Interaction and Mobility: Language and the Body in Motion 9783110291278, 9783110291148

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Interaction and Mobility linguae & litterae

20

linguae & litterae Publications of the School of Language & Literature Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

Edited by

Peter Auer · Gesa von Essen · Werner Frick Editorial Board Michel Espagne (Paris) · Marino Freschi (Rom) Ekkehard König (Berlin) Michael Lackner (Erlangen-Nürnberg) Per Linell (Linköping) · Angelika Linke (Zürich) Christine Maillard (Strasbourg) · Lorenza Mondada (Basel) Pieter Muysken (Nijmegen) · Wolfgang Raible (Freiburg) Monika Schmitz-Emans (Bochum)

20

De Gruyter

Interaction and Mobility Language and the Body in Motion

Edited by Pentti Haddington, Lorenza Mondada and Maurice Nevile

De Gruyter

ISBN 978-3-11-029114-8 e-ISBN 978-3-11-029127-8 ISSN 1869-7054 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. ” 2013 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen 앝 Printed on acid-free paper 앪 Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

v

Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transcription conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

vii ix

PART I: Introduction Pentti Haddington, Lorenza Mondada and Maurice Nevile Being mobile: Interaction on the move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3

PART II: Staging and collaborating for mobility Dirk vom Lehn Withdrawing from exhibits: The interactional organisation of museum visits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

65

Mathias Broth & Fredrik Lundström A Walk on the pier: Establishing relevant places in mobile instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

91

Elwys De Stefani The collaborative organisation of next actions in a semiotically rich environment: Shopping as a couple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Maurice Nevile Seeing on the move: Mobile collaboration on the battlefield . . . . . 152 PART III: Projecting and engaging mobility Pentti Haddington Projecting mobility: Passengers directing drivers at junctions . . . . . 179 Eric Laurier Before, in and after: Cars making their way through roundabouts . . 210 PART IV: Coordinating and controlling mobility Inka Koskela, Ilkka Arminen & Hannele Palukka Centres of coordination as a nexus of aviation . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

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Contents

Christian Licoppe and Julien Morel Interactionally generated encounters and the accomplishment of mutual proximity in mobile phone conversations . . . . . . . . . 277 Lorenza Mondada Coordinating mobile action in real time: The timely organisation of directives in video games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 PART V: Creating and performing mobility Leelo Keevallik Here in time and space: Decomposing movement in dance instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher & Drew Hemment The sociality of stillness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 PART VI: Epilogue Paul McIlvenny Interacting outside the box: Between social interaction and mobilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409 Person index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 Subject index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

Acknowledgements

The first steps in the journey of this book were taken in Oulu, Finland in June 2008. We thank our colleague Tiina Keisanen, from the University of Oulu, who took part in the earliest thinking and planning but unfortunately was unable to continue her involvement because of other commitments. Since then we have come a long way and would not have completed the journey without the help of many colleagues and institutions. We thank the publisher Walter de Gruyter for taking this book into its publication programme, and acknowledge especially Professor Peter Auer for his vital support as the series editor for Linguae et Litterae. We are grateful also to the external reviewers of the draft chapters, and to two scholars who were kind enough to review the whole book manuscript. We thank other individuals for their input along the way. We are grateful to Paul McIlvenny for writing an epilogue which engages so richly with both the chapters and the scholarly literature across numerous fields. Paul also convened activities for the PlaceMe network (2006–2009) which were important for encouraging the interests and thinking of some contributors. Early in the book project we received valuable feedback from Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, while at the end we were fortunate to have Taavi Sundell, at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, attend to copy-editing the manuscript. The support of institutions and organisations has also been important. Pentti Haddington thanks the University of Oulu, the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and the Emil Aaltonen Foundation for providing assistance, infrastructure and funding. Lorenza Mondada thanks the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies and the ICAR research Lab in Lyon for continuous support. Maurice Nevile thanks the Australian National University for a grant which enabled travel to Europe for editorial meetings. Maurice also thanks the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oulu, and colleagues Pentti Haddington and Elise Kärkkäinen, for funding support as the book was completed. Finally, we remember the importance of the patience and support of our friends, colleagues, families and closest ones.

Transcription conventions

ix

Transcription conventions

In this book, the transcriptions of talk are based on the conventions originally developed by Gail Jefferson (see e.g. Atkinson and Heritage 1984, Jefferson 2004) and which are now broadly used in conversation analysis and across disciplines. The multimodal and embodied details of interaction are transcribed differently across the chapters, and each chapter provides its own conventions for these features.

1.

Temporal and sequential relationships

Overlapping or simultaneous talk is indicated in a variety of ways: [

Separate left square brackets on two successive lines indicate the onset of overlapping talk by two or more different speakers.

]

Separate right square brackets on two successive lines indicate the point where overlapping talk ends.

=

Equal signs indicate talk – either from the same speaker or another speaker – which comes immediately after previous talk has ended (i.e. there is no pause between utterances; previous talk latches with following talk).

(0.5)

Numbers in parentheses indicate silence in seconds and tenths of a second. Silences can occur within or between utterances.

(.)

A dot in parentheses indicates a less than 0.2-second “micropause”.

2.

Aspects of speech delivery, including aspects of intonation

.

A period indicates a falling or final intonation contour (not necessarily the end of an utterance).

’

A comma indicates slightly rising intonation.

x

Transcription conventions

?

A question mark indicates rising intonation (not necessarily a question).

¿

An upside down question mark indicates a rise that is stronger than a comma but less strong than a question mark.

:::

Colons indicate that a preceding sound is stretched. More colons indicate longer stretching.

–

A hyphen after a word or part of a word indicates a cut-off or self-interruption.

WHAT?

All caps indicate loud voice quality.

hello

Underlining indicates that the underlined segment of talk is stressed or produced with high pitch. More underlining indicates greater stress.

°

A degree sign around a segment of talk indicates quiet or soft speech.

°°

Two degree signs indicate that talk between between them is markedly quieter or softer than surrounding talk.

F

The upward arrow indicates rise in pitch.

G

The downward arrow indicates fall in pitch.

>
go to that area and paint it?>> 13 all fig

* (2.0) # (1.0) * *Walk towards gate* #fig.1.4

Figure 1.1

Figure 1.2

Figure 1.3

Figure 1.4

A walk on the pier: Establishing relevant places in mobile instruction

97

The two utterances ska vi förklara hur’e fungerar [‘(then) shall we explain how it works’] by Arne and ja tack gärna [‘yes please, I’d love to’] by which Benny treats Arne’s action as an offer that he can accept (l. 5 and 6) constitute a verbal sequence that establishes a common alignment between the participants with regard to what should be done next. This is also underscored by the quick and “preferred” production of the second part of the sequence (l. 6, cf. Sacks 1987). What is established for the immediate future, and to which this sequence can indeed be seen as a pre-sequence (Sacks 1992 (1): 685), is thus an instructive activity of some duration whereby Arne will explain to Benny how things work on the pier. As Benny takes a small step backwards (l. 7), Arne and Benny are now positioned side-by-side and facing the gate leading out to the pier (figures 1.1 and 1.2). They thus also project a direction for their imminent instructive activity (cf. Kendon 1990). At this point, the recording is unfortunately somewhat damaged, which means that we only get fragments of their initial talk about the keys to the pier, which we can guess to be something like “then we’ll start here, with the keys” (l. 9). Talking about the keys as he takes them out of his pocket, Arne projects an upcoming relocation to the place where the keys can be used, i.e. to the gate, and somewhere during the damaged part he has also started to walk. Arne’s formulation “start here” also indicates an agenda of future instructions, to be added to the present one, at other places. As Arne begins to move forward, Benny seems to suggest that the participants have a look at a piece of paper – maybe a contract – that he begins to take out of his pocket (figure 1.3). To this, Arne however replies that they will deal with that later (l. 11), and thereby also projects a future end-point for the upcoming instructive activity. Walking towards the gate, Arne now declares that to says “Let’s walk across the pier (first) (l. 12)” and thus also projects that what will take place after and beyond the gate will be a mobile rather than a stationary activity. He is soon followed by Benny and then also by Kalle. They move forward as a “vehicular unit” (Goffman 1963) where the order in which they walk reflects and constitutes their participation in the emerging activity: as the current and also projected instructor, Arne goes first and leads the way; as the instructed participant, Benny follows him. Kalle goes last, filming the interaction between the two others (figure 1.4). 3.2.

The first stop

The party comes to a first halt at the gate. In this section, we aim to demonstrate an orientation towards this being the “first stop”, and that it will be followed by further movement out across the pier. This is part of the situated

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Mathias Broth and Fredrik Lundström

meaning of this physical place, and this projection about future movement outwards is manifested on several occasions in the embodied behaviour of all three participants. Excerpt (2) shows the transition from walking to standing as well as the first moments of the interaction at the gate: Excerpt (2) The Pier [17:32:22–17:32:33] 17 ARN: arn ben 18 ARN: fig 19 ARN: arn 20 BEN: 21 ARN: arn -> 22 KAL:

här börjar vi. (0.4)$(1.2)+ nyckeln, We begin here The key $stops +stops (0.9) kan va# lite trög (emellanåt). (° can be a bit stiff sometimes #fig.2.1

°)

(1.2)$(0.2)(så) går man in, (then) you enter $opens door-----------> (0.8) ta[ck ] thanks [var]så god, (0.8)$(0.2) var så go:d You’re welcome please enter -------opens door---------$

ka1 fig

#©(0.5) >tackar< (1.2)#(1.2) thank you ©moves forwards through gate..-> #fig.2.2 #fig.2.3

ka1 -> fig Com

#(1.0))©*#(0.2) >sen när man< går ©in, Then when you enter .......©stops, --camera steady----©brief pan right-> #fig.2.4 #2.5 *((door slam))

23

24 ARN: ka1 -> fig

(1.2) så lå#ser man© direkt #efter se, (0.2)#© you lock right away behind you .................. ©quick pan towards gate....© #fig.2.6 #fig.2.7 fig.2.8#

A walk on the pier: Establishing relevant places in mobile instruction

Figure 2.1

Figure 2.2

Figure 2.3

Figure 2.4

Figure 2.5

Figure 2.6

99

As the group approaches the gate, Arne turns his head in Benny’s direction and says här börjar vi [‘we begin here’] (l. 17). The deictic pronoun “here” verbally marks the place at which they are now arriving. Beginning on the word börjar [‘begin’] Arne starts to slow down and comes to a halt (during the pause in l. 17). Arne thus establishes that this is where the previously projected instruction will begin. It is also at this point that a subdivision into smaller instructive segments of the projected global activity of “walking

100

Figure 2.7

Mathias Broth and Fredrik Lundström

Figure 2.8

across the pier” to a specific place is first initiated. The place at the gate is thus categorised as a beginning, after which more instructions will be given, at other places. Following Arne, Benny slows down and stops behind him (l. 17). Having fallen slightly behind during this short walk, Kalle catches up with Arne and Benny to produce a medium range shot as they stand by the gate (figure 2.1). Instructing about the key (l. 18) and how to open the gate, Arne also opens it and invites both Benny and Kalle to enter the pier with yet another instructive turn, så går man in, [‘then you enter’] (l. 19), which is finished in a rising list-like, continuing intonation. As Benny passes through the gate, he glances to his right where a billboard is placed (figure 2.2), and continues a bit further out onto the pier before stopping. Coming to a halt, Benny now turns his body back again, monitoring the actions of Arne, who is now closing the gate behind them (figure 2.4). Kalle has followed Benny, and stops between him and Arne with his camera directed outwards (l. 22; figures 2.3 and 2.4). At this point, then, both Benny and Kalle project further walking outwards while simultaneously waiting for Arne to lead the group in the same mobile configuration as before. However, rather than just close the gate and retake the lead outwards, Arne embodies his closing of the gate as a second piece of instruction, formulating and himself also enacting a recommended behaviour. He refocuses Benny’s attention on the gate and the key, first by när man går in [‘when you enter’], then, after a pause, så låser man direkt efter se [‘then you lock right away behind you’] (ll. 23–24). This instruction also attracts Kalle’s attention, who redirects his camera about 180° to shoot Arne at the gate (ll. 23–24; figures 2.4–2.8). In this context of projected further movement outwards, away from the gate, Arne nevertheless manages, by segmenting his talk in this way, to first achieve a return of shared attention to the gate and then perform a second piece of instruction about it.

