continuing Makes interactional (l. 11) intonation contour; gazing contribution away from interlocutor Announcement of Latching talk; high pitch shift; Topic change and friends’ arrival (l. gazes away from interlocutor self-selection for 19) speakership Rejoinder comment; Latching talk; gaze shift Maintains interaction opinion (l. 21) towards interlocutor; and reorients towards abandonment of primary next action activity

224 

N. Chepinchikj

They show that Judy and Gabe enter the interaction and construct it with differing interactional goals in mind, which are driving their social actions. Gabe is foregrounded as the central co-participant in the interaction while Judy remains mainly in the background. The foregrounding of Gabe occurs interactively on a number of levels. First, he is the initiator of the interaction, which is prompted by the TV advertisement. In this particular case, even though the TV does not have an equal interactional status as the two participants, it does have an interactional input because it inspires Gabe to start a conversation with Judy. Thus, the TV’s role in the interaction is the one of facilitator. Second, Gabe has an overwhelming verbal contribution to the interaction, on account of the number of turns he produces as well as their length and complexity (the number and range of TCUs). Third, he nominates a topic of conversation which is exclusively his own interest and pursues it until he is interrupted by the doorbell, that is, for the larger part of the entire interaction. Fourth, Gabe is fully engaged in the interaction and bodily aligned with his interlocutor even though Judy is a somewhat passive co-participant. Fifth, he never asks a question or produces any FPP of an adjacency pair in the conversation. This indicates his self-oriented project of venting his own frustrations regarding his profession and discussing his students’ work without any regard for Judy’s input to the topic of conversation, more specifically, or, her interest in that particular topic, more generally. He even reacts in a very defensive manner (line 12) when Judy makes one single criticism of his professional perfectionism (line 11), pointing to his vanity. Finally, what emerges from the interaction is Gabe’s self-centredness. On the other hand, while Gabe is in control of the conversation, Judy is being marginalised as a co-participant. She shows interactional disengagement and distance from the conversation and she accomplishes this in the following manner. First, she is already engaged in another activity when Gabe initiates the interaction. All her bodily actions are in alignment with her primary action of arranging books on bookshelves. However, as already discussed, she is listening to Gabe and very occasionally making verbal contributions to the conversation. Judy uses the sound of the doorbell to start a new sequence in the conversation. By announcing their friends’ arrival (line 19), she occasions a new topic of conversation, which is picked up by

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

225

Gabe in the following turn (line 20) and concluded by her in her next and last turn (line 21). Thus, Judy becomes more active as an interlocutor in the second half of the interaction, employing external occurrences (the doorbell) to shift the course of the interaction so that it is more suited to her interactional goals. This stands in stark contrast with the first part of the interaction, where Judy is merely a recipient of Gabe’s talk and a sounding board for his complaints and elaborations. Finally, the two participants in this diegetic interaction are represented as unequal conversationalists, where the male participant is in the interactional driving seat and the female participant is more passive and subdued. In addition, this interaction also points to Gabe and Judy’s interactional distance and disengagement, both verbally and visually. Being placed at the beginning of the film, as an opening scene, it also hints at the interactional tension in which Gabe and Judy find themselves as a husband and wife, which only intensifies in the course of the film, culminating in their divorce. In sum, Gabe and Judy perform different social actions in the course of their interaction, using different interactional features for their accomplishment. The predominant features in Judy’s actions are latching talk and gazing away from her interlocutor, whereas Gabe employs a wide range of prosodic shifts, gestures and gaze direction towards Judy, to accomplish his social actions. Furthermore, their interactional goals differ. While Gabe exhibits full engagement in the interaction, Judy’s involvement is minimal. This is observable from her scarce verbal contributions as well as her embodied action, which is entirely engaged in shelving books, instead of participating in the interaction. Her engagement becomes more apparent towards the end of the scene, after the doorbell rings. Thus, she completes her primary activity and reorients towards the interaction both verbally and bodily.

8.4 Social Actions in Melinda and Melinda Looking at the social actions and the interactional features Laurel and Lee use in accomplishing these as well as their interactional goals and projects that underlie and motivate their social actions, there are a number of

226 

N. Chepinchikj

discrepancies. Apart from the fact that each participant’s social action drives the interaction forward in a certain way, their actions are mostly at variance with one another, which is particularly observable after Laurel’s turn in line 7. Moreover, their goals are not always accomplished and some of them become blocked by their interlocutor in the course of the interaction. The discrepancies between the co-participants’ goals and intentions that motivate their social actions and, ultimately, drive the interaction are presented in Tables 8.8 and 8.9 for Lee and Laurel, respectively. These discrepancies are clearly noticeable from the three distinct stages of their interaction: (1) sharing good news and expressing praise and support; (2) an argument regarding a problematic comment or misunderstanding; and (3) resolution of the conflict, by moving to an invitation and Table 8.8  A display of Lee’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals Social actions (Lee) Makes a news announcement (l. 2–3); elaborates and explains (l. 6)

Interactional features (Lee)

Initiates a topic of conversation through elicitation; uses direct statements; prosodic shifts; gazes at interlocutor; gestures Makes repeated enquiries Shifts the topic of (l. 9, 14, 16) and offers an conversation; uses explanation (l. 11) repeated questions in different forms; uses prosodic shifts; varies gaze direction; gestures Apologises and makes an Shifts the topic; initiates invitation (l. 19–20) an adjacency pair; uses prosodic shifts; varies gaze direction; gestures Acknowledges the fact Use of discourse markers, that he has forgotten expletives; prosodic about their previous shifts; gaze shifts; engagement and gestures complains about Melinda (l. 23–24)

Interactional goals (Lee) Communicates news and talks about what matters to him (l. 2–3 and 6)

Discovering the truth about Laurel’s personal and professional opinion of him Withdraws from the argument; makes a conciliatory move Shifts the topic of conversation; shows dissatisfaction at having his plans thwarted

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

227

Table 8.9  A display of Laurel’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals Social actions (Laurel) Greets Lee and makes an enquiry, showing surprise (l. 1)

Interactional features (Laurel)

Produces a FPP in an adjacency pair; intonation shifts; gazes at interlocutor; gestures Congratulates Lee on Produces a positive his role (l. 5) response; uses smiling voice; pitch shifts; vowel elongation; gazes at interlocutor Produces an assessment Varies intonation; shifts comment (l. 7) gaze away from interlocutor; gestures; leaves the face-to-face formation Evades responses to Produces conditionally Lee’s repeated irrelevant SPPs; uses enquiries by overlaps (line 12); latching deflecting (l. 10), talk (line 17); change of entreating (l. 12–13 volume (line 15); added and 17–18) and word stress; change of reprimanding (l. 15) intonation (lines 17–18); gaze shifts; gestures Reminds Lee of Produces a dispreferred SPP; previous plans; rejects gazes away from his invitation interlocutor; gestures

Interactional goals (Laurel) Initiates interaction

Shows support for Lee

Attempts to close the sequence

Resists providing a satisfactory and straightforward answer to Lee’s enquiries; seeks to end the argument

Shows disinterest in further interaction

rejection, followed by a reminder of some forgotten information and a complaint about their house guest. The way in which this conversation is structured indicates a possible continuation, but, since this is a film scene, it constitutes a self-contained interaction within the limits of the scene. The participants’ social actions significantly shift in the course of the interaction. The first part of the conversation exhibits a co-operative endeavour on both parts to initiate and develop the interaction. Laurel shows her surprise to meet Lee unexpectedly in that particular part of the city. She uses animated prosody in her greeting and question addressed to Lee, in addition to establishing visual contact and gesturing. However, Lee is eager to communicate his good news to his wife, so he does not

228 

N. Chepinchikj

answer her question but rushes in with his account of his news. His exhilaration is made manifest by his talk and prosody, as well as his incessant gazing at Laurel and gesturing (lines 2, 3 and 6). Laurel, on her part, shows support for Lee by making a positive assessment and accompanying her response with a smiling voice, and an overlapping outbreath (line 4), which indicates her relief about Lee’s role. She also maintains her gaze at him. Thus, the first part of the interaction revolves around Lee’s new role and it is fully co-operative on both sides. However, the interaction becomes problematic in the next sequence, with Laurel’s assessment comment (line 7). Although she never provides a full-fledged explanation of the true meaning of her comment, it triggers some doubt in Lee, who undertakes an enquiry into the issue, which remains unsuccessful. Despite all his various interactional strategies to get to the bottom of his query (repeated questions in different forms: a question prefaced with a discourse marker (line 9), a tag question (line 14), a polar interrogative prefaced by an imperative statement (line 16), incremental intonation and gaze shifts), Lee’s attempts remain futile and he never receives a satisfactory response from Laurel. Laurel, in contrast, manages to navigate quite skilfully through this interrogatory sequence. She evades a response to Lee by first deflecting the issue to him (line 10), then by attempting to assuage the argument and abandon it (lines 12–13), afterwards by expressing irritation and detachment (line 15), and finally by making another entreaty prefaced by expressing stance towards the issue of Lee’s role (lines 17–18). She also combines her turns with appropriate gaze direction and gesturing, which function to strengthen her interactional aims. Hence, her final attempt at abandoning the discussion bears fruit and Laurel exits from the argument sequence as a victor. She never gives Lee a satisfactory response and he ends up apologising for his behaviour. Thus, Laurel turns the course of the interaction to her favour. After Lee’s unsuccessful management of the argument sequence, he shifts the interactional course by making an apology for his behaviour and invites Laurel to celebrate his success over dinner. However, Laurel rejects his invitation with a reminder of their previous engagement, that is, Cassie’s party (line 21). Thus, she once again thwarts Lee’s interactional intentions, by providing a dispreferred SPP to his FPP invitation.