A walk on the pier: Establishing relevant places in mobile instruction

101

Soon afterward, there is also a third instruction at roughly the same physical location. This time the instruction does not concern the gate, but the billboard that is mounted just inside of the gate to the right of it seen from the entrance, excerpt (3): Excerpt (3) The Pier [17:32:50–17:32:55] 43 ARN: kal fig 44 ARN: arn ben kal -> fig Com 45 ARN: arn ->

Figure 3.1

sen kollar man hä:©#r¿ then you look here moves outw on pier©pans left.. -> #fig.3.1 +(0.3)*#$(0.6) kan de #©sitta: (.) si+tta små= there can be be small $....-points at billboard----------> +steps forward-----------------------+ ....pans left..........©-stable shot------>>> #fig.3.2 #fig.3.3 ((Kalle frames Arne at * in l.44)) =med$delanden om du e här¿ messages if you are here ---,,,$ retracts hand

Figure 3.2

Figure 3.3

The beginning of Arne’s utterance, sen kollar man här¿, [‘then you look here’] (l. 43) contextualises it as projecting a new piece of instruction at this place in the series of instructions that has already been initiated earlier. Just like before, Arne’s utterance can be seen to attract the attention of both Benny and Kalle: Benny moves closer to the billboard (l. 44) to look at the precise area at which Arne now points, and Kalle, who has momentarily abandoned framing Arne and Benny while changing positions on the pier, quickly frames them again, which implies that he treats this as relevant for the recording (end of line 43 and line 44; figures 3.1–3.3). The participants remain spatially configured in this way for some time, as Arne expands on the instructions relative to the billboard. Soon enough,

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Mathias Broth and Fredrik Lundström

however, the participants again embody a projection of further walking out onto the pier from this first stop (excerpt 4): Excerpt (4) The Pier [17:33:13-17:33:21] 68 ARN: arn 69 ARN: arn -> 70 BEN: ben fig 71 ARN: ben -> fig 72 ARN: arn 73 BEN: ben

Figure 4.1

hh sen få@r man gärna ringa ti mej@eller vice hamn= (and) then you can always call me or the vice wharf @--points at billboard---@--taps board---> =che[fen. eller var#+vs chef]en@= captain or the wharfcaptain -------taps board----------------@ [(om de har varit nånting)] if there has been anything +step back,,,,-> #fig.4.1 =om de ha vari nåt. så att vi+# e= if there’s been anything so that we’re ,,,,,step back,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,+ #4.2 =informerade om@va som händ@er$på[bryggan va.+] informed about what’s going on on the pier, right $......-gaze Ben->>> @.step forw.@ [ ( y e s )+]mm +nod

Figure 4.2

The way the participants are positioned at first, sustaining a spatial configuration established for dealing with instructions that require a close focus on the billboard, does not readily project further walking. In fact, in the current spatial configuration, Benny blocks Arne’s path should he want to continue walking. However, as soon as Arne disengages from the billboard by introducing talk that focuses on the circumstances under which it would be

A walk on the pier: Establishing relevant places in mobile instruction

103

appropriate to contact board members of the club, Benny provides an anticipatory completion (Lerner 1996) of that talk (l. 70). By formulating independently the conditions under which it would be appropriate to call one of the responsible persons, Benny displays that he accepts and understands what Arne is saying and thus does not need more instructions of this matter. He then immediately takes a step back, during which he also turns his body a bit to the left but still keeps his gaze directed to the billboard (ll. 70–71, figures 4.1 and 4.2, cf. Schegloff 1998 on “body torque”).1 By stepping back, Benny seems to deal simultaneously with two distinct practical problems. A first one may be, somewhat speculatively, to include Kalle in the interaction, by opening up the interactional space to him and making Arne visible for his camera (the space was previously closed because Benny had his back turned to Kalle during the close examination of the billboard). A second task is – more demonstrably (see below) – to project a closing of the part of the overall instruction that is performed at this particular place. As such, it also manifests an expectation of, and makes further relevant, continued walking out onto the pier. As a move to establish the necessary spatial conditions (cf. Mondada 2009) for closing what we will henceforth call “talk-at-this-place”, Benny’s step may be considered a “closing projecting” move. Such moves have been shown to create last opportunities for hitherto untreated matters in the current conversation to be brought up before moving on to actually closing it down (cf. Schegloff and Sacks 1973 on “pre-closings”). However, in order to account for the closing projecting move in our case, where what is projected is of course not the closing down of the conversation as such but only the talk and activity at this particular place, we also need to bring mobility and the material surround into the sequential analysis of the participants’ interaction. When the proposal for departure (cf. vom Lehn this volume) is produced, Arne is not done talking at this place and thus not yet ready to resume walking. Although recognising the projection for further movement by taking himself a small step forward with which he redirects his body slightly away from the billboard (l. 72), he importantly also resists this projection by latching more talk to his turn and by withholding his gaze on Benny until and past a next possible completion point (end of l. 72; note Benny’s 1

Producing an if-clause that builds syntactically on Arne’s just prior then-clause, Benny treats Arne’s then-clause as a finished preliminary component to which a final component could now be added. This fact remains even though Arne is manifestly not done with the list of people that may be contacted by the time Benny initiates the anticipatory completion.

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verbal and nodding displays of understanding in l. 73). In this way, Arne does not yet align with the closing projection work that was initiated by Benny. Excerpt (5) represents what happens subsequently: Excerpt (5) The Pier [17:33:21-17:33:38] 74 ARN: arn ben fig 75 ARN: arn -> ben -> 76 ARN: arn 77 ARN: arn Com

+(0.2)+(0.2)MEN@(0.2)#för båten= BUT for the boat @ ...........--taps board--> +nods +.........gaze forw....--gaze billb./Arn-> #fig.5.1 =så ringer man ändå allti@först ti+ägaren. (1.0)+ you nevertheless always call first to the owner --taps board------------,@ --gaze at billboard/Arne----------+--nods-------+ (0.6) å sen @kan de komma lite andra: (1.4) and then there can be some other @ .......--points at board----->> @eh meddelanden här* eh messages here @..-gaze board..--gaze Benny--> * ((rec. interrupted 1.6 s))

78 ARN:

[–tagning ar@ å: (.) a: lite sånt ] där -takings and yeah some of those things arn -> --gaze Benny--------,,,--distant look forw.-->>> ->> ,,,,,,,,,,,,@retracts hand from board slow step RF, moves hip--> 79 BEN: [*(tagnin gar såna grejer) mm¿ allright ] takings and such things mm allright ben *--gaze Arne---,,,,,,,,......--gaze forward---> 80 BEN: ben -> arn -> fig

(0.4) mm¿ (0.3) *$(0.4) #(0.4)* --gaze forward--*..turns left.* step left foot---$--RF#fig.5.2

While nodding in agreement, Benny now averts his gaze to enter what we call a “frozen” posture (l. 74, cf. Büscher 2007). The freeze can be characterised as a more or less complete immobilisation of the body and a middle distance look that “looks at nothing in particular” (figure 5.1, cf. Heath 1986: 33). In this sequential context, the freeze can be taken to display that Benny is possibly done with matters at this place and ready to move on.

A walk on the pier: Establishing relevant places in mobile instruction

Figure 5.1

105

Figure 5.2

However, Arne continues to resist and instead expands his explanation, this time first pointing and soon also tapping (cf. Hindmarsh and Heath 2000: 1868) on the billboard. In response, Benny again positions himself as recipient by returning his gaze to the billboard (end of l. 74). After a short while, there is a second occurrence of Benny first displaying understanding of Arne’s talk by collaboratively completing it and then turning away from the board to once more embody a frozen posture (l. 79–80). This time, Arne collaborates in this possible withdrawal from the current place by retracting his pointing gesture from the billboard, shifting his gaze to look ahead, and slowly starting to walk forward. As the closing-down of the talk-at-thisplace is now well underway, Benny can now complete his body turn away from the billboard so that both participants face outwards (l. 80; figure 5.2). They have thus left the billboard behind them through close collaboration (cf. vom Lehn this volume). While briefly commenting on a passing boat (not shown in transcript) they then resume their common walk further out on the pier. In sum, then, the analysis of this first stop of the participants’ walk over the pier identified several moments where further walking was projected by Benny (and to some extent also by Kalle), but resisted and only finally aligned with by Arne, in and through the detailed and multimodal ways in which the participants organised their recorded instructive interaction at the gate (instructing about the gate before and after passing it; instructing about the billboard). The first stop was thus, in part, relevantly constituted as meaningful for the participants as a first one after which others will follow. The next section will deal with the ways in which Arne, Benny and Kalle make other physical places on the pier meaningful, now as possible “destinations” of their walk.

106 3.3.

Mathias Broth and Fredrik Lundström

The material surround as possible destinations

Walking away from the first stop with Benny and Kalle closely following him, Arne first deals with the issue of how to attach the boats to the pier. This activity includes a short stop in order to examine an example of what he is talking about, but he soon continues to walk, and talk continues on the mooring topic. Without stopping, Arne refers to several areas on the pier in instructing Benny about how to make fast a boat. Soon, Arne picks up the pace and several relatively long pauses (ranging from 1.8–7.6 seconds) occur as the two participants walk. Thus, globally during these moments, the character of the interaction would imply that Arne is heading somewhere. However, neither Benny nor Kalle are yet in a position to know just where he is leading them. An important part of this introductory and instructive walk on the pier proves to be to establish where on the pier Benny’s future mooring place will be, and also what number that particular place is. For organisational purposes, mooring places are given numbers, and these numbers are visible on metal plates fixed to the pier by each mooring place. These numbers are also tied to boat owners on a list, which is consultable, for instance, at the billboard that the participants discussed previously (see 3.2). As we will see below, Arne and Benny will treat two different mooring places on the pier as possible future ones for Benny’s boat, which then gives us a small collection of the ways in which the activity of deciding on and offering a mooring place, and hence in fact also establishing the destination of their walk, is linked to contingencies regarding the material surround. A first possible mooring place is approached as the participants still walk rather decidedly down the pier, excerpt (6):

Excerpt (6) The pier [17:35:24–17.35.45] 219 ARN: då va’re mycke spring. then there was much running about 220 ARN: (0.5) FAN HA HAN inte flytta på sin båt än. damn it hasn’t he moved his boat yet 221 ARN: (.2)@(.8)@(.4)+(.2)>så där< kan han ju inte göra, like that he can not do right arn @RF @LF stops ben + stops 222 ARN: (2.7) fa::an, damn it

A walk on the pier: Establishing relevant places in mobile instruction

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223 ARN: (3.0)$(0.4) aja. (.)+skit samma, alright then never mind arn $...walks-------------------->>> ben +....walks---->>> 224 ARN: (.) (då ha jag en (.) annan plats.) (then I have another place) 225 BEN: (1.8) a ja: (.) >kommer inte< å ta hit’en= well I won’t bring it here 226 BEN: på ett tag än, (.) så de gör ingenting. yet for a while so it doesn’t matter

Seeing a boat ahead that, apparently, should already have been removed from its mooring place, Arne comments on this by a rhetorical question displaying what might be called “annoyed surprise” (FAN HA HAN inte flytta på sin båt än. [‘damn it hasn’t he moved his boat yet’]) (l. 220) and slows down. Coming to a halt before that particular boat, he further states that this is not admissible behaviour by the boat’s owner (l. 221). After a longish pause during which Arne is “doing thinking” with Benny standing silently beside him, Arne displays, by means of a stretched but not otherwise stressed swear word (fa::an, [‘damn it’] (l. 222), that that particular boat’s presence at that particular mooring place is problematic. A reason for the problem is however not yet made explicit to Benny, who may have some trouble finding this out. After another long pause (l. 223), Arne seems to accept this new and unexpected fact, resumes walking further down the pier and indicates that he has “another” mooring place that he can offer Benny (l. 224). “Another mooring place” retrospectively implies that the place at which they had just stopped was his first option for a mooring place to offer Benny. He thus finally makes it clear just why that particular boat’s presence was problematic. At this point, Arne’s resumed walking is now accountable as an effort to take Benny to another possible mooring place, which is also displayed in Benny’s verbal reaction to Arne’s resumed walking (l. 225–226): as Benny does not intend to move his boat to the pier yet for a while, it doesn’t matter that there is a boat at this first possible mooring place right now. He thus downplays the problematic character of the mooring place that they have already begun to leave. In order to fully understand what is happening in this sequence of talk, we argue that it is necessary to take not only the participants’ talk, but crucially also their mobility into account. The verbal action produced by Arne as he has already begun to walk away from this place (l. 224) is not so much a

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suggestion of another place (that Benny can accept or reject), than simply informing about the fact that he is now taking Benny to a second place that he will offer Benny. And Benny’s downplaying of the problems with the first mooring also has a “dated” ring to it, as it is produced as they are already leaving that particular mooring place for another one. A first possible destination of their walk is thus transformed into a non-destination, and Arne and Benny continue walking outwards on the pier. Soon afterwards, the participants arrive at the second possible mooring place (that was projected already in the previous extract, l. 224), excerpt (7): Excerpt (7) The Pier [17:35:50–17:35:56] 235 ARN:

kal fig

(.) HÄR. £*+(0.6) $tre&tt@in§[ie]$ Here thirty-nine £slows down..&turns................ -> $...points-,,,,$((at met. plate)) ....gaze to the right/down@gaze up at mooring-->>> [tr] etti#©nie. thirty-nine *slows down............§turns....-> +..--gaze at plate--,,,...-at moor.->>> ©pan r..-> #fig.7.1

arn -> ben -> kal -> fig

(0.5)#§*(0.5#)£& (0.2) ..............£&stops ......§*stops ............--stable shot of mooring-> #fig7.2#fig.7.3

arn

236 BEN: ben

237

238 ARN: Kal -> 239 ARN:

HÄR se’ru va som händer när man tar©= Here you see what happens when you --stable shot of mooring-----------© =i tamparna å dra:r. pull the tampers

Arne indicates that they have now arrived at the previously projected “another” place. He first begins to look to his right, and then quite suddenly slows down and says HÄR. [‘here’] (l. 235). The reference to the physical location of the mooring place at which they are arriving is thus embodied in Arne’s body, talk, and gaze. After a short pause, Arne also refers to the number of the mooring place, by briefly looking at and gesturing towards its metal plate, and, as he starts to look at the empty mooring place, by also pronouncing that number. In this way, Arne ties the physical location on

A walk on the pier: Establishing relevant places in mobile instruction

Figure 7.1

Figure 7.2

109

Figure 7.3

the pier to a particular number. Benny responds to both the locational and numeral referring to the mooring place: as Arne looks at the plate and produces his gesture towards it in front of him, Benny both slows down and looks down, and, turning to his right, he also pronounces the number of the mooring place as he, too, begins to look at the empty mooring place. By pronouncing the number even before Arne has finished pronouncing it himself (l. 236), Benny can display that he has already noted the number on the plate by their feet. Having come this far, Arne and Benny thus now stand looking at a particular empty mooring place, to the number of which both parties have just displayed a joint and multimodal orientation. They have identified the mooring place both in the physical surround and by the number in terms of which it can be tied, and offered, to a particular owner. Regarding Kalle, he orients to the local relevance of examining this particular empty mooring place, during the subsequent pause, by redirecting his camera to focus on it (ll. 236–238 and figures 7.1–7.3). The understanding that Arne, who is leading Benny, has indeed reached – in informing Benny about his future mooring place – the destination of his introductory walk, is confirmed by the ways in which he, a few moments later, initiates closing of talk-at-this-place. Excerpt (8): Excerpt (8) The Pier [17:36:37–17:36:40] 300

*(1.6)* A/B *Look at mooring place* 301 ARN: @ha? (0.2)§(0.2) OK, then arn @step right foot..@ 302 BEN: hur@långa e’$rom#hä:+r. How long are these ben §..point mooring......-----,,->>> +..-gaze A->>> arn $....-gaze moor--->>> fig #fig.8.1

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303 ARN: (0.3) fe@m meter.#@ five meters arn ......@LF.......@RF fig #fig.8.2

Figure 8.1

Figure 8.2

After discussing mooring technique at this particular mooring place, there is a moment during which both Arne and Benny stand looking at the mooring place in silence. Following a moment of silence, Arne utters ha? [translated here as ‘OK, then’], turns inwards, and takes a step in the direction of the gate (i.e. towards the camera, l. 301 and figure 8.1). He thereby treats talk at the mooring place as possibly complete, and projects, in an embodied way, closing of talk-at-this-place. As already pointed out above, such closing projective moves provide last opportunities for recipients to bring up additional matters before moving on to actual closing. Interestingly, an additional matter is indeed also raised by Benny at this precise point, which corroborates our analysis of Arne’s action as projecting a close of talk-at-this-place. In a way that is very finely coordinated to Arne’s activity, Benny begins to raise his hand just as Arne takes his first step away from the mooring place (l. 302). This raising of the hand will eventually end in a pointing gesture, the apex of which will soon coincide with the deictic pronoun in the question hur långa e’rom här. [‘How long are these?’], a question concerning the length of the bars at which boats are moored. As the object being questioned about is embodied by deictic reference (’rom här, [‘these’], coupled with gaze and a pointing gesture), the question invites Arne to return once more to consider the mooring place (in order to make sense of the utterance; cf. Goodwin 1986: 32), which he also does (l. 303; figure 8.2).2 So, by asking a question with deictic reference immedi2

cf. Hindmarsh and Heath (2000: 1863) for a similar analysis of embodied reference as inviting the attention of the recipient.

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ately after Arne’s projection of closing talk-at-this-place, Benny successfully delays returning towards the gate at this point to expand the current instructive activity at this place. Comparing the ways in which Arne and Benny approach, and initiate departure from, the two possible mooring places that we have considered, it is clear that they orient to a crucial difference between them: there is still a boat at the first place, whereas the second place is unoccupied. Approaching a possible mooring place that however proves to be occupied, Arne does not move on to treat it as their destination by offering it to Benny, whereas he does this when the possible mooring place is vacant. This material contingency is thus reflected in the way the emerging sequence of actions comes about. Initiating departure from these two places is also undertaken differently. In the first case, where an offer was never produced, Arne did not really negotiate the closing of talk-at-this-place, but continued walking quite autonomously with Benny following him. In contrast, in the second case, after having offered the mooring place to Benny we saw how Arne projected, in an embodied way, the closing of talk-at-this-place, which was then however resisted by Benny. Additionally, in these ways, Benny is attributed a right to know about the particular mooring place that he has just been offered. The last analytic section aims to demonstrate how stopping at a particular place on the pier can be oriented to as a “last stop in the current phenomenal environment”, that accomplishes the conditions for closing the instructive and introductory walk on the pier as such. 3.4.

A last stop in the current phenomenal environment

Returning from their destination, the participants now adopt a more relaxed walking style. Arne lights a cigarette while walking, they briefly discuss the type of a particular boat that they pass, and, after a while, they come to talk about how to behave “when you are on the pier”, in order to control who should be on the pier and how to prevent burglary. Soon enough, Arne gradually slows down and finally stops, closely monitored and followed by Benny, excerpt (9). Excerpt (9) The pier [17:39:38–17:40:02] 464 ARN: arn

#en liten låst låda ell[e@r (nåt lås a small locked case or (some lock @RF

@)] ) @LF RF@

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465 BEN: fig 466 BEN: ben 467 ARN: arn fig 468 ARN: ben fig 469 ARN: fig 470 BEN: 471 ARN:

472 ARN:

[a@ja HA:R de:.(.)(lå@s]bar@)= Yeah I have that (lockable) #fig.9.1 =l§å:sba :r eh::#§(.)(six pe:) lockable euh (six pe) §RF §LF stops

(.)a:$:[:,] yeah $.......--gaze Ben--,,,,,,$ #fig.9.2 =°a+:°(°°+just de°°)#(1.6)°°du ti-°° ta:r= yeah (that’s right) you titake +,,,,+gaze away from Arne #fig.9.3 =(0.3) #minimalt hänglås. minimal padlock #fig.9.4 (0.2) mm:[:¿] [ju] mindre desto mindre risk att= the smaller it is the smaller the risk that =(dom bryter upp [de)]. they’ll break it up

473 BEN:

474 ARN:

475 BEN:

476 ARN: arn 477 BEN: ben fig 478 ARN:

[me] lås.= with a lock

[a: ]preci:s. yeah exactly (0.6) fakt[ist]. in fact

[psykologi: psychology

]=

[BA:]: fatt mar[ke:ra (liksom)] just to indicate (sort of) =+$[li:ks§om](hunh)+# sort of $gaze Ben---------,,,,,,--gaze to the right--> +$[m m : : ] (0.9) °a:° mm yeah + nod nod + § .......--gaze down------------------> #fig.9.5 (1.1) ME:N EH::: (.) DE:§ E:: but euh that is

A walk on the pier: Establishing relevant places in mobile instruction arn -> ben -> 479 ARN: arn ->

----------------------------.gaze left to right.-> -------------------,,,,,§gaze left (2.1) de e väl de:. nu: I guess that’s it now .....................--gaze ahead-->>>

480 ARN:

(.) >de e väl de< som e viktit I guess that’s what’s important

481 ARN:

(0.3) på bryggan då rå. on the pier then

482 ARN:

(2.2) å väntar man folk (.) då få man and if you’re expecting people, you have to

Figure 9.1

113

Figure 9.2

As shown in the transcript, the participants’ transition from walking to standing is not obviously linked to the topic of their talk, for their talk continues on the topic of how to lock your boat during this transition. Slowing down and taking his antepenultimate step slightly towards Benny, Arne provides an expansion to a piece of advice with eller [‘or’] (l. 464). This is overlapped and topically continued by Benny, whose description of what kind of lockable case he uses (l. 465–466) is produced as he comes to a complete halt. So, topically speaking, talk progresses on the particular topic (“how best to lock your boat”), and does not at this point make relevant the fact that the speakers have just come to a stand-still. The relatively unprojectable character – at least topic-wise – of this stop may be visible in the fact that Kalle, who is recording the walking, continues his backing movement a bit after their stopping, to the effect that he is then shooting them from a slightly greater distance than before (compare figures 9.1 and 9.2). That an account for stopping (“Why do we stop here now?”) is projected as a next action, and that that next action should also be produced by Arne,

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Figure 9.3

Figure 9.4

Figure 9.5

who is the one who initiated the stopping at this place, is observable in the embodied behaviour of the participants. This is also something that Arne did as part of arriving at the previously described places. As Benny comes to a point of possible completion of his current utterance, (six pe) (l. 466), Arne averts his gaze (l. 467), to the effect that Benny, as he expands his turn with me lås [‘with a lock’], no longer has Arne’s visual attention. Benny soon there-

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after also disengages by averting his gaze (l. 468), to assume a frozen body posture (during the pause in l. 468, figure 9.3). By this posture, he may be understood to hand over the next action to Arne, giving Arne the possibility to display why he has stopped. However, Arne does not use this first occasion to do this, but chooses instead, after a longish pause, to continue talking on the current topic. Producing an iconic gesture (l. 469, figure 9.4) on which both parties focus their visual attention, he promotes the virtues of a minimal padlock. Benny replies to this description in a way that does not project any expansion of the topic: he produces some minimal response tokens (l. 470 and 473), participates in the co-production of the topic closure projecting the “gist” of Arne’s argument (l. 475, cf. Heritage and Watson 1979) and produces still some minimal response tokens and nods (l. 477). Also this time, Benny averts his gaze and looks down to embody yet another frozen posture as the turn in progress comes to an end (l. 477, figure 9.5). Thus, there is now a second opportunity for Arne – who once more also looks away from Benny (l. 476) – to provide an account for stopping at this place. This time, the reason for stopping is finally displayed. Looking around him, Arne now produces noticeably louder talk (further contextualised by the initial MEN EH:: [“but euh::”]), that no longer instructs about the pier but instead categorises the previous series of explanations and instructions regarding the pier as possibly complete (l. 478–481). Arne thereby projects closing of the “instruction-on-the-pier” as a distinct activity, and not as, as was earlier the case at the “first stop” and “the destination”, of talk-at-thisplace. As in the earlier cases, however, the projective move is not a move towards closing down the interaction as such. In this case, it is rather to close down the interaction in this phenomenal environment, before the participants move on to continue talking at another place where the pier and its surroundings will no longer be visually available. As such, the projected departure provides both participants with a last opportunity to bring up things about the pier as it is accessible from their current position that have so far not been brought up. This sequential implication is embodied in Arne’s continuous “scanning” look around the pier (as it can be seen from where the participants have stopped) already as he initiates his description of the activity on the pier as possibly complete (l. 476–479). Interestingly, this scanning look is reciprocated by Benny, who, immediately upon the initiation of Arne’s turn, looks away from him to also consider the surroundings (l. 478). The closing projective move as providing a last possibility to see if there is more to bring up is thus also oriented to by Benny. The talk of the speaker does not in this case attract the visual attention of the audience (i.e., Benny), but instead seems momentarily to drive it away (cf. Goodwin 1981: 80). By reciprocating

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the scanning look at the pier and the surroundings, Benny can manifest recognition of the emergent proposal for imminent departure and the sequential implications of this action well before its actual completion. In this sequence, the physical extension of the pier emerges as relevant to the ways in which the walk-and-talk-in-interaction is embodied. Finding that, due to the new turn initiated by Benny (l. 465), the topic of how to lock your boat will, so to speak, “last longer than the pier” (even at their current slow speed), Arne brings the group to a complete halt as topical talk is still developed by Benny. Stopping a few metres before the pier ends with a 90°-turn to the left where the gate to the outside is (see figure 1 above), Arne achieves keeping the group in the current phenomenal environment. In this way, he paves the way for the interactional closing down of the current instructive activity, an action that is contingent on the participants still being located within the current environment.3 The opportunity that this “last stop in the current phenomenal environment” creates for further clarifications about the pier is subsequently also exploited by both parties, of which we can see the beginning in the last line (l. 482) of excerpt (9). After several queries and explanations that take almost two full minutes, the participants bring the activity to a close and walk out through the gate, which is briefly shown in excerpt (10): Excerpt (10) The Pier [17:42:04-17:42:07] 572 ARN:

+@(2.1)@ så sÄtter vi oss= so let’s sit down arn @takes key out of pocket@ ben ->> +--looks forward------>

573 ARN: arn 574 BEN: ben ->

=å@ritar u- ritar lite papp§[er] rå.+ to sign u- sign some papers then @ .........RF .........LF-walks------->>> §[ja] yes --looks forward--------,looks down,,+ §.LF--walks-->>>

The actual closing is sequentially organised by, first, yet another frozen posture by Benny (ll. 572 and 574), after which Arne initiates closing of the activity on the pier. He does this by taking out his keys from his pocket (l. 572), starting to walk towards the gate, and verbally projecting the next activity – 3

Cf. Mondada (2009) on the multimodal achievement of a shared interactional space prior to openings of talk-in-interaction, to which our present analysis may be seen as a corollary, but focusing on closings instead of openings.

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signing the contract – which was in fact projected even before the “instructive walk” on the pier was initiated (see 3.1 above): så sÄtter vi oss å ritar u- ritar lite papper rå [‘so let’s sit down to u-sign some papers then’] (ll. 572–573), to which Benny responds affirmatively (l. 574). They then walk out from the pier.

4.