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

229

She also shows her annoyance with Lee’s ignorance about the party by gazing away from him and gesturing. Lee, on the other hand, acknowledges the forgotten information and swiftly shifts the topic of conversation within the same turn (lines 23–24) to complaining about their friend Melinda, who is their house guest at the moment. He shows his annoyance about the issue by adding gestures, gazing at Laurel and adding word stress in his talk. Despite not making a verbal contribution at this point, Laurel uses gaze and a head nod to express solidarity and agreement with Lee. This particular diegetic interaction exhibits a host of intricate and very subtle management strategies by both participants. Each of them has their own interactional goals and they both navigate the interaction in such ways that are going to serve their own projects. Lee, in particular, is the one who chooses the topics of conversation throughout the interaction and each time they are self-oriented. First, he talks about his new role and then he insists on an answer from Laurel regarding his acting abilities, which clearly alludes to his insecurity and vanity. Finally, he makes a dinner invitation and then switches to complaining about Melinda. Each time his interactional goals are being obstructed, he changes his mood and either becomes persistent in following through his project (such as the argument section), or becomes upset (lines 23–24). Laurel blocks Lee’s project and she does so by successfully evading a straightforward answer in the argument section and eventually ending the sequence in her favour, having Lee apologise for his behaviour. She again hinders Lee’s interactional goal by rejecting his invitation although, this time, it is grounded and justified. Thus, Laurel emerges as a more skilful interlocutor, steering the course of the interaction towards her own goals. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the scene, she also fails to get a response from Lee about the reason for him being there. This is in fact the only instance in the interaction where Lee evades an answer. Throughout the interaction, we learn that the female participant is more successful at managing the conversation and accomplishing her interactional aims. Furthermore, we also see that evading answers to questions is common to both of them, which points to the insincerity in their relationship. Thus, it remains obscure whether Laurel has any intention of provoking and demeaning Lee with her assessment, or if Lee is

230 

N. Chepinchikj

merely reading something more into it. However, the evasion of answering Lee’s enquiries certainly indicates that Laurel might have a condescending opinion of her husband.

8.5 Social Actions in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Sally’s and Roy’s social actions in this interaction are motivated by their interactional intentions and goals, but they are not always accomplished, owing to the sometimes conflicting nature of their individual intentions. Additionally, both participants employ simultaneously a range of various features that help them perform their actions. Very significantly, their social actions differ from one another to a great extent in that Sally generally drives the interaction forward, insisting on it, whereas Roy employs a number of interactional features in the pursuit of evading, abandoning and withdrawing from the interaction, at almost every point in its course. This, on the other hand, creates and builds up the tension between them, which escalates into an argument (see Tables 8.10 and 8.11 below for a full summary of their social actions). Looking at the interaction more closely, Roy initiates it by complaining about his day job (lines 1 and 3). He, thus, sets the mood for the whole interaction. However, he overtly shows no interest in discussing his incident with his wife. This is indicated by his avoidance and delay in providing a response to Sally about what has just occurred (lines 7 and 9). Roy also evades gazing at Sally for as long as he can, that is, until he finally answers her questions (line 10). His lack of interactional co-operation is also intensified by his turn in line 15, which fails to provide a satisfactory response to Sally’s question. On top of that, he also withdraws his gaze from her and walks away, attempting to abandon the interaction. Sally, on the other hand, shows curiosity and interest in Roy’s incident. She does so by posing several repeated questions and other-initiated self-­ repairs (lines 2, 6 and 8). She also shows concern for Roy’s well-being (lines 11 and 14). However, since Roy is reluctant to respond to her

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

231

Table 8.10  A display of Roy’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals Social actions (Roy)

Interactional goals Interactional features used (Roy) (Roy)

Complaint (l. 1 and Makes one sentence statements; 3); initiates the uses word stress, loud speech, interaction (l. 1); latching talk; provides a SPP in provides a an adjacency pair (l. 3) response (l. 3) Evading and Produces a SPP using a non-­ delaying responses lexical vocalisation as a TCU (l. (l. 7 and 9) 7); produces an inter-turn gap (l. 8); gazes away from interlocutor Provides a delayed Makes prosodic shifts (varies response (l. 10); pace, changes volume, varies elaborates on it (l. pitch and intonation); produces 12–13) restarts; gazes at interlocutor Evades response; Produces a conditionally shifts topic and irrelevant SPP; makes prosodic focus of shifts (volume shifts, word interaction (l. 15) stress, continuous intonation contour); gestures; shifts gaze away from interlocutor Provides an Produces a SPP; latches talk; elaborated varies pace; uses word stress, response (l. 23–25) vowel elongation and restarts; varies gaze direction; gestures Provides feedback Self-directed rejoinder comment; based on Sally’s uses expletives; changes previous comment volume and pitch; gazes away (swearing) (l. 27)

Showing dissatisfaction and annoyance with his current job Showing lack of interactional interest; disengages from interaction Minimal participation in interaction; hints at his primary interest (his writing) Attempting to end the interaction

Makes an admission; shares his fears and doubts Showing indignation

queries and instead produces a self-oriented topic shift about his book (line 15), this triggers dissatisfaction and irritation in Sally and ignites their quarrel. Therefore, she pursues the interaction by following him into the bedroom, gazing insistently at him, gesturing and insisting on answers about Roy’s book (lines 17, 19–20 and 22). Despite Roy’s role in igniting the quarrel with Sally, with his attempt at abandoning the interaction (line 15), he is again reluctant to provide a response to Sally’s queries, which he finally does in lines 23–25. In his response, he takes the blame for procrastinating and supports his verbal

232 

N. Chepinchikj

Table 8.11  A display of Sally’s social actions and corresponding interactional features and goals Social actions (Sally)

Interactional features used (Sally)

Asks for Produces SROIs; uses rising clarification (l. 2 intonation; vowel sound and 11) elongation Produces a plea (l. 4)

Makes enquiries (l. 6, 8, 17, 19)

Turn prefaced by a discourse marker (“oh”); no word stress; ends with a high rise pitch; gazes away from interlocutor Varies intonation, word stress, uses Wh-questions; prefaces questions (l. 19); changes volume; gazes at interlocutor; gestures (l. 19)

Interactional goals (Sally) Encourages interaction by trying to understand what Roy is saying Shows unwillingness to discuss Roy’s job

Insists on answers from Roy; drives forward the interaction; takes personal interest in the matter discussed Asks for information regarding the well-being of everyone involved in the car accident

Shows concern (l. Uses polar interrogatives (yes/no 14) questions); prefaces questions with discourse markers (“oh”); latches talk; produces a restart; uses rising intonation; uses word stress; gazes mostly away from interlocutor, but looks at him at turn completion; gestures Produces an Extends her turn; uses a high rise Tries to provoke a assessment pitch (l. 22); uses word stress; uses reaction from Roy comment (l. 22) micropauses and a discourse and express her view and a reproach marker (“well”) (l. 26); gazes at (l. 26) interlocutor, but shifts gaze away at turn completion (l. 26); gestures Complaint Extends current sequence; self-­ Shifts topic to express comment with selects as the next speaker; uses her own personal an elaboration word stress, micropauses; concerns (starting a and a warning produces an outbreath; varies family) (l. 28–29) volume of speech and intonation; gestures; gazes intently at interlocutor

contribution by gestures and gaze. Sally, however, does not show any empathy or understanding regarding his admission and instead she replies with an evaluative utterance that acts as a reproach (line 26) and then

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

233

walks away. Roy shows his anger by swearing (line 27) and Sally does so by returning with her final verbal contribution to the interaction in which she reveals her personal interests and concerns, that is, starting a family, thus producing a self-oriented topic shift. At this point, the interaction has already been escalated and while Sally pursues her own goals and intentions, Roy ignores them by remaining silent and gazing away. This interaction showcases marital conflict, which remains unresolved until the end of the scene but which also reveals the manner in which the spouses interact. Each of the participants has their own particular interactional goals in mind that underlie their actions, which they are endeavouring to accomplish and the clash between their goals is the result of them being in disagreement with one another. Nevertheless, Roy exhibits interactional self-orientation from the onset to the end of the interaction whereas Sally does so in the last sequence. In other words, Sally aligns with Roy at the beginning of the interaction and shows interest and concern in his affairs, but his interactional uncooperativeness results in her frustration and she turns towards pursuing her interactional goals in the last sequence. Unlike her, Roy engages in the interaction at will and talks only about those matters that concern him (his car accident and his book). Hence, this is another instance of a discordant and inharmonious dyadic interaction. Not unlike naturally-occurring interactions, the social actions of the represented participants in all five diegetic interactions point to the performative action of talk. In other words, the represented participants engage in interaction to ask questions, provide answers, tell, request, complain, invite, offer, explain, plead and entreat, express concern, remind, apologise, make assessments and comments, acknowledge forgotten information, swear, give advice, commiserate, congratulate, greet, reject offers and invitations, make announcements and apologise. All these constitute social actions found in real-life interactions (Levinson, 2013; Schegloff, 2007) and they are performed intentionally and with a range of interactional features, such as talk, prosody, gaze and gesture. Moreover, many of these actions are repetitive, that is, they are encountered in all or most of the diegetic interactions. Complaining, in particular, is one of the social actions that is the most pervasive among co-participants because it is present in all the interactions.