Concluding discussion

By the analyses in this chapter we have tried to show how the material surround can be made relevant and constructed as particular kinds of meaningful places for the practical purposes of an “instructive walk” – the “first stop”, the “destination” and the “last stop in the current phenomenal environment” – as participants move over a pier at a small boat club. These analyses have a number of implications for the theoretical description of human action in interaction, with which we will end this chapter. First of all, the ways in which participants build the three distinct places that we have studied, and how they move between them, underscore the possible relevance of both the material surround and mobility for the sequential organisation of talk-in-interaction (cf. Relieu 1999). Where the interaction should take place and when it is time to move on are demonstrably practical concerns for the participants. In the mobile instruction studied here, openings and closings are not merely about initiating and terminating the interaction on a global level, as in, for instance, phone calls or service encounters, but also, and recurrently in our recording, about opening and closing moments of instructive talk at particular relevant physical places in the environment before moving on to another place. We proposed to integrate these aspects in the sequential analysis of talk by describing them in terms of openings and closings of “talk-at-this-place”. In our case, we have seen that a “place” can embrace very shifting parts of the physical world that the participants inhabit, from very local parts of the pier (the gate, the billboard, and the mooring place) to the pier as such. Further, it is clear that not only talk, but the whole of the participants’ bodies may be exploited in the interactional accomplishment of openings and closings of talk-at-this-place. We have seen how the participants mobilise talk, gaze and gesture, and also the positioning, directivity and movement of their bodies to collaboratively address those practical problems in the environment. As a maybe particularly vivid example, we identified on several occasions a particular “body practice” that we categorised as a “freeze”. By systematically embodying such a very “passive” posture at possible completions of talk-at-this-place or at pre-beginnings (cf. Mondada 2009) of a new segment of talk-at-this-place in the recorded encounter, one of the partici-

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pants (Benny) passed opportunities to produce the next action to the other participant (Arne). He thereby not only managed his identity in the encounter as the “lead and instructed” participant rather than the “leading and instructing” one, but also participated in the interactional establishment of the necessary conditions for verbal beginnings and pre-closings. The analyses also highlighted a couple of instances of what we call “embodied deictic reference” (cf. Hindmarsh and Heath 2000), i.e. identifying a particular object in the material surround by the different resources of the body, including talk. Far from traditionally speaker-centred accounts in linguistics and pragmatics of the functions of deictic reference, our analyses show how participants can use deictic reference to collaboratively organise their joint walking.4 For instance, a deictic locational pronoun such as “here” and gaze directed at some particular object can project stopping as in excerpts (3) and (7); and a demonstrative pronoun such as “these” coupled with gaze and a point can as in excerpt (8), be used to bring back a recipient’s attention and thus resist a projected resumption of walking.5 The notion of “talk-at-this-place” also implies that the environment may be oriented to as structured (on a local or more global level), offering both projectable possibilities and constraints that are then reflected and exploited in the unfolding embodied interaction (cf. Laurier, Maze and Lundin, 2006). However, the categorisation of this environment depends crucially on what the participants are working to accomplish. This can be exemplified by comparing the way Arne and Benny walk when they are heading for their destination and when they walk back after having been there. In the first case, the relatively quick and uninterrupted walk displays an orientation to the extended pier as somewhat of an obstacle that lies between the participants and their destination; in the second, the slow and later even halted walk suggests an orientation to the pier as a necessary place to be to accomplish an action. In this way, we can see that the local relevance of the pier – what the pier “is”, for all practical and local purposes – for the interaction is dynamically related to the current activity. The structure of the material environment is furthermore also reflected in the joint projection and delimitation of activities, or “communicative projects” (Linell 1998) at different levels. As particular instructions about an object on the pier are produced by the par4

5

In a similar vein, cf. Mondada (2006) for a study describing gesture as a resource for organising the allocation of turns at talk. Cf. vom Lehn (this volume) for analysis on delaying joint departure from particular exhibits at art galleries; cf. Keevallik (this volume) for further analysis on “here”, in the context of dance instruction.

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ticipants orienting to it, the participants simultaneously also embody a projection that the walk will soon continue forward in the direction of, and within the physical limits of, the pier. Past and future movement in a circumscribed environment thus form an integrated part of the “contextual configurations” (Goodwin 2000) that constitute action. Further, the analyses of our data clearly suggest a rather strong link between movement through walking in the material surround and cognition in this instructive activity. The things that Arne ends up instructing Benny about during the walk are clearly not the result of him following an exact plan, existing “in his head” as it were (cf. Coulter 2008) before the actual walk. Even though Arne routinely does this kind of introductory walk on the pier with becoming-members, and thus must have a very good idea of what to bring up, just what that will be and in what order is clearly responsive to interactional and material contingencies (cf. Suchman 2006: 72). So, rather than pre-existing as an exact plan prior to the walk, Arne’s instruction is emergently developed in interaction with Benny. Both participants are greatly aided in this activity by what they can perceive around them, using the environment to generate ideas for possible further instructions and queries. It would in fact be rather difficult to imagine the instruction about these precise matters to have taken place elsewhere. Both Arne’s instructions and Benny’s queries and displays of understanding thus exploit, to a very large degree, the material availability of the things being instructed about: the pier on which the participants move is both the topic and a crucial resource for their activity. Finally, in this paper we have analysed not only those interactional phenomena that are visible in the audio-visual record, but have also drawn on aspects of the recording activity itself, as that is preserved in the record. We feel that this has been an important part of the analysis of the current mobile activity, where the recording participant (invisible only to us as analysts and readers) is clearly part of the moving group of walking participants. Thus, rather than just forget about the camera operator and exclusively deal with the two participants who are visible in the record, we decided to take seriously what the participant holding the camera chose to focus on, and to use the recording activity as an analytic resource. This way, we could not only describe the original walk on the pier more faithfully, but also make claims about local interactional relevancies in a stronger way, as the recorded camera movement itself documents a situated analysis of one of the participants. Besides, without Kalle recording the others with his camera, sometimes walking forwards, sometimes backwards while trying not to fall into the water, there would not have been this “Walk on the pier” in the first place.

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Acknowledgements First of all, we would like to thank the two walkers on the pier for letting themselves be recorded and thus making this study possible. We are also indebted to Niklas Norén for making the original transcription of the studied sequence, and to Anna Lindström, Dirk vom Lehn, Per Linell, the editors and two anonymous reviewers for reading and commenting on earlier versions of this text.

Transcription conventions Data have been transcribed according to conventions developed by Gail Jefferson (see e.g. Heath 1986 for a presentation). Multimodal details have been transcribed according to the following conventions: RF/LF @ £ + *§ © -> ->> ->>> .... ---,,,, ((comment)) #

Right foot/left foot Signs for vertical alignment of multimodal phenomena to talk Action described begins on previous line/continues on next line Action described begins earlier in excerpt/continues later in excerpt Action described begins before the excerpt’s beginning/continues after excerpt’s end Gesture’s preparation; movement towards an object Gesture’s apex is reached and maintained; movement stabilised Gesture’s retraction; movement away from an object Transcriber’s comment Exact position of frame grab (figure) in transcript

References Arminen, Ilkka and Alexandra Weilenmann (2009): Mobile presence and intimacy – Reshaping social actions in mobile contextual configuration. Journal of Pragmatics 41(10): 1905–1923. Büscher, Monica (2007): Interaction in motion: embodied conduct in emergency teamwork. In: Lorenza Mondada (ed.), Proceedings of the 2nd International Society for Gesture Studies Conference ‘Interacting Bodies’, 15–18 June 2005, Lyon, France. Crabtree, Andy (2000): Remarks on the social organisation of space and place. Journal of Mundane Behaviour 1(1): 25–44.

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Coulter, Jeff (2008): Twenty-five theses against cognitivism. Theory, Culture & Society 25(2): 19–32. De Stefani, Elwys (2006[2008]): L’accomplissement du contexte pendant les courses au supermarché. Espace, objets et cadre participatif. Verbum 28(2–3): 203–229. Garfinkel, Harold (2002): Ethnomethodology’s Program. Working out Durkheim’s Aphorism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Goffman, Erving (1963): Behavior in Public Places. New York: Free Press. Goodwin, Charles (1981): Conversational Organisation: Interaction Between Speakers and Hearers. New York: Academic Press. Goodwin, Charles (1986): Gesture as a resource for the organization of mutual orientation. Semiotica 62(1–2): 29–49. Goodwin, Charles (2000): Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32(10): 1489–1522. Haddington, Pentti and Tiina Keisanen (2009): Location, mobility and the body as resources in selecting a route. Journal of Pragmatics 41(10): 1938–1961. Heath, Christian (1986): Body Movement and Speech in Medical Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heritage, John and Rod D. Watson (1979): Formulations as conversational objects. In: George Psathas (ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology, 123–62. New York: Irvington. Hindmarsh, Jon and Christian Heath (2000): Embodied reference: A study of deixis in workplace interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32(12): 1855–1878. Kendon, Adam (1990): Conducting Interaction: Patterns of Behavior in Focused Encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laurier Eric, Ramia Maze and Johan Lundin (2006): Putting the dog back in the park: animal and human mind in action. Mind, Culture, and Activity 13(1): 2–24. Lerner, Gene (1996): On the ‘semi-permeable’ character of grammatical units in conversation: conditional entry into the turn space of another speaker. In: Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), Interaction and Grammar, 238–276. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Linell, Per (1998): Approaching Dialogue: Talk, Interaction and Contexts in Dialogical Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Luff, Paul and Christian Heath (1998): Mobility in Collaboration. In: Proceedings of CSCW’98: 305–314. Macbeth, Douglas (1999): Glances, Trances, and Their Relevance for a Visual Sociology. In: Paul L. Jalbert (ed.), Media Studies: Ethnomethodological Approaches, 135–170. Lanham: University Press of America. McIlvenny, Paul, Mathias Broth and Pentti Haddington (2009): Editorial: Communicating Place, Space and Mobility. Journal of Pragmatics 41(10): 1879–1886. Mondada, Lorenza (2003): Working with video: how surgeons produce video records of their actions. Visual Studies 18(1): 58–72. Mondada, Lorenza (2005a): Espace, Inter/action & Cognition. Special issue of Intellectica 2/3(41–42). Mondada, Lorenza (2005b): La constitution de l’origo déictique comme travail interactionnel des participants: une approche praxéologique de la spatialité. Intellectica 2/3(41–42): 75–100. Mondada, Lorenza (2006): Participants’ online analysis and multimodal practices. Discourse studies 8: 117.

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Mondada, Lorenza (2009): Emergent focused interactions in public places: A systematic analysis of the multimodal achievement of a common interactional space. Journal of Pragmatics 41(10): 1977–1997. Nevile, Maurice (2004): Beyond the Black Box: Talk-in-interaction in the Airline Cockpit. Aldershot: Ashgate. Norris, Sigrid (2006): Multiparty interaction: a multimodal perspective on relevance. Discourse studies 8(3): 401–421. Relieu, Marc (1999): Parler en marchant. Pour une écologie dynamique des échanges de paroles. Langage et Société 89: 37–68. Ryave, A. Lincoln and James Schenkein (1974): Notes on the art of walking. In: Roy Turner (ed.), Ethnomethodology, 265–274. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Sacks, Harvey (1992): Lectures on Conversation. Ed. by Gail Jefferson. Oxford: Blackwell. Sacks, Harvey (1987 [1973]): On the preferences for agreement and contiguity in sequences in conversation. In: Graham Button and John R.E. Lee (eds.), Talk and Social Organization, 54–69. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1968): Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist 70: 1075–95. Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1972): Notes on a conversational practice: formulating place. In: David Sudnow (ed.), Studies in Social Interaction, 75–119. New York: Free Press. Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1998): Body Torque. Social Research 65(3): 536–596. Schegloff, Emanuel A. and Harvey Sacks (1973): Opening up closings. Semiotica 8(4): 289–327. Suchman, Lucy (2006): Human-Machine Reconfigurations. Plans and Situated Actions, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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The collaborative organisation of next actions in a semiotically rich environment: Shopping as a couple 1.

Introduction: Moving as a couple in public space

Action in public space has been a crucial issue in the social sciences, which have focused on the way in which sociality is not only displayed by individuals engaged in a joint social action, but also recognised by co-present individuals. As Goffman’s (1963) notion of “civil inattention” entails, awareness of “others” – be they individuals, couples or larger groups of people – is in general not overtly displayed. However, individuals actually do acknowledge the co-presence of other persons in public space, but they usually exhibit other-recognition in a “disattending” way. As Ryave and Schenkein (1974) have shown, other-recognition is one of the features that people exhibit by moving through public space in specific ways: if a walker’s path is to cross the trajectory of a couple moving in the opposite direction, the walker will supposedly avoid the couple as a whole, rather than walking through the couple, and thus momentarily disrupting the togetherness of the individuals constituting the couple. Conversely, the members of the couple will most likely proceed in a way to prevent the two opposite-going parties from colliding. Hence, this way of coordinating each other’s trajectories implies the recognition of the “other” as a couple, or, in Goffman’s (1971) terms, as a with.1 Moreover, it exhibits that the “other” is categorised and treated as “unknown” and that there are currently no grounds for transforming the projected by-passing into a focused social encounter.2 However, couples are recognisable as such not only because the individuals composing them are manifestly (but not necessarily) moving in each other’s proximity. Their “belonging together” is also exhibited by their interactional engagement: Goffman (1963, 1971) captures this idea by describing couples as participation units. Thus, by avoiding momentarily splitting up a couple, the opposite-going party also takes into account the fact 1

2

“A with is a party of more than one whose members are perceived to be ‘together’” (Goffman 1971: 19). The transition from mutual civil inattention to a focused interaction among unacquainted persons in public space is accountable and can be achieved in very different manners. For a detailed analysis of opening sequences in public space see De Stefani and Mondada (2010), Mondada (2009).