234 

N. Chepinchikj

In terms of organisation, these social actions are also paired as adjacency pairs (Schegloff, 1968, 2007; Schegloff & Sacks, 1973). This means that a certain social action by a speaker (e.g. asking a question) is met by a conditionally relevant action by the recipient, who becomes the next speaker (e.g. providing an answer). Most frequently, these paired actions follow one another immediately, but there are a number of instances of delayed second-pair actions, or they can be entirely missing. In such cases, breaches or blocks emerge in the interaction, which also serve particular interactional goals by the co-participants who perform them (Levinson, 2013). Significantly, in such cases, there is a lack of interactional collaboration by certain co-participants, as well as pursuing their own self-oriented interactional goals. This type of interacting is observable in almost all interactions, but it is especially conspicuous in the instances where there are open conflicts between the interactants (e.g. in Melinda and Melinda and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger). In these interactions, such interactional strategies are marked and problematic as they disrupt the collaborative process and show violations of the co-operation principle of conversation (Grice, 1975). This is the fundamental governing principle of all human interaction, which prescribes that you should “make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose of direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged” (Grice, 1975 p. 45). This kind of violation, therefore, disrupts the flow of the interaction and introduces conflict and confrontation between the participants in the two aforementioned interactions, which are evidently argumentative. Furthermore, the participants co-create and develop their interactions following their own interactional goals and intentions. These are not always immediately recognisable, but the ‘next-turn proof procedure’ (Sacks et al., 1974; also Heritage, 1984) is the tool that helps establish these underlying interactional goals, as well as the sequential position of the speaker’s turns (Levinson, 2013). This is particularly observable in those cases where the SPP of the next speaker is conditionally irrelevant or dispreferred in terms of the FPP, or if the SPP is delayed or entirely missing. In such cases, there is a clear indication of the disparity between the participants’ social actions and their underlying interactional goals.

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

235

As previously mentioned, the social actions and their underlying goals are largely self-oriented and self-motivated in all the interactions. Sometimes, these are accomplished and at other times, they are not, since they also depend on the co-participant and their social actions and interactional goals. The level of collaboration between the participants is what determines the accomplishment of their social actions. In other words, the more collaborative the interlocutor is, the higher the chance for the accomplishment of the co-participant’s action and goal. This phenomenon also depends on the sequential position of the action (Levinson, 2013) and on the narrative intention of Allen as the film author. The latter is, however, outside the scope of this book, as it only addresses the diegesis of the film scenes, that is, the interactions contained in them, and not the extra-diegetic dimension of the screenplays and direction of these films. However, these diegetic interactions have a significant narrative component, which can also be found in many spontaneous conversations. Diegetic interactions, as already discussed in Chap. 2, are multifunctional, simultaneously playing a number of roles, such as: supplying plot themes, constructing character identities and relations, advancing the narrative and creating dramatic irony (Desilla, 2012; Dynel, 2011; Kozloff, 2000; Phillips, 2000; Piazza et al., 2011). It is particularly in the characterisation function that social actions come together in a complex way to construct the talk and the use of embodied features of interaction, as well as the interactional behaviour by the particular represented participants (characters) in general (Downes, 1988). Thus, it is no wonder that the social actions performed by the represented participants in these particular film scenes, in addition to indexing the social character of these interactions, are also embedded in the narrative and characterisation process of Allen’s cinematic discourse and serve these functions, too.

8.6 Gender Considerations Investigating the manner in which the actors in these five film scenes interact in order to bring their characters to life, as well as the interactional strategies they employ, inevitably draws our attention to the gender

236 

N. Chepinchikj

representation of interactional dynamics in these films by Woody Allen. Even though gender is not the principal focus of this book, the fact that all these scenes depict couples interacting in everyday, mostly domestic, settings and offer representations of female and male characters calls for some such interpretation, to the extent that the theoretical and methodological frameworks used in this study allow. Regarding gender, having in mind the data-driven basis of CA investigation, as well as its exclusion of any exogenous features and categories that do not emerge from the participants’ orientation in talk-in-­interaction (Schegloff, 1997), gender is not imposed onto the data or the assumptions and neither is it being hypothesised in any way. Instead, following the precepts of CA, this study allows the data to reveal any findings that may have a bearing on gender and its representation through verbal and embodied interaction in cinematic discourse. This approach is more in line with Feminist CA1 (Kitzinger, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008; Speer, 1999, 2002, 2005; Stokoe, 1998, 2000, 2008; Speer & Stokoe, 2011), which argues for the application of CA with respect to uncovering and problematising gender issues that emerge in conversations and which participants raise, make relevant and orient to. Moreover, this book goes beyond the point of problematising gendered issues raised in interactions, by noting the interactional behaviour of the represented male and female participants in the foregoing diegetic interactions. From the discussion of all the various facets of interaction in the film scenes presented thus far, it is obvious that gender is socially constructed and performed by the actors. Being socially constructed, gender is also ever fluctuating and volatile in nature (McConnell-Ginet, 2011). In other words, gender is seen as something that is being negotiated and re-negotiated through discourse and interaction or, more precisely, invented and re-invented in various situations and circumstances. In such a landscape, the qualities of femininity and masculinity are seen  ‘Feminist conversation analysis’ or ‘feminist CA’ is a version of CA that uses its methodology to identify how participants in interactions “‘do’ power and powerlessness, oppression and resistance within gendered contexts” (Baxter, 2010, p. 123). In feminist CA, “gendered identities (and others) are seen as emergent, locally occasioned and routinely constituted in interaction” (Jackson, 2011, p. 31). This means that women and men can “produce themselves or be produced as gendered” in talk-in-interaction, despite that they are not always regarded as gendered beings (Kitzinger, 2000, p. 166). 1

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

237

as constantly changing, fluid and contextually constructed, consisting of a spectrum of plural gender enactments, rather than a binary and oppositional representation of gender. In addition to being socially constructed and fluid, gender is also performative and this is very visible in the discussed film scenes. Apart from the actual film performance of the actors on screen in their roles, there is also another type of performance, which is related to enacting gender. In this latter postmodern sense, gender is conceptualised as being constantly produced through everyday practices and social interactions (Butler, 1990, 1993, 1997). Thus, owing to its performative quality, which is not an inherent part of people, gender is something which is continually performed and produced through discourse and actions. Butler (1990) claims, “there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender” (p. 25). Therefore, people constantly become gendered through the performances that constitute them as women or men. In terms of the discussed film scenes, gender comes to the fore through the enactment of the participants’ social actions. Many of the social actions and interactional goals of the represented participants in these diegetic interactions suggest patterns of interactional behaviour in terms of the participants’ gender. Namely, male co-participants across these interactions share some common interactional features and the same goes for the female represented participants. For example, the male participants are most frequently the initiators of the interactions and they also dominate the conversational floor, both in terms of the topics discussed and with respect to the amount of talk produced. Gabe (Husbands and Wives) is the most obvious example of a participant who initiates the interaction, chooses the topics of conversation and does most of the talking. As for their interactional strategies, they vary from complete conversational dominance (Gabe in Husbands and Wives), persistent enquiry (Lee in Melinda and Melinda), to evasion of responses and reluctance to talk on a given topic (Mike in Interiors and Roy in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger). Thus, they are shaping their interactions in such ways so as to carry out their self-motivated personal interactional goals, which actually become projects (Levinson, 2013) that extend over a number of sequences. These projects, however, are frequently blocked by their interlocutors