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that the couple’s interactional space (Mondada 2009) must not be entered unless there is an acceptable reason for doing so. From this point of view, individuals moving as a couple are not just walking side-by-side or one-behind-the-other: while being on the move, they are constantly concerned with endorsing, preserving, and reconfiguring their interactional space – even beyond brief spatial separations. The organisation of such joint mobility in a semi-public space is the focus of this chapter. My analyses draw on video data recorded in a supermarket situated in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. Three couples were followed by a cameraman from the beginning of their shopping tour until after their checkout. At the first inspection of the data, one can notice that the participants move through the aisles in a specific way, alternating phases in which they walk with stretches of time in which they adopt stationary postures: this stop-and-go organisation of the shopping activity is an interactional accomplishment. I am therefore interested in analysing the way in which participants achieve the transition from dynamic to stationary body engagements, and vice versa. Before examining the data, it is helpful to reflect on some specific features of the setting in which the action takes place.

2.

The supermarket as a semiotically rich environment and as a locus for social action

As a semi-public space, the supermarket is an arena in which a vast range of interactional practices take place: unfocused interaction (Goffman 1963: 24) largely occurs e.g. between shoppers who just happen to be in the same place at the same time without creating a common interactional space. The attention of the researchers has traditionally been drawn to a specific kind of focused interaction, namely the service encounter, that has also been studied using conversation analytic methods (see for instance Merritt 1976; Lamoureux 1985; Aston 1988; Clark and Pinch 2010; De Stefani 2011).3 However, individuals gathering in supermarkets engage in an array of other socially relevant actions. There are employees who interact with each other when going about their daily business; there are also the customers, moving through the aisles as individuals or as “withs”. People shopping together can be seen to engage in a series of actions, such as making buying decisions, solving orien3

For the sake of brevity, I refrain from conveying extensive references on the study of service encounters in linguistics and discourse analysis (Ventola 1987; Bailey 2000; Ryoo 2007; for an early account see Mitchell 1957).

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tation problems (De Stefani and Mondada 2007), browsing the shelves, assessing the products, making unexpected encounters with acquaintances (De Stefani and Mondada 2010) etc. Shopping as a couple is thus a complex social activity during which the individuals composing the couple not only display their togetherness to co-present “others”, but also manage, negotiate, redefine, sustain etc. the relationship that ties them to each other. As the following analyses will show, mobility and the collaborative organisation of next actions are crucial for “doing being a couple”. The way shoppers exploit the accessible space in supermarkets has been a topic of research in sometimes contrasting disciplines. Within anthropology, Lave (1998: 150–151) distinguishes the supermarket as an arena, i.e. as a “physically, economically, and socially organised place-in-time” from the setting, as a “repeatedly experienced, personally ordered and edited version of the arena”. Although this distinction bears the advantage of considering the individuals’ actions as fundamental for experiencing the supermarket, it is unable to account for the way people “use” the available space when shopping as a couple. Shopping as a social practice has been a topic of research in sociological research inspired by symbolic interactionism (see Prus and Dawson 1991). Within the sociology of consumption, Grønmo and Lavik (1988) among others have been interested in describing the actions that take place in stores, basing their studies however on unrecorded, direct observation.4 The analysis of what happens at the point of sale has also been a major concern for microeconomics, and in particular for the study of consumer behaviour. In this field of research, quantitative analysis is privileged. On the basis of photographs taken in a supermarket Philips and Bradshaw (1993) calculate the number of times that customers orient visually to a series of objects, while McGrath and Otnes (1995) and others are interested in customers engaging in conversations with unacquainted persons – but use interviews to collect their data. The strong quantitative orientation of microeconomic research and its heterogeneous roots are often criticised by social scientists: as Prus and Dawson (1991: 147) observe, “reflecting an eclectic array of anthropological, humanistic, and interpretive themes, this research might be criticised as conceptually fragmented and relatively undisciplined”. Still, voices claiming the necessity of videotaped recordings of shopping practices could be heard as far back as the 1950s: Hicks and Kohls (1955) 4

Geographers such as Miller et al. (1998) combine ethnographic observation of shopping practices with individual interviews and focus group discussions on shopping habits, offering valuable insights into the ways in which the method used for the collection of the material has an impact on the data that one gets.

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propose what they call a “memomotion study” – consisting in data collection with a hidden camera – as a new method for studying consumer behaviour.5 As a semi-public space, supermarkets constitute an appealing environment for the analysis of interaction in semiotically rich environments. They are typically organised in aisles that display a large number of commercial products. In the following analyses I will look at the ways in which participants discriminate those objects within the space in which they are moving (section 3.). As we will see, the joint visual and bodily orientation to the objects is achieved through the collaborative constitution of a focal event (Goodwin and Duranti 1992: 3) by mobilising multimodal resources. Subsequently, I will explore how participants organise disengagement from a common focus of attention (section 4.), basing my analyses on one recurring joint action, i.e. the transition from “stationary position” to “forward moving”. From an interactional perspective, these issues have been studied in other settings, where participants recurrently focus their attention on objects, alternating these activities with phases in which they move in space: interactions in museums and galleries (see vom Lehn, Hindmarsh and Heath 2001; Heath and vom Lehn 2004; vom Lehn, this volume) indeed present similar interactional contingencies. However, while the literature on interaction in museums has extensively analysed the ways in which visitors “look” at an exhibit, the focus of this paper will be on the role that spatiality plays for the constitution and the dissolution of a common focus of attention (on similar issues during touristic guided tours see De Stefani 2010; Stukenbrock and Birkner 2010).

5

The two economists identify three major advantages that they derive from the collection of videotaped material: the benefit of possessing a permanent recording of what happened, providing the possibility of watching the data as many times as necessary, and giving access to what the recorded individuals actually did. Interestingly, this position calls to mind the way in which, a decade later, Harvey Sacks explains how he came to study conversations: “I started to play around with tape recorded conversations, for the simple virtue that I could replay them; that I could type them out somewhat and study them extendedly, who knew how long it might take (…); I could get my hands on it, and I could study it again and again. And also, consequently, others could look at what I had studied, and make of it what they could, if they wanted to disagree with me” (Sacks 1992, 1: 662).

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Achieving a joint standstill and the creation of a common focus of attention

When moving through the supermarket as a couple, the organisation of a joint stop represents a practical problem. To begin with, ceasing to walk is an accountable action – and the account is recurrently made available by orienting towards some commercial product. Moreover, “stopping as a couple” is also a collaborative accomplishment: the members of the couple have to display to each other that they are about to stop. In other words, coming to a halt demands a temporal, spatial and sequential coordination of the participants. The first excerpt shows one possible way of organising a joint standstill. At the beginning of the transcript both participants (Maria and Teresa) are walking along an aisle of the supermarket: Excerpt (1) (cons45111/31:38–31:53)

While walking one-behind-the-other, Maria and Teresa can be seen to perform a series of actions. The participants are engaged in a conversational activity (ll. 1–5): Maria initiates some topic talk that is exhibited and treated as

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problematic. Indeed, she first uses an unclear reference (una cosa di quelle lì [‘one of those things there’], l. 1) and then cuts off her following turn right after having repeated the definite article la [‘the’] (l. 3) that most likely would have been followed by a noun. Teresa thus produces a first pair part (che cosa? [‘what?’] literally ‘what thing’, l. 5) explicitly orienting towards obtaining a clarification of the ‘thing’ Maria is talking about. As this conversation is being carried out, Maria and Teresa check out the products that are present in the shelves around them.6 So, while verbally exhibiting a common engagement in carrying out a conversation, through their bodily behaviour they display divergent orientations. Figures 1–3 show continuously changing visual orientations of Maria and Teresa during lines 1–5:

Note that in the last figure the two participants are focusing individually on different commercial objects, while both are slowing down their pace. By adopting divergent orientations they can be seen to embody their engagement in two individual tasks: each participant is shopping for herself and assumes personal responsibility for her own buying decisions. Collaborative decision-making is not explicitly being looked for in this kind of couple, although making decisions usually involves “consulting” the other. The participants also display their togetherness in other ways, for instance by talking while going about their individual tasks. Teresa stands still towards the end of her first pair part (l. 5), which will remain incomplete. Indeed, after a 0.5 pause (l. 6) she produces a turn that sets out her current visual orientation (towards an accumulation of pans). It is crucial to point out that while Teresa produces her turn, Maria is turning her back to her and looking towards the opposite shelf. Teresa formats her turn (l. 7) in a way that takes into account the divergent orientations of the participants. She starts off with the change-of-state token ah [‘oh’] (Heritage 1984) by which she displays that a “new” object has come into her visual 6

The longish pauses in their talk are certainly a trace of their multiactive engagement.

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field of perception.7 With the next unit (guarda [‘look’], second person singular) she delineates what could be an appropriate next action of her co-participant, while the remainder of the turn describes a feature of the pan (com’è bassa per le uova. [‘how deep it is for the eggs.’]). Note that she does not use any referential expression related to the pans. In other words, she describes an object without actually naming it. One way for Maria to understand what Teresa is talking about consists thus in orienting her gaze towards the object that Teresa is now manipulating. This reorientation is reproduced in the following set of stills:

The pause at l. 8 makes a lack of uptake visible. However, Maria has not yet gained access to the object Teresa is talking about. This happens while Teresa extends her previous turn (ll. 9–11, figures 4–5). She starts off by repairing a referential problem (replacing le uova [‘the eggs’], l. 7 by le crêpes [‘the pancakes’], l. 9). While Maria is now oriented in the same direction as Teresa (figure 5), she does not produce any verbal sign of recipiency, as is shown by the pause at l. 10. Teresa’s following extension (l. 11) not only reintegrates the ‘eggs’, placing that referent at TCU-beginning, but also uses a second person verb form (potresti [‘you could’]) that depicts her interlocutor as a possible user of the pan. It is only now – in overlap with the verb form potresti – that Maria produces a sign of acknowledgement (ˇeh ˇeh [‘huh huh’], l. 12). The analysis of the first excerpt has shown that in the organisation of a joint standstill the structuring of the turns is highly contingent on the visual and bodily orientation of the participants. This shows that the participants continuously monitor the actions taking place around them (even when only 7

It is noteworthy that Teresa produces the change-of-state token well after she has actually gained access to the pans: indeed, she starts to look at the pans at l. 3, while the ah is pronounced almost two seconds later. This observation highlights the fact that change-of-state tokens are resources that may be used to display new visual perception and that such a display does need not to be formulated immediately after perception has occurred.

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lateral vision is available). Moreover, we have seen how Teresa structures her turns in an effective way, that eventually leads to the creation of a common focus of attention. While both participants can be seen to be engaged in individual shopping tasks, they also configure episodes of object-focused interaction: the features of the environment – most importantly the commercial objects – provide “ready-made” topics for conversation, which are recurrently introduced by noticings (Sacks 1992, 2: 87–97). 3.1.

Standing at a distance

Joint stops can take different forms: the distance of each participant to their focus of attention may not always be the same. Indeed, the members of the couple can organise the focal event by adopting unequal distances and thereby embodying varying participation statuses. Hence, this specific spatial disposition of the bodies contributes to configuring the interaction in specific ways, as the analysis of the following excerpt will show. Excerpt (2) (cons42271/15:30–15:58)

The excerpt starts as Piero (PIE) and Carmine (CAR) close the interaction with an employee at a counter by formulating final, overlapping greetings (arrivederci [‘good bye’], ll. 1–2) and by starting to move away from the counter (figure 7). As I will explain in section 4, upon termination of an ac-

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tion the constitution of a “next possible action” becomes relevant. Spatial reorientation and the attentive monitoring of the local environment are systematically observable at this stage. Indeed, during the pause at l. 3 (figure 8), Piero orients his gaze towards the shelf in which the loaves of bread are exposed. He then announces that he is going to get the bread (senti io prendo il pane. [‘listen I get the bread.’], l. 4), presenting this next action as an individual project: not only does he use a singular verb form (io prendo [‘I get’]), but he also starts to walk to where the bread is located. This project of making a unilateral buying decision is challenged by Carmine, who starts his following turn (l. 6) by first reformulating his partner’s utterance (ah prendilo tu- [‘oh you get it-’]) and then producing a self-repair (no prendiamo insieme il pane [‘no let’s get the bread together’]), that introduces the firstperson plural verb form prendiamo [‘we get’], but also the word insieme [‘together’]. As he produces his turn, Carmine is visibly attempting to capture his co-participant’s gaze (figure 9), while Piero is already walking towards the bread.

Although Piero displays “verbal recipiency” of Carmine’s objection (ll. 7–8), his bodily conduct complies with his initial project of selecting the bread individually. Indeed, Piero moves away from his partner, while Carmine slows down his pace. However, Piero reorients his gaze towards Carmine twice: the first occurrence (l. 7) can be described as a lateral gaze (figure 10) that reaches its maximum extension as Piero is re-formulating his initial proposal (no lo prendo i- [‘no I get I-’], l. 7). The second occurrence is accomplished as a direct gaze in Carmine’s eyes (figure 11) and takes place while Piero reinstalls his sole authority for choosing the bread (come vuoi però lo scelgo io. [‘as you like but I choose it.’], l. 10).8 It is only after this action that Carmine comes to a 8

Piero not only recycles the first-person singular but also uses another verb: whereas up to this point the conversation was about ‘getting’ (prendere) the bread, Piero now seems to agree with Carmine that they can ‘get’ the bread together, but that Piero is going to be the one who ‘chooses’ it (scegliere).

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complete stop, adopting a “waiting” posture while his partner chooses the bread (figure 12).