238 

N. Chepinchikj

(e.g. Lee’s project in Melinda and Melinda and Roy’s project in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger). On the other hand, the female participants in the five diegetic interactions are most frequently pushed to the background. In some instances they dominate the interactions (Sally in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Joey in Interiors and Lane in September), mostly in terms of their interactional behaviour and also in the case of Joey and Lane, in terms of the amount of talk they produce. In other situations, they are barely visible or heard. This is the case with Judy (Husbands and Wives), who rarely speaks during the interaction and who is entirely oriented to another activity, rather than interacting with Gabe. In relation to their interactional goals and social actions, some of the female participants clearly show a self-motivated, self-oriented and personal interest in conducting the interaction. An example of this is Joey (Interiors), whose entire conversation is only about her. Sometimes, they show minimum engagement (e.g. Judy in Husbands and Wives) or they block their interlocutor’s interactional projects by evading conditionally relevant and preferred social actions (Liddicoat, 2011; Schegloff, 1968, 2007). Nevertheless, most of them show interactional engagement and collaboration with their male interlocutors. All the above suggests gender stereotyping in terms of social actions and interactional behaviour by these characters in Woody Allen’s cinematic discourse. His perspective on interactional behaviour of female and male characters differs and it is enacted through recognisable patterns in all the five scenes. This suggests a bias and inclination towards the ‘difference approach’2 in gender (Maltz & Borker, 1982; Tannen, 1990; TrömelPlötz, 1991), where Allen’s male and female characters are represented as belonging to different, and sometimes opposing, sub-cultures of people, with different interactional goals, interests and behaviour. Such  This is a theoretical approach to gender developed in the 1990s that argued about a difference in the socialisation of women and men into two distinct sub-cultures within the larger socio-cultural milieu (Maltz & Borker, 1982). The consequences of this are such that women and men ultimately develop distinct and diverging communicative routines that were believed to frequently lead to misunderstanding in mixed-sex conversational settings (Tannen, 1990). This approach can still be found among language and gender researchers, despite the fact that it has been largely abandoned, particularly because it eradicates male dominance and power and thus is completely apolitical and insensitive to social reality (Trömel-Plötz, 1991). 2

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

239

difference is at times more implicit in the interactions, where there is usually a high degree of interactional engagement and collaboration by the two participants. However, at other times, this difference is distinctly pronounced through the conflict that is created by the interactional friction and lack of collaboration between the participants. Finally, since these interactions are also employed in characterisation (Desilla, 2012; Downes, 1988; Dynel, 2011; Kozloff, 2000; Phillips, 2000), it is inevitable that they display both the characters who are involved in them, as well as their gender. Thus, gender is being produced through the social actions and the interactions as a whole, which in a certain way aligns with Butler’s (1990, 1997) theory of performativity. Namely, gender is being enacted in Allen’s cinematic discourse by both the performances of the actors in the character roles, but also in the course of the represented participants’ interactions, where gender traits are produced by patterns of interactional behaviour that are performed by the participants at every point in their interaction.

References Austin, J.  L. (1962). How to do things with words: The William James lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955 (J. O. Urmson, Ed.). Clarendon Press. Baxter, J. (2010). Discourse-analytic approaches to text and talk. In L. Litosseliti (Ed.), Research methods in linguistics (pp. 117–137). Continuum. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge. Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of “sex”. Routledge. Butler, J. (1997). Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. Routledge. Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2001). Interactional prosody: High onsets in reason-for-­ the-call turns. Language in Society, 30(1), 29–53. Curl, T. S., & Drew, P. (2008). Contingency and action: A comparison of two forms of requesting. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41(2), 129–153. Desilla, L. (2012). Implicatures in film: Construal and functions in Bridget Jones romantic comedies. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 30–53. Downes, W. (1988). King Lear’s question to his daughters. In W. van Peer (Ed.), The taming of the text: Explorations in language, literature and culture (pp. 225–257). Routledge.

240 

N. Chepinchikj

Dynel, M. (2011). Stranger than fiction?: A few methodological notes on linguistic research in film discourse. Brno Studies in English, 37(1), 41–61. https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2011-­1-­3 Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics: Speech acts (pp. 41–58). Volume 3. Academic. Heritage, J. (1984). A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In J.  M. Atkinson & J.  Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 299–345). Cambridge University Press. Heritage, J. (2012). Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45, 1–25. Jackson, C. (2011). The gendered ‘I’. In S.  A. Speer & E.  Stokoe (Eds.), Conversation and gender (pp. 31–47). Cambridge University Press. Kitzinger, C. (2000). Doing feminist conversation analysis. Feminism & Psychology, 10, 163–193. Kitzinger, C. (2002). Doing feminist conversation analysis. In P.  McIlvenny (Ed.), Talking gender and sexuality (pp. 49–78). John Benjamins. Kitzinger, C. (2006). Talking sex and gender. In P.  Drew, G.  Raymond, & D.  Weinberg (Eds.), Talk and interaction in social research methods (pp. 155–170). Sage. Kitzinger, C. (2007). Feminist research practice: The promise of conversation analysis for feminist research. Feminism and Psychology, 17, 133–148. Kitzinger, C. (2008). Conversation analysis: Technical matters for gender research. In K.  Harrington, L.  Litosseliti, H.  Saunston, & J.  Sunderland (Eds.), Gender and language research methodologies. Palgrave. Kozloff, S. (2000). Overhearing film dialogue. University of California Press. Levinson, S.  C. (2013). Action formation and ascription. In J.  Sidnell & T.  Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp.  103–130). Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Liddicoat, A.  J. (2011). An introduction to conversation analysis (2nd ed.). Continuum. Maltz, D. N., & Borker, R. A. (1982). A cultural approach to male-female miscommunication. In J.  J. Gumperz (Ed.), Language and social identity (pp. 195–216). Cambridge University Press. McConnell-Ginet, S. (2011). Gender, sexuality, and meaning: Linguistic practice and politics. Oxford University Press. Phillips, P. (2000). Understanding film text: Meaning and experience. British Film Institute. Piazza, R., Bednarek, M., & Rossi, F. (2011). Introduction: Analysing telecinematic discourse. In R. Piazza, M. Bednarek, & F. Rossi (Eds.), Telecinematic

8  Social Actions and Gender Considerations 

241

discourse: Approaches to the language of films and television series (pp. 1–17). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Queen, R. (2015). Vox popular: The surprising life of language in the media. Wiley Blackwell. Sacks, H. (1995). Lectures on conversation: Volumes I and II. Ed. G. Jefferson. Blackwell. Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735. Schegloff, E.  A. (1968). Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist, 70(6), 1075–1095. Schegloff, E.  A. (1997). Whose text? Whose discourse? Discourse & Society, 8(2), 165–187. Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis. Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, E.  A., & Sacks, H. (1973). Opening up closings. Semiotica, 7, 289–327. Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge University Press. Speer, S.  A. (1999). Feminism and conversation analysis: An oxymoron? Feminism and Psychology, 9(4), 417–478. Speer, S.  A. (2002). What can conversation analysis contribute to feminist methodology?: Putting reflexivity into practice. Discourse & Society, 13, 783–803. Speer, S. A. (2005). Gender talk: Feminism, discourse and conversation analysis. Routledge. Speer, S. A., & Stokoe, E. (2011). An introduction to conversation and gender. In S.  A. Speer & E.  Stokoe (Eds.), Conversation and gender (pp.  1–27). Cambridge University Press. Stokoe, E. H. (1998). Talking about gender: The conversational construction of gender categories in academic discourse. Discourse & Society, 9, 217–240. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926598009002005 Stokoe, E. H. (2000). Toward a conversation analytic approach to gender and discourse. Feminism and Psychology, 10(4), 552–563. Stokoe, E. H. (2008). Dispreferred actions and other interactional breaches as devices for occasioning audience laughter in television ‘sitcoms’. Social Semiotics, 18(3), 289–307. Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. William Morrow. Trömel-Plötz, S. (1991). Selling the apolitical. Discourse & Society, 2(4), 489–502.

9 Conclusion

It’s a wonderful thing to be able to create your own world whenever you want to. —Woody Allen

This book has investigated five diegetic interactions represented in five film scenes from five different films by Woody Allen with the aim to uncover how these interactions are organised, what interactional features are salient and what social actions the actors perform through their on-­ screen interactions. Hence, throughout the book, I have discussed the various facets of these interactions: their structure and organisation, the key verbal resources (topic shifts, prosodic shifts and gaps), the key embodied resources (gaze and gestures) and the social actions which are interactionally performed by the actors in the character roles. The study has shown that the interactions in cinematic discourse on the level of the diegesis are organised and structured into turns-at-talk on the basic level of organisation and into sequences at a higher level of structure. The former organisation is more characteristic of the organisation of talk, even though the embodied resources analysed (gaze and gesture) frequently orient to the turn-taking system of talk-in-interaction and have salient functions in managing the turn-by-turn and sequential organisation of the diegetic interactions. Gaze is, moreover, indicative of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Chepinchikj, Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00945-7_9