This results in a joint standstill in which the participants position themselves with a significant spatial distance from each other. Hence, this positioning exhibits an embodied version of the authority and responsibility with regard to choosing the bread that the members of the couple have been negotiating. Indeed, only one of the participants (Piero) has immediate access to the available merchandise: the couple’s “spatial use” thus makes visible a somehow uneven participation status. However, both participants display (a possible) personal engagement in selecting the bread, thus orienting towards a common task and to the fact that they buy the bread “for the couple”. 3.2.

Categorising the area

The general architecture of a supermarket (disposition of the counters, shelves and other display units) provides certain constraints and possibilities for mobile action. But while these “structural” possibilities are central for describing the way people move through the aisles of the supermarket, their mere description is not sufficient to inform us on how the customers organise the space for their practical purposes. As I have already noted, customers continuously monitor the physical environment at hand – usually through multimodal practices (gaze reorientation, body repositionings etc.). But they may also display the scanning of the environment in other ways, for instance by formulating a categorisation of the area in which they are.9 This is what happens in the following excerpt:

9

The analysis of the ways in which people “look at” the surrounding environment lies beyond the scope of this paper. See Goffman (1971) on the notion of “scanning” related to pedestrian traffic; on “seeing” as an embodied accomplishment cf. Sharrock and Coulter (1998), Nishizaka (2000), and Nevile this volume.

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Excerpt (3) (cons4581/21:03–21:15)

At the beginning of the excerpt, Valentina and André are moving through an aisle with no apparent (i.e. no previously formulated) goal (figure 13). As they approach access to a lateral aisle, Valentina produces the lexical noun phrase la marmellata [‘the jam’] (l. 2). While in other occurrences (see excerpts 5, 8) formulations like these are exhibited and treated as a way of introducing talk about a specific commercial product, in this excerpt it seems to accomplish another kind of work: as figure 14 shows, Valentina produces her turn while she notices the presence of jam jars on a shelf. It is significant that André does not self-select at this point (l. 3), thereby showing that he does not treat the ‘jam’ as a “talkable”. Valentina’s orientation towards selecting a “potentially buyable” product becomes visible at l. 4, where she produces a new TCU starting with a verb (prendiamo [‘let’s get/we get’]) which is followed by a noteworthy initiation of a self-repair: indeed, Valentina replaces the referent la marme- (expectedly la marmellata [‘the jam’]) by the incomplete form un mie- (un mu-), which is most likely related to the ‘honey’ (miele, l. 9) that is located right next to the jam jars and to which Valentina is just gaining visual access (figure 15).

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In light of this brief analysis, we note that Valentina’s initial turn (la marmellata [‘the jam’], l. 2) was treated, by her interlocutor as well as by herself, as a formulation of the way in which she categorises the area that the couple is approaching. The transition towards orienting to a specific commercial product is initiated at line 4 and comes to an end only at line 9, where Valentina completes the repair sequence by mentioning the full form of the referent un miele [‘a honey’]. Note that the completion of the self-repair takes several seconds – during which Valentina also accidentally bumps into another customer (l. 4–7). The repair sequence is actually produced while Valentina positions herself in front of the shelf, and it is with reference to this movement that the sequence has to be analysed. Indeed, the repair is achieved only as Valentina reaches a stationary posture, namely right in front of where the honey jars are located (figure 16). From this point of view, the repair sequence can be seen to be a multimodal achievement: it is completed by the formulation of the full noun phrase and embodied by the adoption of a stationary, frontal posture (with regard to the honey jars) and by adjusting the gaze direction to the object of her talk.

As for André, in this excerpt, he is behaving very much like an “accompanying” person, showing only minimal engagement in the selection of the product. André displays this stance bodily – by adopting a lateral posture with regard to the shelf (figures 16, 17) – but also verbally, by transforming what Valentina had presented as a collaborative action (prendiamo [‘let’s get/we get’], l. 4) into an individual selection to be accomplished by his girlfriend

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(prendi, [‘(you) get’], l. 12). Moreover, André’s minimal engagement is also oriented to by Valentina, who employs two different resources in order to upgrade his participation, namely the eh? [‘huh?’] at l. 11 and an explicit request for collaboration at l. 14 (aiutami a sceglierlo [‘help me choose it’]). The organisation of the speakers’ turns is visibly sensitive to the local semiotic environment and to the participants’ multimodal conduct. From this point of view, customers are not just moving in a “repeatedly experienced” setting (as Lave 1998 sustains), they can be seen to construct and to categorise the space that is relevant for their local, practical purposes on every occasion. We have seen so far that participants may organise their joint standstill in different ways. The possibilities of achieving a common focus of attention not only make visible diverse ways of “seeing” the space in which they move, but also specific formats of participation. In the remainder of this paper I will look at how the participants organise the dissolution of the common focus of attention when starting to walk again.

4.

Disengagement from the common focus of attention and the introduction of a possible “next”

Once the participants are engaged in an object-focused conversation, they may organise their interaction as being “about” that object: commercial products can be treated as potentially “buyable” objects (see excerpts 2, 3, 8) – as can be seen when buying decisions take place – but they can also be used to elicit “topic talk” that is not oriented towards making a buying decision (see excerpts 1, 9).10 In either case, at a certain moment the members of the couple have to display to each other their orientation towards the end of the object-focused interaction. A recurrent way of doing so can be observed when participants achieve a positive buying decision: indeed, dropping a product into the shopping cart is systematically treated as a transitional moment:

10

In supermarkets people can be seen to categorise the objects they focus on with regard to their “buyability” and it is on the basis of this categorisation (which can be interactionally negotiated) that buying decisions are made (see De Stefani 2011). The categories “buyable” vs. “non buyable” recall the distinction that Harvey Sacks made between “possessables” (objects of which we immediately know that we could possess them) and “possessitives” (objects of which we know that we cannot possess them, e.g. because they belong to somebody); see Garfinkel and Wieder (1992: 185).

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Excerpt (4) (cons42271/12:10–12:19)

In this excerpt, we can see the very last moments of a selection process and the following transition to a next action: Carmine and Piero are about to choose a litre of milk among two different types that Piero is manipulating (figure 18). The actual buying decision is formulated by Piero (no ma va bene questo °(dai)° [‘no but this one is fine °(come on)°’], l. 2), who puts back the discarded bottle of milk while producing his turn (figure 19). In the following turn, Carmine ratifies this decision by partially repeating his partner’s preceding utterance (l. 3). Note that at the end of his turn, Carmine adopts a “monitoring” gaze (figure 20), whereas Piero is still manipulating the object that the couple will eventually buy. Hence, Carmine’s gaze exhibits his orientation towards the closing of the current action (selecting the milk) and embodies the transition to a relevant “next”. Piero provides a formulation of a possible next action while still busy with placing the milk in the shopping cart (figure 21): he introduces a referential expression relating to a commercial product (formaggi [‘cheeses’], l. 6) before directing his gaze away from the

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cart.11 Interestingly, Piero introduces the cheeses as a kind of product that he is not willing to buy (ll. 5–6) and thus produces an account for his categorisation of cheese as “non buyable”. Carmine himself is depicted by Piero as “the reason why” he does not buy any cheese (‘with you I have never needed cheeses’, ll. 5–6). As a consequence, Carmine calls this account into question (perché no? [‘why not?’], l. 7), directing his gaze to Piero (figure 23).

This brief analysis of a transitional phase has shown that closing down a current action makes the introduction of a next action relevant. The participants orient visibly to recognisably completed (or about-to-be-completed) actions and display the completion as well as the transition to the next action with multimodal resources. In excerpt 4 the buying decision is mutually ratified, as can be seen in Piero’s positive assessment at l. 2 and in Carmine’s subsequent agreement (l. 3). Putting down the selected object in the shopping cart is a very strong exhibition that the selection process is completed: as a consequence, the common focus of attention is dissolved – as can be seen in the divergent orientations of the participants’ gazes (figures 20–23). The introduction of a “next possible action” becomes relevant at this point. However, while in excerpt 4 this is done by referring to a “next” product that the couple could (or could not) decide to buy (ll. 5–6), other kinds of next actions are also recurrently observable, as will be shown in the following sections. 4.1.

Transition from “previous” to “next” actions

Among the different resources that interactants have at their disposition for organising transition to a “next”, some are designed to mark the end of the 11

We can reasonably assume that Piero has been monitoring the environment in which the couple is currently located before focusing on the milk and that on that occasion he had spotted the presence of cheese in the refrigerators at the back. Other explanations include of course familiarity with the supermarket and also practical competence as a shopper, who may presume that dairy products are located near the milk.

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previous action, thereby revealing a retrospective orientation (putting an object in the shopping cart after a positive buying decision is perhaps the most evident example for the retrospective orientation). Others exhibit rather a prospective orientation, as they are fundamentally contributing to the organisation of the couple’s upcoming actions: for instance, “walking on” has a strong prospective component. In the following sections I will describe the most recurrent resources that participants deploy to achieve and to exhibit action transition. I will start by analysing the verbal resources and then focus on the way talk is embedded in multimodal action, that is in the organisation of “walking on”. Among the noteworthy verbal resources that participants employ to organise transition from “previous” to “next” actions, we find short units that exhibit completion of a previous action, as well as larger spates of talk, and that foreshadow – in different ways – the upcoming action. The former are typically elements that may be termed discourse markers, but that I prefer to call action markers (4.1.1), as in the sequences presented here they are not primarily used to organise discourse but rather to achieve transition from one action to another. The latter may take the form of formulations, in which the participants “describe” the transition (4.1.2) or of pre-announcements consisting in an early introduction of a next action (4.1.3).12 4.1.1. Action markers The use of small units of talk as devices that mark action transition has been diversely documented in conversation analytic research. In her study on service encounters, Merritt (1976: 159) notes that “the ‘O.K.’ can be seen to be doing some kind of ‘bridging’ between the verbal and the non-verbal. It anchors the non-verbal action in what has already gone on verbally, at the same time as it provides an expectation of something to follow”.13 Such action markers can also be found in Italian, as the next excerpt shows. It is the final part of a long sequence, in which Teresa and Maria were both discussing and manipulating products for hair care. Here is how Maria closes down her buying decision: 12

13

At times, participants engage in extended spates of talk dedicated to the planning of the overall shopping activity. For the sake of brevity, these cannot be considered in the present paper. In German, the unit so seems to accomplish a similar task, as it is typically used to highlight the end of an activity and at the same time to display the participant’s disposition to engage in a next action (see e.g. Dausendschön-Gay and Krafft 2009: 255, n. 7).

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Excerpt (5) (cons45111/23:32–23:49)

During the pause at l. 5, Maria puts the products that she has selected in the cart, while simultaneously starting to move on. She actually follows Teresa, who went ahead a few seconds before, thus displaying her orientation towards concluding the manipulation and assessment of hair care products (l. 3). Note that by moving on already at l. 3 (i.e. while her friend has not yet completed her selection), Teresa precipitates the closing of her friend’s buying decision. Indeed, at this point Maria has roughly two possibilities: either she quickly ends her decision making and aligns with Teresa’s orientation to a next activity, or she delays the transition to a “next” by using, for instance, verbal resources (such as aspetta [‘wait’]).14 This way of organising the transitions exhibits the participants’ orientation towards “shopping as a couple”, or, to put it with Goffman (1971), as a single vehicular unit. Thus, Maria completes her buying decision by putting the selected product in the cart, by moving on (l. 5) and, finally, by producing the action marker ecco (translatable as ‘right’, ‘ok’) followed by a hearable and sustained out-breath (l. 6). As the following pause shows (l. 7), ecco is used here not in a projective way: no further verbal material is expected to be produced at this point. Rather, it formulates the closing down of the previous action and at the same time exhibits the participant’s readiness to engage in the next action. 4.1.2. Formulations Participants may formulate their spatial reorientations as they start to move after having dissolved the common focus of attention on a product. An example of such a formulation is given in the next excerpt: Piero and Carmine have just come to a final decision about the bread that they are going 14

Of course, the participants could also decide to split up at this point. But while episodes in which the participants separate are in fact recurrent, they are usually negotiated among the participants (see De Stefani 2011 for an extended analysis).

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to buy. It has been put in the shopping cart and the participants deliver final comments on the product (ll. 1–4). Note that the completion of the buying decision is punctuated, as in the previous excerpt, by an action marker that Carmine introduces as a single TCU at l. 6 (oka:y.): Excerpt (6) (cons42271/16:23–16:44)

While action markers are recurrently employed to display action transition, the participants can sometimes be seen to introduce more “descriptive” turns: at l. 8 Carmine not only formulates the completed selection (è tutto [‘that’s all’]), but presents it explicitly as an action linked to the current spatial environment, as the initial e qua [‘and here’] shows. Carmine thereby displays a strong orientation to move on, the current position of the couple having just been described as a place where all relevant action has been accomplished: indeed, he starts to walk again while producing his turn. Carmine thus formulates his spatial reorientation in a turn that is produced with lengthy pauses (ll. 10–14). Note that the pauses occurring in Carmine’s turn make the participant’s multiactivity visible: while walking again, Carmine attentively monitors the spatial environment – for orientation purposes but also to “find” a next object to focus on. A similar multiactive engagement can be ascribed to Piero: indeed, it is Piero who introduces a possible next object with the words tu vuoi dei salumi? [‘do you want cold cuts?’], l. 16), thereby showing

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his active monitoring of the environment – at this moment Piero and Carmine have in fact visual access to the area of the supermarket in which cold cuts are exposed. 4.1.3. Pre-announcements In commercial settings object-focused interactions are often prefigured, preannounced in conversational exchanges that take place before the participants have access to the related object. Announcing to be looking for, in need of etc. a commercial product is thus a resource for organising the overall shopping activity. Just as for introductions of next actions, pre-announcements occur preferentially during phases in which action transition becomes relevant. The next excerpt shows how Teresa announces her wish to look at the jam jars long before the two participants actually are in the area where the jam jars are located. The extract starts as Maria closes down a service encounter with an employee at a counter, where she has just bought some cheese: Excerpt (7) (cons45111/11:31–11:53)

The final adjacency pair of the service encounter (ll. 1–2) is clearly recognisable, for all participants, as a point where some action has come to an end. Teresa’s turn at l. 3 exhibits this recognition. In fact, by addressing her friend

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at this point – thereby re-establishing the couple as a participation unit – she treats Maria as “available” for re-engaging in interaction with her. Moreover, the content of her turn displays the kind of action that is relevant when a previous action has been recognisably completed: indeed, Teresa starts to talk about a product (‘jams’) that she plans to have a look at later on (ll. 3–4). Unlike what we have seen in the previous excerpts, the participant is not introducing an “immediately next” action. She is rather mentioning an action that the couple will have to accomplish at a later stage, thus organising the couple’s overall shopping activity. Note that Teresa presents her orientation to the jams as “anticipated”: the action related to the jams is presented as something that will take place poi [‘then’] (l. 3), or dopo [‘afterwards’] (l. 8). Teresa’s pre-announcement of a possible future action also differs from the previous cases on other grounds: indeed, while in excerpt 1–4 the participants had visual access to the products they were going to talk about, in excerpt 7 the couple is located in an area where no jam jars are visible. This may account for the rather problematic way of introducing the referent (le: le: hm: marmellate [‘the: the: uhm: jams’], l. 4), as well as for the following generalising expression quelle robe lì [‘those things there’].15 4.2.

Walking on

As the analysis of the preceding excerpts has shown, the participants fit their talk to the spatial movements in which they are engaged as a couple. We have observed how the “discovery” of a product in the environment at hand, and the constitution of a common focus of attention, are achieved by a bodily orientation towards the object and by introducing an adequate referential description (see excerpts 1, 2, 3). Moreover, talk is also used to organise the transition from a stationary, object-focused posture to dynamic, forwardmoving conduct (excerpts 5, 6, 7). A closer look at the occurrences of “resuming walk” observable in the data reveals that the participants may organise their joint “moving away” in different ways. We have already seen examples of slightly deferred withdrawals from previously stationary positions: indeed, in the last three excerpts one participant starts to move away as soon as an activity is recognisable as closed (excerpt 6) or as coming to an end imminently (excerpts 5, 7), while the other member of the couple follows the first a few moments later. “Starting to move individually” is just one way of initiating a joint spatial movement. Another possibility consists of 15

Compare with the straightforward way in which the referents are introduced in excerpt 2 (l. 4), excerpt 4 (l. 5) and excerpt 8 (l. 2).

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verbally negotiating both participants’ readiness to resume walking. This can be done through brief enquiries, as in excerpt 8. Before the following adjacency pair is produced, André and Valentina are moving rather slowly, scanning the products that are present in the displays: Excerpt (8) (cons45811/08:46–09:35)

After André’s no (l. 4) both participants proceed sensibly faster than they did before. Actually, their trajectories will separate them shortly after, so that they will have to re-configure their togetherness later on.16 What is interesting about this adjacency pair is that it exhibits the way in which a) the local environment is categorised (as an area where ‘meat’ can be found), and b) how Valentina “sees” her friend at this very moment, namely as someone who might want to buy meat. From this point of view, inquiries of this kind not only allow the participants to walk on jointly, but they also make visible the kind of relationship that defines the couple.17 Compare excerpt 8 with the following excerpt containing a very similar enquiry: Excerpt (9) (cons45111/43:54–44:17)

16

17

For the sake of brevity I will not be able to discuss here how individuals reconstitute the couple after brief separations (but see De Stefani and Mondada 2007; De Stefani 2011). Another similar occurrence – that equally displays the kind of couple that is being made relevant – is reported in excerpt 6: at l. 16 Piero asks his partner tu vuoi dei salumi? [‘do you want cold cuts?’].

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At the beginning of the excerpt Maria and Teresa are assessing a duvet that they just have noticed as they were passing nearby. While assessing it, the participants alternate between a state of mutual gaze (Goodwin 1980) and an object-focused gaze direction (compare figures 24 and 25). Directing the gaze to the recipient has been described (Lerner 2003) as a resource for nextspeaker selection. From this point of view, by looking at Maria while producing two positive assessments (l. 1; figure 24), Teresa not only employs a further assessment signal (Goodwin and Goodwin 1987: 8), but she also displays that a sign of (dis)agreement is expected at the end of her assessing turn (as described by Pomerantz 1984). Note that although Teresa produces a series of positive assessments about the object (ll. 1, 3, 5) she receives only minimal signs of agreement from her co-participant (ll. 2, 7). In other words, although Maria is presented with the opportunity to insert larger turns of (dis)agreement, she chooses to produce only minimal agreement tokens, thereby displaying that she does not have much to say about the product. This is in line with the actions that the participants perform while Maria pro-

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duces her minimal agreement at l. 7: Maria indeed closes the box containing the duvet, while Teresa withdraws her gaze from the duvet and directs it straight ahead of her (figure 26).

During the pause in l. 8, both participants start to move away from the duvet, directing themselves towards the escalator leading to the ground floor of the supermarket (figures 27, 28). While Teresa still develops the “duvet” topic (l. 9), Maria overlaps with a turn in which she expresses her worries about the present weather conditions (ll. 10–11). Her turn ends with a cut-off that is followed by a lengthened eh:↓:: [‘er:↓::’] (l. 11), produced while she simultaneously adopts a stationary posture facing her friend and while she holds up her open left hand (figure 29).

Maria’s stop, just before stepping onto the escalator, is displayed – and treated by her friend – as a way of checking whether both participants are ready to proceed, thereby leaving the first floor of the supermarket. Note that Teresa’s first pair part at ll. 12–13 (non hai più bisogno di niente tu qui. [‘you don’t need anything else you here.’]) is structured in a way that locates the deictic elements tu [‘you’] and qui [‘here’] at the end of the turn. While producing her overlapping second pair part (io qui no. [‘me here no.’], l. 14), Maria shifts her body in the direction opposite the escalator, thus gaining a larger visual access to the area that the couple is about to leave (figure 30). Subsequent to Maria’s confirmation that she does not need anything else, Teresa produces a turn that displays readiness to leave (andiamo allora. [‘let’s go

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then.’], l. 16). However, at l. 18 Maria addresses a first pair part to her friend in which she reciprocates the question about “the other’s needs” (te per la casa hai bisogno qualcosa (d’oltre)? [‘you for the house you need anything (else)?’]. It is only after Teresa’s negative completion of the adjacency pair (l. 19, figure 31) that the couple moves on, thereby definitively leaving the first floor (figure 32).

Comparing Valentina’s inquiry in excerpt 8 (carne vuoi qualcosa?, [‘meat do you want something?’], l. 2), with the questions that Maria and Teresa address to each other before proceeding, we note some significant differences. First, Valentina’s enquiry is not followed by a reciprocal question from her partner, while Maria and Teresa both make sure that the “other” does not need anything in the area at hand. Doing so, they display to each other how they define their common shopping activity: in fact, we see here that Maria and Teresa are both shopping for their own individual households. This means that they do not have to negotiate, to agree on the products that each participant is going to buy. This is precisely what becomes visible in “crosschecking” enquiries like the one occurring at ll. 12–20. Hence, such enquiries also display what kind of couple Maria and Teresa constitute – which is, of course, different from the “committed” couple that is embodied by Valentina and André. Second, while Valentina’s question was about a specific referent (‘meat’), Maria and Teresa use the referentially unspecific expressions niente [‘anything’] (l. 12) and qualcosa [‘something’] (l. 18). Hence the participants display their degree of knowledge about what the “other” is likely to buy, to like etc. Whereas Valentina exhibits precise knowledge about her friend’s nutrition habits and thus about what he might ‘want’ to buy (she uses the verb vuoi [‘you want’], l. 2), Maria and Teresa orient to what the “other” might possibly ‘need’ (by using the expression avere bisogno [‘to need something’]; ll. 12, 18). Again, these differences contribute for exhibiting to each other the kind of shopping activity in which the members of the couples are engaged, and the kind of relationship that ties them to each other.

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Stop-and-go: A constitutive mobility pattern for the shopping experience

The above analyses have highlighted some particularities of the ways individuals interact when engaged in a common shopping activity. While it is commonly assumed that individuals interacting “as a couple” can be seen to be engaged in some focused interaction of the Goffmanian kind, it has appeared that conversations taking place in supermarkets are recurrently organised around distinct foci when the participants come to a joint standstill: the members of the couple may adopt a) reciprocal orientations – thus constituting what Kendon (1990) calls an F-formation – or b) they can position themselves as orienting to a particular physical object, hence engaging in an object-focused interaction. These different ways of organising the interactional space offer diverse possibilities of positioning oneself in space: while two people who adopt an F-formation are necessarily positioned with an equal distance to each other, object-focused interactions allow for the adoption of uneven distances between the individuals and the common focus of attention. This distinct positioning can be concomitant with the appropriation of diverse participation statuses. Interaction around (physically) and about objects thus constitutes a central characteristic of the shopping activity. However, (commercial) objects are not only of major importance when the participants constitute a common focus of attention. The analyses have shown that they are also recurrently used to categorise the space in which the participants are proceeding, as well as to organise the overall shopping activity – by foreshadowing some possible next action.18 Shopping has indeed proven to be a sequentially organised activity that is recurrently structured as a transition from stationary posture to movement in space. Although this stop-and-go feature of the shopping activity is most visible through the fact that participants alternate between standstill and walking, it is not an intrinsic characteristic of shopping: in fact, the participants have to actively and collaboratively accomplish not only the establishment of a common focus of attention, but also the dissolution of the focus and the action of jointly moving away. To do so, verbal devices are used – such as action markers and formulations – as well as multimodal resources. I have shown that their occurrence is precisely fitted to the sequential development of the action, as they are regularly used when a “current” action has just ended or is about to come to an end. Mobility and the consecutive “discovery” of objects in the spa18

I did not have enough space here to discuss a further way in which objects are used in commercial settings, namely as landmarks that participants use for orientation (see De Stefani & Mondada 2007).

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tial environment at hand are also visible in the way participants structure the turn in which they introduce a new referent. A tendency has been observed towards placing referential terms relating to some commercial product at turn beginnings, such as in excerpt 3 (la marmellata [‘the jam’]), excerpt 4 (formaggi [‘cheeses’]) and excerpt 8 (carne [‘meat’]). Placed at turn beginnings, such referential expressions are exhibited and treated as noticings (Sacks 1992, 2: 87–97; Schegloff 1988), occurring systematically after visual access to some new object has been established. This way of initiating the turn may hence provide for specific syntactic structures, such as the so-called “left dislocation” (excerpt 4) or topicalisation (excerpt 8). Finally, we have also seen that the different possibilities which the participants have to organise their shopping activities also serve as occasions to display togetherness and to make their specific relationship accountable. From this point of view, shopping with a friend or a partner is not so much a joint economic activity, but rather an opportunity for “doing being a couple”. The analyses have shown that the activity of “shopping as a couple” – as the subtitle of this paper reads – may be organised in different ways, that reflexively shape the kind of couple that the participants are “doing”. A couple may be formed (as in the case of Maria and Teresa) by two people who shop together but have individual buying projects (e.g. because each of them buys products for their own household) and therefore also use two shopping carts. Other couples (such as Valentina and André, Piero and Carmine) recurrently exhibit that they are shopping “for the couple” e.g. by using only one cart and by engaging collaboratively in decision-making processes, thus making the “committed” dimension of the couple visible.19 It is precisely this social dimension of the “shopping activity” that traditional accounts cannot surmount: indeed, by collecting their data through interviews and other experimental devices, the disciplines presented in the introduction to this paper lack the possibility of analysing consumer behaviour as an everyday practice – in which the embodied accomplishment, negotiation, redefinition of the participants’ relevant identities is indissolubly interwoven with their multiactive engagement and thus with the buying decisions they make. 19

In this paper I focused exclusively on two possible ways of categorising couples. By no means do I intend to suggest that other ways of “being a couple” could not be made relevant. For instance, to remain within the corpus used for this paper, the episodes recorded at the various counters suggest that the salespeople orient towards the couple formed by Piero and Carmine not necessarily as a “committed couple”, but possibly as a “homosexual couple” or as “friends shopping together”. In contrast, in Valentina and André’s case there seems to be little orientation towards the possible category of a specifically “heterosexual couple”.

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Acknowledgements I wish to thank Kellie Goncalves for revising my English.

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Maurice Nevile

Seeing on the move: Mobile collaboration on the battlefield 1.