243

244 

N. Chepinchikj

the presence or absence of any competing activities. It also displays engagement or disengagement from the interaction, by virtue of the direction it takes with respect to the interlocutor. As for gesture, as it is mostly co-deployed with speech, it follows the pattern of talk in its production. As discussed in Chap. 4, the organisation and structure of all five interactions consist of turns and sequences. What differs, however, is their length, as well as the presence of storytelling in some interactions, such as in Husbands and Wives (1992) and September (1987). These features are predominantly due to the type of conversational activity in the interactions. Namely, storytelling, as opposed to adjacency pair organisation is found in those interactions where there are longer, monologue-like turns, or rant. Furthermore, the structure in the interactions that include arguments consists of shorter sequences, usually composed of three parts (first pair part (FPP), second pair part (SPP) and a sequence-closing third) and marked adjacency pairs are also more frequently present in this type of interaction (e.g. Melinda and Melinda, 2004 and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, 2010). The latter are particularly associated with the disruption of the conversational process, which adds realism to these diegetic interactions (Lambrou, 2014). Similarities were also found in terms of turn allocation, turn transition and key interactional features, even though the interactions differ from one another in terms of the manner in which these are executed and co-­ deployed in order to express and perform the various social actions of the represented participants. Some of the types of social actions were found in more than one interaction, while others are idiosyncratic and found in only one interaction. Five salient interactional features have been discussed in this book, three of them being verbal or related to speech and the other two embodied. The verbal interactional features are topic shifts, prosodic shifts and gaps, while gaze and gesture are the embodied ones. While not all of these are salient in all the analysed interactions (e.g. gaps), they do appear in most of them and the co-participants use and organise them differently. What they all share is the purposefulness of application, that is, they are employed, or, to be more precise, co-deployed in the multimodal interactions in such ways as to aid the accomplishment of the various social

9 Conclusion 

245

actions and interactional objectives that the co-participants intend within the confines of each scene’s narrative. However, because of the differing and often opposing interactional goals that the co-participants have within the dyadic interactions, these social actions are not always accomplished and, moreover, they create tension and friction between the interlocutors. Nevertheless, despite the differences in the organisation and execution of the various interactions, they do show a great deal of commonalities, such as a basic structure and organisation, the motivation for using certain interactional features for the participants’ social actions and interactional goals, as well as the conflicting and clashing overtone of all these interactions. This can also be ascribed to the drama genre of the films, which is based on some sort of conflict (Richardson, 2010), as well as to the narrative line. Finally, the different ways in which the male and female represented participants interact, as well as the differing social actions they are performing, also indicate the use of verbal and embodied resources for the purposes of characterisation. Through their interactions, it is possible to recognise the relationships they have with each other (Lambrou, 2014). Thus, these findings confirm to a large extent the existing research on fictional dramatic conversation, as far as the verbal element is concerned. In addition, this study adds further insight into the embodied elements of interaction and their use. In terms of gender, the implications that transpire from the analysis point to the various ways in which the female and male characters in Woody Allen’s films interact with each other within the social institution of marriage and/or de-facto relationships. The findings also provide an invaluable insight into the interactional construction of gender and the wider representation and occasional reoccurrence of certain features relating to the interlocutors’ gender. This also points to Woody Allen’s treatment of marital interactions in his cinematic discourse, which is specific and individual in each segment of diegetic interaction but, ultimately, unifying in his cinematic discourse as an auteur. This study has looked at a snippet of film data by one filmmaker and as such, it does not intend to either generalise or make any assumptions about diegetic interactions in other films by Allen or in wider cinematic

246 

N. Chepinchikj

discourse. The findings presented in this book are indicative solely of Allen’s cinematic discourse and of how the diegetic interactions between two represented participants are structured and carried out in a small number of his drama films. Therefore, no claims or assumptions can be made as to any other kind of cinematic discourse, or even Allen’s cinematic discourse in his comedy films. Since the focus here has only been on the diegesis of the selected film scenes, the extra-diegetic plane has not been taken into full account. I have made relevant references to Allen’s cinematic process to the extent necessary to contextualise and interpret the data and I also acknowledge the complexity and connection that both the diegetic and extra-diegetic plane have in shaping a particular cinematic discourse. For instance, with regard to acting and performance, the focus has not been on the manner in which the actors in the character roles perform the interactions in the selected scenes or the extent to which their performance is conscious and deliberate in capturing and conveying the author’s (Allen’s) cinematic intention. This also includes the shooting script or any direction instructions on acting out these scenes. The reason for this is that this enquiry focuses solely on the diegetic plane of the cinematic discourse, where the characters are the represented participants in these interactions and the actors assume those personas in their represented interactions. Therefore, no additional multimodal features in the product itself, such as shots, camera work, use of music and so on have been analysed or discussed. Despite the fact that performance plays a role in ‘naturalising’ the interactions represented on the screen (Taylor, 2004), it is essentially a feature that belongs to the extra-diegetic plane of film, and therefore, is outside the scope of this book. Thus, bearing in mind all of the above, this book cannot answer the question as to whether and to what extent the features analysed have been noted in the shooting scripts and/or if they have been only added in performance. There are both theoretical and methodological contributions that this study offers. Theoretically, it extends the linguistic studies of cinematic discourse by applying a social interactional perspective on film diegesis. This is accomplished by investigating the interaction between represented participants, or film characters at the level of diegesis, taking into consideration the multimodality of interaction represented on the screen.

9 Conclusion 

247

Furthermore, by investigating the multimodal organisation of such film interactions, this study offers a more comprehensive view of diegetic interactions, rather than merely studying film dialogue, that is, the verbal side of conversations represented in audio-visual fiction. Since it is a case study of a particular cinematic discourse, it takes a micro-analytical approach to Woody Allen’s cinematic diegesis and reveals its structure and organisation as well as its key interactional features. Thereby, it opens up new avenues of research in the area of cinematic discourse, from a social interactional perspective. This also benefits the research into gender, since its representation in cinematic discourse is approached from a different perspective, that of emergence and interaction, in addition to performance. Consequently, in addition to the acting performance of gender, there is also another level of ontological gender performance in Butler’s sense of the term (1990, 1997). By examining the interaction of represented participants in Woody Allen’s cinematic discourse, we can gain a better understanding of the workings of diegetic interactions, as well as the significance of the multimodal approach to these. We also glean insights from the interactional features and their co-deployment, as well as the various ways in which these features combine to create and convey cinematic and interactional meaning. From a methodological perspective, this study takes a novel approach to cinematic discourse, which is the social interactional approach. The analytical tools applied are also rather innovative in the area of cinematic discourse: both conversation analysis (CA) and multimodal conversation analysis (MMCA) have been widely used to analyse naturally-occurring types of interactions in various settings but not so much to interpret audio-visual material. Even though CA has recently entered the domain of telecinematic discourse, there are still very few studies that apply it as a tool for analysis (Chepinchikj, 2020; Chepinchikj & Thompson, 2016; Ergul, 2010; Ohara & Saft, 2003; Oyeleye, 2012; Raymond, 2013; Stokoe, 2008). This is even truer for MMCA, as this study makes a preliminary attempt to apply it to cinematic discourse analysis in order to explore interactional features, organisation and nature of diegetic interactions. Both CA and MMCA, as shown here, have proved to be invaluable methodological tools for approaching film interactions on a micro-level

248 

N. Chepinchikj

of analysis. This, on the other hand, also proves useful for CA and MMCA, since it extends their use to new types of data and new contexts, such as cinematic discourse. Finally, this enquiry also makes a further step forward towards legitimising and justifying the value and importance of investigating cinematic discourse from a linguistic perspective and the applicability of a multimodal conversation analytic method of analysis. The discussion in this book has clearly shown that such an approach is not only possible but also valid, since the investigated features of the diegetic interactions exhibit a number of similarities with naturally-occurring interactions, thus supporting the approach that cinematic discourse can be legitimately used as an area of linguistic research (Bednarek, 2011, 2018; Forchini, 2012, 2017; Richardson, 2010), since diegetic and naturally-occurring interactions show a number of similarities in terms of their structure, organisation and key interactional features employed. Therefore, the current findings deepen our understanding of how diegetic interactions in cinematic discourse are structured, organised and also mediated through its author (Woody Allen) and of the actors as represented participants in the films’ diegesis. Even though it is primarily a linguistic study, this book can also be useful for theoreticians and practitioners in other disciplines, such as cinema studies, gender studies and multimodality research. It can also greatly benefit the theory of performance, since actors in the film character roles enact the interactions and impose their personal imprint on them as well as embody the interactions as they appear on screen. Their performative contribution to the realisation of character on screen is as important as the director’s and screenplay writer’s initial conceptualisation of the character roles off-screen. Finally, it is my most sincere hope that this book will provide filmmakers and cinema theorists with a novel way of thinking about their work and offer a new approach to description and comprehension of cinematic discourse. Even though social interaction is not the primary concern and goal of cinematic discourse, it is worthwhile adding such a dimension, as films also try to hold up a mirror to human behaviour, sociality, language use and multimodality of interaction in real life contexts and situations.

9 Conclusion 

249

References Allen, W. (Director). (1987). September [Film]. Orion Pictures Corporation. Allen, W. (Director). (1992). Husbands and wives [Film]. TriStar Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (2004). Melinda and Melinda [Film]. Fox Searchlight Pictures. Allen, W. (Director). (2010). You will meet a tall dark stranger [Film]. Mediapro, et al. Bednarek, M. (2011). The stability of the televisual character: A corpus stylistic case study. In R. Piazza, M. Bednarek, & F. Rossi (Eds.), Telecinematic discourse: Approaches to the language of films and television series (pp. 185–204). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Bednarek, M. (2018). Language and television series: A linguistic approach to TV dialogue. The Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series. Cambridge University Press. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge. Butler, J. (1997). Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. Routledge. Chepinchikj, N. (2020). Gaze as a resource in initiating and completing sequences of interaction in Woody Allen’s cinematic discourse. Ampersand, 7, 100067. Chepinchikj, N., & Thompson, C. (2016). Analysing cinematic discourse using conversation analysis. Discourse, Context and Media, 14, 40–53. Ergul, H. (2010). Interaction, gender and cultural expectations in a Turkish marriage TV show. ARECLS, 2010(7), 59–79. Forchini, P. (2012). Movie language revisited: Evidence from multi-dimensional analysis and corpora. Peter Lang. Forchini, P. (2017). A multi-dimensional analysis of legal American English: Real-life and cinematic representations compared. International Journal of Language Studies, 11(3), 133–150. Lambrou, M. (2014). Stylistics, conversation analysis and the cooperative principle. In M. Burk (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of stylistics (pp. 136–154). Routledge. Ohara, Y., & Saft, S. (2003). Using conversation analysis to track gender ideologies in social interaction: Toward a feminist analysis of a Japanese phone-in consultation TV program. Discourse & Society, 14(2), 153–172. https://doi. org/10.1177/0957926503014002855

250 

N. Chepinchikj

Oyeleye, A.  L. (2012). Interaction management in Nigerian television talk shows. Interactional Journal of English Linguistics, 2(1), 149–161. Raymond, C. W. (2013). Gender and sexuality in animated television sitcom interaction. Discourse & Communication, 7(2), 199–220. Richardson, K. (2010). Television dramatic dialogue: A sociolinguistic study. Oxford University Press. Stokoe, E. H. (2008). Dispreferred actions and other interactional breaches as devices for occasioning audience laughter in television ‘sitcoms’. Social Semiotics, 18(3), 289–307. Taylor, C. J. (2004). The language of film: Corpora and statistics in the search for authenticity. Notting Hill (1998)—A case study. Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies, 30, 71–85.

Appendix A: CA Transcription Conventions

Symbol

Meaning

[ ] = (0.0) (.) Word :: . , ¿ No punctuation ↑↓ WORD °

Onset of overlap Termination of overlap No gap between two utterances; latching Timed interval (pause) in 1/10 of a second A tiny gap Stress Prolongation of sound Cut-off Falling tone Continuing intonation, slightly rising or incomplete Stronger rise than a comma, but weaker than a full rise Indeterminate contour of intonation Shifts into higher or lower pitch Especially loud sounds Quieter sounds (symbol placed before and after the relevant words) Very soft sounds Slowed down speed Speeding up In-breath Out-breath Breathiness Smiling voice (before and after particular words)

°°

>< .h H w(h)ord £

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Chepinchikj, Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00945-7

251

252  Symbol () (word) (( )) { } →

Appendix A: CA Transcription Conventions Meaning

Inability to hear what was said Dubious words or phrases Descriptions, e.g. ((laughter)) Beginning of gaze direction towards interlocutor End of gaze direction towards interlocutor Indicates the line in the transcript that is being focused on in the process of analysis [_______________] Horizontal square brackets under an utterance indicate extension of a gesture [____.....________] Dotted line inside square brackets indicates a ‘frozen’ gesture [___○___○______] Small circle(s) inside square brackets indicate movement peaks of a gesture



Appendix B: Transcriptions

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Chepinchikj, Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00945-7

253

254 

Appendix B: Transcriptions

“Interiors”, Scene 1 (00:17:43-00:19:17)

1 Mike: { What’s the matter, you’re still thinking about your mother?

2 Joey: I can’t believe Renata {encourages her.} {She} fills her full of false hope. [________] 3 Mike: °She’s just trying to keep her spirits up.°=

4 Joey: =.hhh (3.25) I wanna quit my job,

5 (1.25)

6 Mike: O(h)h J(h)o:ey,{= [_○___]

7 Joey: =>I can’t keep my mind on it. I can’t concentrate. (1.0) I sit there all day reading [______________] 8

[_____________][______

{other people’s manuscripts and half way through I lose interest.< I get _______________________.................................___________] [___

9

HEADACHES} from the (.) words >and then I’m supposed to sit down and< (.) write _○_________]

[_________________________]

  Appendix B: Transcriptions   10

255

a-an opinion. >It’s not fair to the authors,< [_________]

11 Mike: { A month ago you said you finally found something you enjoyed. [__________] 12 Joey: {Well I was wro:ng. [_○_____] 13 (1.5)

14 Joey: I think about going back to acting. Ah (.) I- I’m not an actress. Can’t do that again.

15

°Flyn’s the actress in this family.°

16 Mike: { Why don’t you work with me¿

17 (1.25)

18 Joey: Because political ACTIVITY is NOT my interest. (1.0) I’m too self-centred for that.

19 Mike: That’s my whole point, {it would get you off yourself.}

20 Joey: °Sometimes I think if we had a child,° (1.75) Oh Go:d. .hh Tha-that really makes [_________________

21

me anxious I- (1.0) it’s totally irrevocable. ___]

22 (1.75) (Joey’s nods and shakes:

[______________________________________

256 

Appendix B: Transcriptions

23 Mike: { Whatever happened to your photography? You have so much potential.=You _____________________] ) 24

used to be s-so hot on that.

25 Joey: I hate it. It’s STUPID. (1.5) I feel a RE:AL need to express something but I don’t [__○____○______○______________________

26

know what it is I wanna express↑ (0.75) or how to express it! __________________________]

[_______________]

“September”, Scene 2: (00:06:52-00:09:02)

1 Peter: {} Did you {by any chance finish those chapters I gave you¿

2 Lane: Ye:ah! Almost↑ {They’re ↑wonderful

3 Peter: {I’ve been thinking about them and I’m discouraged.=}

4 Lane: {=Oh you shouldn’t be↑ you’re wro:ng,=

5 Peter: =I jus’ wanna START OVER. Again.

6 Lane: {You can’t tear up everything you write you know↑} otherwise of course you have [______________________] 7

to take (.) tranquilisers to calm down,

  Appendix B: Transcriptions  

257

8 Peter: It seems so futile, I was supposed to be finished by now. (1.25) Next week is

9

Labour Da:y, I have to be back at my job the day after,

10 Lane: Oh if you wouldn’t let my mother seduce you,

11 Peter: { No her life would definitely make a fascinating book.} [__nod__] 12 Lane: {WHY:? What’s- WHAT’S SO FASCINATING about her frivolous existence, that

13

she LEFT MY FATHER } who was {a (.) wonderful man for a gangster >who used

14

to beat ‘er up all the time, you think that’s< (.) compelling¿ was it the shooting,

15

>because you know that wasn’t fascinating,< that- THAT WAS PATHETIC.= (Peter’s head nod:

[________]

(Lane’s head nods:

[________________________]

16 Peter: { =Maybe it’s that she’s a survi:vor. °And the book I’m trying to write is about [___nod_______] 17

survivors.°= [________]

18 Lane: =You’re right. She’s a survivor. {She went on with her life, but I get stuck with the [__nod_______]

19

20 (1.0)

nightmares.}

258 

Appendix B: Transcriptions

21 Lloyd: Excuse me. (1.0) Uh (0.75) {Diane} wanted some ice cubes {and (0.75) you [________________] 22

[____]

seemed to be out.

23 Lane: Uhm, (0.50) there’s a (.) there’s an ice machine {just out- outside the back door.} [___points___________________] 24 (2.50) [_Lloyd’s head nod__] 25 Lloyd: {And you’re wro:ng if you think your mother didn’t suffer terribly over that whole [___________○___________] 26

affair. .Hhh}

27 (8.0)

28 Lane: °°Right. Poor thing.°° >°She experienced a little hearing loss in her left ear from

29

the gunshot.< Noise trauma.°

30 Peter: {°The only point I wanted to make} and I didn’t mean {to upset you, (1.25) .hhh is [__head shake____] 31

[that]

32 Lane: [.Hhh]

33 Peter:

  Appendix B: Transcriptions   34

259

and this is just one of the cruelties of living.°

35 Lane: Right. And in your book that idea is moving. (1.50) .hhh >But the story of a [____] (head nod) 36

(head shake)

[__________]

fourteen-year old girl who kills her mother’s lover is< (1.20) {sleazy. And the trial [________] (head shake)

37

was sleazy, and he was sleazy,} and- and (0.94) my mother was (0.70) [______head shake______________]

38

completely {unconcerned.

39 Peter: {°I’m sorry°, [________] (head shake) 40 (1.50)

41 Lane: °Huh. I’m sorry.° I- I’ll get you those pages. {And they’re goo:d you know, despite}

42

what you think. I’m not gonna let you tear them up,

“Husbands and Wives”, Scene 3 (00:01:52-00:02:52)

1 TV:

4 TV: = [(inaudible)]

5 Gabe: [No, he- he just plays hide-and-seek],

6 TV: Learn to write screenplays, (.) television scripts, (.) plays, (.) novels and...

7 Gabe: >Jesus, {they’re so full of it you know¿} You-you-you CAN’T TEACH {WRITING, [_____________] 8

it’s} not something you can TEACH, you know you can only expose the students to

9

good literature and hope it inspires them. The ones that can WRITE can WRITE

10

when they come to my class and the others never learn,
What makes it worth it is that (.) every now and then {you get a gifted pupil.

15

There’s- there’s this young girl in my class} who {wrote a (.) FABULOUS short [__________________]

16

story called “Oral Sex in the Age of Deconstruction” and it’s full of insights and

  Appendix B: Transcriptions   17

261

romantic and,
gonna wanna take us for Chinese food again.={ [______________] 21 Judy: =I think Sally is getting a little {tired} of our pasta places.

“Melinda and Melinda”, Scene 4: (00:33:42-00:34:28)

1 Laurel: { Hi! What are you doin’ down here. [______________] 2 Lee: {I got it. I got the part. >The director just kept [insisting] and the producers finally [________________] 3

[______]

gave in.< ______]

4 Laurel:

[hhh]

5 Laurel: £ Oh that’s great Lee:: ↑ £

6 Lee: Finally a role I can make si:ng. >It’s a big shot for me Laurel,< } [_____________________○_]

[__points_________]

[____

262 

Appendix B: Transcriptions

7 Laurel: }I know, you’re certainly natural for the character¿ [_____] 8 (0.5)

9 Lee: Oh why would you say that.

10 Laurel: You’ve said it {like a hundred times. [_____] 11 Lee: I said I could act the hell out of it. {>The character’s a [loser.h[Let’s] not fight about this. [___________________]

13

I just meant that {nobody can play the part like you can.Lee, I’m really really happy for you. I know how much you wanted this. [________________] 18

}Can’t we just leave it at that¿< [__________]

19 Lee: I-I-I’m WIRED. (1.25) I didn’t mean to seem snappish. °Shall we {get dinner and [___________]

[____________]

[___________________

  Appendix B: Transcriptions   20

263

celebrate,°} _________]

21 Laurel: Oh aren’t you forgetting. Tonight’s Cassie’s party. [__________________] 22 (0.5)

23 Lee: Oh °yeah right. Okey. Je:sus.° I think it’s time Melinda {met someone (.) moved on, [__________] 24

I’d like a little privacy} in the apartment.

(Laurel’s nod:

[_____________] )

“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”, Scene 5 (00:06:22-00:07:24)

1 Roy: I’ve had it with that goddamned job. [_______] 2 Sally: Wha:t?=

3 Roy: =THAT’S IT, I QUIT,

4 Sally: Oh please Roy not this conversation again↑

5 (1.0)

6 Sally: {What are you doing home anyway,

[_○_____]

264 

Appendix B: Transcriptions

7 Roy: Ohh

8 Sally: Wha’ happened?

9 (0.75)

10 Roy: I had an {accident today. I smashed up the car.} [__________] 11 Sally: Wha:t?

12 Roy: {I CAN’T WRITE all night and- and- and then- and then drive in the daytime↑ [__________________] [_______________________________________] 13

>you know I fell asleep at the wheel.I can’t handle it} if it’s [____________] [________] [________________________________ 24

confirmed, yet again {that all those nice things predicted about me were wro:ng,} _______________________________________________________________]

25

that I was {a flash in the pan,< [______________________]

26 Sally: Well (.) stalling (.)} is not the answer. [_○___] 27 Roy: Yeah. °Jesus Christ↓°

28 Sally: {You know (.) all my friends have families. AND WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE¿ [_____________________________] 29

(.) I mean (.) hhh. (.) one way or the other I want to move on with our lives.} [__________]

Roy’s head shake:

[__________________________________________]

[_______________]

Index1

A

C

Action formation, 4, 110, 136, 138, 142, 144–145, 157–158, 163–164, 173–175, 182–184 Adjacency pairs, 63, 66, 71, 78, 80–82, 84, 86–89, 91, 107, 109, 124, 125, 129, 214, 234, 244 Artistic purpose, 2, 42–44, 49 Audience, 1, 3, 9, 45, 47, 92 Auditory, 1, 20, 38, 108 Auteur, 19, 41, 245

Camera work, 3n1, 44, 45 Characterisation, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 114, 235, 239, 245 Cinematic discourse, 3, 5, 7–9, 11, 14–19, 22, 25, 35–37, 39, 41, 91, 92, 108, 110, 183, 191, 208, 235, 236, 238, 239, 243, 245–248 Collaboration, 8, 11, 17, 22, 214, 220, 234, 235, 238, 239 Comedy, 24, 25, 41, 46, 47, 246 Communication, 1, 4, 7, 9, 12, 16, 21, 38, 96, 187, 191, 208 Communicative context, 12 Conventions, 10, 38, 39

B

Batons, 190, 192, 193, 196, 200, 201, 203, 206, 208 Body language, 1

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. Chepinchikj, Interactional Approach to Cinematic Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00945-7

267

268 Index

Conversational floor, 61, 68, 71, 85, 102, 103, 117, 126, 145, 169, 237 Conversational language, 10 Conversation analysis, 2, 8, 14, 36, 236n1, 247 Corpus linguistics, 14 Cuts, 23, 45, 71 D

Data set, 3, 38, 49 Diegesis, 3, 8, 9, 92, 191, 235, 243, 246, 248 Diegetic, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10–15, 19, 22, 25, 36, 37, 39, 57, 60, 61, 77, 90, 91, 95, 97, 103, 105, 107, 108, 111, 113, 114, 118, 120, 123, 124, 127, 129, 136, 137, 145, 155, 157, 162, 174, 183, 184, 190, 195, 200, 201, 207, 208, 213–215, 225, 229, 233, 235–238, 243–248 Diegetic interactions, 3, 4, 8, 10–13, 15, 22, 25, 37, 57, 60, 61, 77, 90, 91, 95, 97, 103, 107, 108, 111, 118, 123, 124, 129, 136, 137, 175, 184, 190, 207, 208, 213, 214, 233, 235–238, 243–245, 247, 248 Discourse markers, 10 Disfluencies, 10, 12 Dispreferred response, 125 Double plane of communication, 7 Drama, 12, 21, 24, 25, 41, 42, 47, 214, 245, 246 Dyadic, 3, 3n2, 48, 92, 233, 245

E

Emblems, 190, 192, 197, 198 Embodied resources, 1–4, 12, 14–16, 18, 36, 38–40, 44, 57–59, 81, 108, 135, 138, 152, 187, 200, 201, 203, 207, 214, 217–219, 225, 235, 236, 243–245 Emergence, 11, 17, 92, 109, 247 Emergent, 17, 18, 59, 92, 236n1 Empirical, 36 Extra-diegetic, 3, 7, 8, 14, 19, 246 Eye contact, 137, 155, 162, 164, 171, 172 F

Facial expressions, 1, 8, 38, 39, 109, 190 Fictional, 7–9, 245 Film characters, 1, 8–10, 246 Film dialogues, 2, 3n1, 9–14, 38, 41, 92, 95, 213 Filmmaking, 7, 9, 19, 23, 25 First pair part, 63, 78, 98 G

Gaps, 2, 4, 62, 65, 66, 68, 72–75, 95, 96, 124–129, 205, 207, 243, 244 Gaze, 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 15–18, 38–40, 58, 73, 81, 135–138, 141–145, 141n1, 151, 152, 154–158, 162–164, 169–175, 179–184, 189, 192, 195, 196, 198, 201, 202, 206, 208, 215–217, 219, 225, 228–230, 232, 233, 243, 244

 Index 

Gender, 3, 5, 14, 20, 108, 235–239, 238n2, 245, 247, 248 Genre, 4, 12, 13, 24, 25, 41, 43, 47, 214, 245 Gestures, 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 15, 38–40, 109, 163, 187–208, 192n2, 193n3, 207n4, 215, 225, 229, 232, 243 Grammar, 17, 58, 59 H

Hesitations, 10, 12, 190 Husbands and Wives, 3, 21, 35, 41, 44, 50, 60, 61, 68–71, 77, 84–85, 96, 101–103, 116–117, 158–164, 184, 199–201, 208, 222–225, 237, 238, 244 I

Ideographs, 190, 192, 196, 201–206, 208 Illustrators, 190, 193–196, 198, 200, 201, 204–207 Improvisation, 22 Inbreaths, 2, 84 Insert expansion, 78 Interact, 1, 13, 96, 233, 235, 245 Interactants, 2, 4, 17, 109–111, 234 Interaction, 2, 3n2, 4, 8, 10, 11, 15–18, 36–41, 44, 48–51, 57–92, 97–101, 103–129, 106n1, 135–140, 142–152, 154–168, 170–183, 187, 188, 190–203, 205–208, 213, 215, 217–219, 222,

269

224–231, 233–239, 236n1, 243–248 Interactional features, 3, 18, 35, 36, 101, 207, 215–217, 220–223, 225–227, 230–233, 237, 243–245, 247, 248 Interactional goals, 5, 213–215, 218, 219, 222, 225, 229, 233–235, 237, 238, 245 Interactional linguistics, 14, 110 Interiors, 3, 21, 25, 35, 41–44, 49, 50, 60, 62–65, 77, 79–81, 84, 97–99, 108, 111–113, 124–126, 138–145, 183, 192–195, 215–218, 237, 238 Interlocutor, 2, 60, 69, 87, 92, 99, 102, 103, 105, 110, 115, 138, 141n1, 142–145, 151, 155, 157, 158, 161–164, 169, 173–175, 180, 181, 183, 184, 189, 203, 208, 214, 216–220, 224–226, 229, 235, 238, 244 Interruptions, 12, 49, 62, 64, 68, 92, 103 Inter-turn gap, 67, 68, 72, 74, 76, 83, 88, 98, 99, 124, 125, 141 Intonation, 2, 38, 61, 65, 70, 80, 89, 95, 108–122, 155, 170, 175, 218, 228 Intonation contour, 65, 70, 110–112, 175 L

Latching, 62, 64–66, 69, 71–73, 75, 76, 80, 83, 91, 196, 225

270 Index M

Melinda and Melinda, 3, 21, 35, 41, 45, 47, 50, 60, 71–74, 77, 86–87, 91, 103–105, 107, 108, 118–120, 164–174, 201–203, 207n4, 208, 225–230, 234, 237, 244 Metaphoric gestures, 189, 190 Methodology, 35, 236n1 Modalities, 2, 8, 188n1 Multimodal, 2, 3n1, 7, 8, 14–17, 36, 39, 40, 58, 59, 217, 244, 246–248 Multimodal analysis, 14, 40 Multimodality, 8, 14, 16, 17, 246, 248 Mutual gaze, 2, 137 N

Narrative purpose, 2–5, 7–10, 12, 13, 45, 91, 92, 95, 107, 111, 123, 235, 245 Naturally-occurring interaction, 2, 3, 10–13, 17, 36–38, 41, 57, 91, 92, 97, 137, 184, 191, 214, 233, 247, 248 Non-verbal resources, 1, 2, 8–10, 14, 39n1, 84, 90, 190, 191, 205, 207 O

On-screen interactions, 2, 8, 12, 14, 22, 25, 158, 243

Other-initiated repair, 79, 89n2 Outbreaths, 2, 205, 207 Overlaps, 12, 62, 64, 70, 72, 73, 216 P

Pace, 2, 38, 61, 108, 110, 111, 113–120, 122, 155, 175, 218 Participant role, 138 Participants, 3, 3n2, 5, 8, 15, 15n1, 17, 18, 38, 48, 50, 51, 59, 61, 69, 73, 79, 82, 87, 88, 91, 92, 97, 99, 101, 103, 108, 109, 113, 115, 116, 118–121, 123, 136–138, 142, 145, 155–158, 162–164, 169–175, 179, 182, 183, 191, 194, 197, 198, 201–203, 206, 207, 213, 214, 217, 218, 220, 222, 224–227, 229, 230, 233–239, 236n1, 244, 245 Participation framework, 4, 138, 142–143, 153, 155–158, 162–163, 170, 172–173, 180–181, 183 Pauses, 2, 38, 62, 65, 91, 124, 126–128, 155, 217 Perform, 2, 15, 15n1, 22, 39, 45, 95, 106, 115, 120, 123, 198, 213, 215, 217, 225, 230, 234, 243, 244, 246 Performance, 2, 5, 8, 10–13, 22–24, 92, 107, 123, 191, 214, 237, 246–248 Performative, 2, 233, 237, 248 Pitch, 2, 38, 74, 112, 113, 116–118, 120–122, 155, 218 Plot, 5, 9, 43, 44, 91, 235

 Index 

Post-expansion, 67n1, 78, 79, 85 Pragmatic actions, 4 Pragmatic gestures, 189, 203 Pragmatics, 37, 213 Pre-expansion, 78 Prosodic features, 2, 4, 37, 38, 95, 97, 109, 110, 112–121, 123, 151, 152, 200, 207, 218, 219, 225, 243, 244 Prosody, 2, 4, 10, 17, 18, 38, 95, 108–116, 118–123, 207, 215, 217, 227, 233 R

Reality code, 11 Recipiency, 18 Recipient, 17, 18, 61, 62, 72, 79, 83, 89n2, 97, 110, 124, 129, 136–138, 141, 142, 145, 152–154, 156, 158, 162–164, 171, 172, 175, 179, 188, 191, 195, 200, 208, 225, 234 Regulators, 190, 197, 198, 208 Repair, 72, 73, 79, 86, 89, 89n2, 90, 104, 170 Repairable, 79, 89n2, 104 Represented interactions, 2, 14, 48, 92, 110, 123, 213, 214, 246 Represented participants, 2, 4, 8, 11, 48, 49, 51, 68, 95, 108, 114, 142, 183, 184, 191, 207, 208, 214, 218, 233, 235, 237, 239, 244–248 Reshoots, 23 Resources, 2, 4, 8–10, 12, 14–18, 36, 38–40, 57–59, 65, 81,

271

110, 111, 137, 143, 162, 188, 208, 214, 243, 245 Retakes, 23 S

Second pair part, 63, 67n1, 78, 88, 153 Self-selection, 62, 66, 68, 69, 71, 74, 77, 85, 102 Semiotic, 8, 14–16, 38–40, 58, 137, 187, 188, 191 September, 3, 21, 35, 41, 43, 44, 48, 50, 60, 66–68, 77, 81–84, 97, 99–101, 108, 113–116, 124, 126–129, 145–158, 183, 195–199, 218–220, 238, 244 Sequence organisation, 4, 67, 67n1, 77–85, 88, 103–107, 109, 110, 114, 118–124, 143–145, 154, 164, 169, 170, 173–175, 179, 181, 182, 196, 203, 206, 208, 216, 218, 219, 224, 228, 229, 233, 244 Social actions, 1–4, 15, 37, 109, 111, 113, 115–120, 122, 123, 143, 154, 213–223, 225–227, 230–235, 237–239, 243–245 Speaker, 11, 15n1, 16–18, 59–64, 66–69, 67n1, 71, 72, 74–77, 79, 83, 90, 91, 96, 97, 101, 109, 110, 117, 123–126, 129, 136–138, 141, 141n1, 142, 145, 151, 152, 154, 156, 158, 162–164, 169–171, 175, 183, 188, 189, 191, 196, 200, 201, 208, 234

272 Index

Speakership, 16, 129, 152, 169, 170, 175 Speech, 2, 8–10, 12, 15–18, 37–39, 57, 58, 61, 73, 79, 85, 90, 95, 102, 104, 108, 109, 111–120, 122–125, 127, 137, 141, 144, 171, 174, 175, 188–190, 192–194, 200–203, 205–208, 213, 216, 218, 244 Speech acts, 214 Spoken language, 2 Spontaneous interactions, 3, 9, 11, 13, 17, 22, 23, 38, 57, 91, 92, 107, 114, 125, 187, 207, 213, 235 Stance, 10, 111, 113–120, 123, 200, 205, 206, 228 Story world, 3 Style, 7, 18–25, 45, 71 T

Talk-in-interaction, 37, 69, 105, 114, 213, 217, 236n1 Telecinematic discourse, 12, 39, 247 Temporality, 17 Topic shifts, 3, 4, 68, 69, 72, 80, 81, 83, 86, 89, 95–108, 113, 114, 117–120, 123, 125, 126, 143, 151, 155, 156, 162, 169, 189, 215–219, 224, 229, 231, 233, 237, 243, 244 Transcription, 36–40, 39n1, 111, 118, 193n3 Transduction, 39 Turn allocation, 4, 61, 62, 66, 71, 74, 77, 91, 244

Turn-constructional units, 58, 100, 141, 198 Turn design, 16, 107, 128 Turn distribution, 4 Turn location, 16 Turn organisation, 4, 61, 77 Turns-at-talk, 17, 40, 58–60, 64–66, 77, 101, 124, 183, 206, 208, 243 Turn structure, 4, 57, 58, 60, 90 Turn-taking, 15n1, 58, 61, 64, 109, 243 Turn transition, 4, 61–77, 91, 124, 244 U

Uptake, 4, 99, 105, 107, 108 Utterance, 15n1, 18, 69, 109, 110, 114, 143, 157, 188, 188n1, 189, 198, 232 V

Verbal resources, 1–4, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 21, 36–39, 39n1, 59, 90, 95, 122, 151, 152, 156, 182, 191, 200, 205, 214, 217, 218, 224, 225, 229, 231, 233, 236, 243–245, 247 Verisimilitude, 12, 41, 214 Visual, 1, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 20, 21, 36, 40, 59, 143, 151, 152, 154–157, 162–164, 171, 179, 181, 183, 188, 189, 192, 227, 247

 Index 

Volume, 2, 38, 108, 111–113, 116, 118, 119, 155, 218 Vowel sound elongation, 38, 116, 122 W

Word stress, 2, 38, 108, 111–113, 115–122, 218, 229

Y

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, 3, 21, 35, 41, 47, 51, 60, 74–77, 88–92, 97, 105–108, 120–123, 174–184, 203–209, 207n4, 230–235, 237, 238, 244

273