Introduction

In 2003, in the early days of the Iraq War, a US Air Force pilot identified with the call-sign ‘Popov36’ announced his impending attack on a group of vehicles, which he determined to be enemy rocket launchers. He did so in terms of mobility: Popov Three Six ah:: is rolling in¿ (excerpt 1). The phrase “rolling in”” refers to dipping one wing and simultaneously lowering the aircraft’s nose to initiate a diving turn. This attacking flight manoeuvre requires Popov36 to break from the current relative stability and predictability of a patrolling flying pattern. His pilot partner Popov35, flying in a separate aircraft in front of him to form a team of two, responds in terms of his own mobility: I’m comin’ (.) I’m comin’ off west. Excerpt (1) (Note: words represented with capitals indicate talk over the radio to a ground controller, and the number at left indicates time of utterance)

Mobility features again as Popov36 then formally announces the attack, apparently following procedure for the official audio record: awright, an’ we got ah (.) ro:cket launchers, it looks like. um number two is rolling in:, (0.2) from the sou:th to the no:rth¿ (1.5) and ah two’s in (1341:55). Here Popov36 again describes the manoeuvre, rolling in, and now makes salient also the direction of the movement (from the sou:th to the no:rth¿, 1341:55). This exchange occurs for a criti-

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cal and definitive activity for military work – engaging in combat. Each pilot makes the other aware of his own position and mobility, for how he occupies airspace for the team’s joint conduct for the attack. It is important for each pilot to know what the other is doing, and both where he is and where he is going. In short, each pilot conveys “where I am”. The exchange well illustrates mobility as a constitutive feature of these pilots’ experience of the battlefield. In this chapter I am concerned generally with when and how mobility can feature in, and impact, interaction for collaborative work. I will use as data the cockpit video recording of a 2003 “friendly fire” incident, in which a US Air Force patrol attacked a group of British armoured vehicles. Specifically, the chapter therefore examines the influence of mobility for the pilots’ joint performance and understanding of their work. Of necessity, the pilots are constantly on the move. The physical properties of flight, and the inherent potential danger of the battlefield, mean that the pilots cannot just stop. Mobility is ever-present and ever-relevant for the pilots’ collaborative activity, and at particular moments it can be made salient and accountable in processes of social interaction. The chapter focuses in particular on how mobility is manifest in processes of interaction through which the pilots see and locate relevant battlefield participants, namely themselves as mobile members of a two-party team, and the target vehicles thousands of feet below them on the ground. The data and analyses show just how the pilots, moment-to-moment, meet the particular demands of mobility both to be visible and to make others visible. While constantly moving, the pilots must monitor and communicate their own positions relative to one another. They must also see, identify, and appropriately respond to, relevant features of an ever-changing external environment, most relevantly in this instance a group of vehicles thousands of feet below them. The target vehicles are also moving, and we see later that their mobility is likely highly consequential for how the actions and events unfold. The data show how mobility features as both a resource and a challenge for seeing satisfactorily to meet the demands of professional activities and goals. We see how mobility contributes to conduct and action for participation on the battlefield. My interest and approach are influenced most strongly by studies of seeing as an embodied and social accomplishment, situated in practices of members within communities of competent practitioners (especially after C.Goodwin 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2002; and Goodwin and Goodwin 1996, 1997). Such studies, informed by methods and insights of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, have examined seeing across a

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wide range of work settings, for example in healthcare and medicine, architectural and design practice, and control and production centres (e.g. Broth 2009; Büscher and Jensen 2007; Heath and Luff 2000; Koschmann et al. 2007, 2010; Mondada 2003, 2009; Murphy 2005; Nishizaka 2007; Sanchez Svensson 2007). The participants in these settings draw on a range of available local resources as they interact with others to determine in situ who can see, what is seen, what is not seen (noticed as absent), how to interpret and account for what is seen, and how next to act on what is seen. Participants make use of embodied and material possibilities, such as gestures, gaze direction, and the movement and postural configurations of their bodies, to identify, manipulate, and respond to objects, features of interest, and one another, within a shared space. In these settings the participants may be ‘mobile’ in the sense that activity and collaboration can involve movement. For example, participants might see in relevant and intelligible ways by reaching across a table during meetings or discussions, or point to screens or objects in a studio or courtroom, or dig through through layers of dirt in an archaeological excavation, or navigate within the body during surgical procedures. Participants develop courses of action by determining where they are in a changing scene of interest; however the participants themselves are typically gathered around or within a stable physical site. Most relevantly however, other research with such interests has considered settings where the participants at work are themselves on the move, and these studies are able to investigate the relations between seeing and various forms, aims and outcomes of mobility. For example, Nevile (2001, 2004a, 2004b, 2007, 2010, in press) shows how airline pilots interact as a crew to perform tasks to fly their aircraft. Pilots monitor their cockpit displays and notice and make public relevant changes in flight progress (e.g. changes in altitude or direction), they watch each other’s embodied activities (e.g. handling flight instruments and controls) and they make their own activities visible, and they attend to features and happenings outside their aircraft, including the actions and mobility of others within the transportation system (e.g. other aircraft) (see also Auvinen 2009, and Arminen, Auvinen, and Palukka 2010; and on maritime operations see Froholdt 2010). Of another setting, Büscher (2006) refers to ‘vision in motion’ to capture the processes whereby landscape architects move between vantage points to assess visual and landscape effects of proposed built developments. Mobility also allows members of emergency teams to assess situations and make decisions (Büscher 2007). Similarly, other researchers have focussed on non-professional mundane settings, such as driving a car. They have shown how drivers and passengers attend to the vehicle’s movement through the

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environment, relative to activities for driving, for example to negotiate directions for a route (Haddington and Keisanen 2009), to make a turn at a junction (Haddington 2010, this volume), to find a parking place (Laurier 2005), or to coordinate driving with the demands of interaction as a form of potential in-car distraction (Nevile and Haddington 2010). In various ways these studies of mobile collaboration shed light on the “materiality involved in actually perceiving, making sense of, and engaging with the world” (Büscher 2006: 282; cf. Luff and Heath 1998). The present chapter reveals how mobility is relevant and consequential for the nature and conduct of collaborative activities, and in particular how mobility can allow or constrain particular views of the scene and its relevant objects, participants, and events. We noted in the opening excerpt that participants can make their mobility public and accountable. We will explore here in different ways also the following: how participants’ own mobility can support or hinder their ability to see other participants or relevant features of the surrounding scene; and how mobility can inform participants’ vision and impact the activities underway. The chapter therefore explores moments whereby participants’ orient to mobility for its influence on the demands on them to collaborate to accomplish work goals.

2.

The data

The chapter uses as data the cockpit audio/video recording from a US Air Force aircraft which fired on a “friendly” British vehicle convoy in the early days of the Iraq War, in March 2003. The incident was the subject of a yearlong UK military Board of Inquiry (UK Army 2005). The recording lasts for around 15 minutes, and begins just as one pilot first notices the convoy. The recording was originally classified as secret by the US military and was not made public. However in 2007 it was leaked to the British Sun newspaper, which reported on it (6 February 2007) and published it on the internet. Later that year the recording was de-classified by the US military. The recording is filmed through the “guncam” and shows the pilot’s forward view, including the ‘Head Up Display’ (HUD), which projects onto the external view important flight information, for example on the aircraft’s speed, altitude and attitude (its pitch and roll), so the pilot can spend more time looking towards the external environment and less time looking down to the instrument panels. The aircraft involved is a single-seat US A-10 Thunderbolt “Close Air Support” attack aircraft (see figure 1), flying as one of a patrolling pair of two. The A-10 is heavily armed and armoured specifically for supporting ground forces by engaging with enemy ground forces.

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Its fortifications and appearance inspire its nickname “warthog”, or “hog”, and descriptions of the aircraft as a “flying tank”. The pilots are identified by call signs Popov35, and Popov36. The recording was filmed from the aircraft of Popov36, who fired on the vehicles. The audio recording captures whatever is hearable to Popov36, including the two pilots talking to one another and to battlefield controllers, mostly to one ground-based controller with call-sign Manila Hotel (a ‘Forward Air Controller’), and also some external sounds (e.g. gunfire).

Figure 1. Two A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft (‘hogs’), flying in typical patrol formation (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 190th_Fighter_Squadron,_Blues_and_ Royals_friendly_fire_incident (accessed 19 January 2011).

The detailed transcription of talk was developed by the author from the video recording, and uses notation adapted from the system commonly used in conversation analysis (CA) and originally developed by Gail Jefferson (e.g. see ten Have 2007). The British Sun newspaper had presented a basic transcription as subtitles on the video recording. That transcription is of very low detail, by CA standards, and also has numerous errors, for example occasionally omitting or misrepresenting words, or even attributing talk to the wrong speaker. Pilots Popov36 and Popov35 are represented with abbreviations P35 and P36, and MH is used for the ground based battlefield controller with call-sign Manila Hotel. Note especially that small capitals represent talk between the pilots and the ground-based controller. This is talk beyond the team of the two pilots who fly their two aircraft together as a pair and with shared responsibility for the mission. Arrowed text indicates the lines for wordings of interest. Explanatory comments are given in double brackets {{like this}}.

3.

The event

What happens? To summarise, a key contributing factor for the incident was that the pilots misidentified orange “day glow” panels on the vehicles, specifically designed to signal friendly status (i.e. as allied coalition forces), for orange rocket launchers, or orange rockets, which would indicate the ve-

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hicles to be unfriendly enemies (see figure 2) (UK Army 2005). Elsewhere I have considered in detail the significance for the pilots’ understanding and action of an exchange of talk in which a ground-based battlefield controller told one pilot that their patrol was “well clear of friendlies” (Nevile 2009b). Over the next few minutes, the two pilots discussed the vehicles’ location and their visible orange features. The pilot who first noticed the vehicles, Popov36, repeatedly offered to his partner Popov35 his candidate formulations of what he saw (Nevile 2009a, in press). Popov36 sought to establish a shared (team) vision and interpretation of the vehicles to progress a larger collaboratively conducted task – i.e. deciding whether or not to attack them. However his partner Popov35 did not respond by looking himself at the vehicles and saying what he could see. Eventually the pilots treated the vehicles as enemy and Popov36 twice dived his aircraft to fire on them. Immediately after the second attack the radio waves became cluttered with calls to cease firing, and informing the pilots that the vehicles were a British light armoured convoy. This is what is known as a “friendly fire” incident, or in military terms a “blue-on-blue situation”. One soldier was killed, five others were injured, and two of the five vehicles were destroyed.

Figure 2. Example of one of the British vehicle types involved (a Scimitar), and a diagram showing typical placement of orange day-glow panels to signal friendly status. The vehicles in this incident also had panels on their gun turrets. Source: images adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/190th_Fighter_Squadron,_Blues_ and_Royals_friendly_fire_incident (accessed 19 January 2011).

4.

Analyses: Seeing on the move

The mobile nature of the pilots’ routine work is immediately evident from watching just a few seconds of the video recording. The camera shows how the aircraft not only moves forwards but continually shifts its flight direction, making sweeping turns left and right, and pitching up and down to climb and descend within about a 2000 feet range between around 10,000 to 12,000 feet (see figure 3). Such flight movements allow the pilot to survey the battlefield

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below to seek objects of interest, and are sensitive also to the possibility of enemy fire. The pilots were specifically tasked to conduct missions to support their ground forces by eliminating enemy dangers on the ground (e.g. artillery and rocket launchers), and they were flying in ground-attack aircraft purpose-built for that task. The camera captures the steep turn and dive as pilot Popov36 attacks the target vehicles, and then the evasive severe and rapid climbing turn as he manoeuvres away from the scene.

Figure 3. Sample stills from the video recording indicate aircraft movement, and show information projected by the ‘Head Up Display’. The image at bottom right is taken as the aircraft makes a steep dive to attack. The circle and cross indicate the target point for the aircraft’s guns. The road on which the vehicles are travelling is visible, running vertically just left of image centre.

The analyses below offer a series of scans through some key periods of interaction which evidence the impact of mobility for the pilots’ work on the battlefield. The two pilots’ constant mobility means that they must locate the vehicles in an ever-changing landscape. The pilots also attend to the vehicles’ mobility, and also their own movement relative to one another as members of a team. 4.1.

Seeing the vehicles: What are they?

The pilots’ continuous mobility makes problematic their primary task to see and appropriately identify the vehicles, to determine what they really are. The pilots move at high speed, many thousands of feet above the ground, and they look down through a hot and dusty desert haze. The vehicles, as the

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visual target of interest, may also be hostile, and they too are moving (see discussion below). So the pilots cannot just get closer and stop to take a better look. Within his own aircraft each pilot is also physically constrained by the seating arrangement to face primarily forwards in the direction of the aircraft’s forward movement. The pilots have limited side vision, and unlike a car driver they have no rear vision mirror. The practical demands of seeing are explicitly verbalised much later, after Popov36 makes the first of his two attacks. Still apparently unsure of the vehicles’ identity, Popov36 asks his partner Popov35 that’s what y’ think they a:re, right?, to which Popov35 replies it looks like it to me::, and I- (.) got my (.) goggles on no::w¿. Popov35 refers to his use of “goggles” – binoculars – to allow him to obtain a magnified and clearer view (UK Army 2005). Binoculars are provided to the pilots specifically to support the demand on them to look from a distance at features of the physical environment below them. From the outset, Popov36’s initial announcement at noticing the vehicles shows evidence of uncertainty arising from the challenge to see the vehicles with sufficient precision for the purpose i.e. to decide how to act. Excerpt (2)

P36 first frames the situation in terms of visibility. He can see a group of four vehicles (I got a four ship) but his seeing is uncertain and qualified: ah it looks like we got orange panels on them though. (1336.57). He sees on the vehicles something which “looks like” orange panels, a feature that would identify the vehicles as not enemy Iraqi vehicles, but coalition forces. Despite being told, mistakenly as it later turns out, that there are no “friendly” forces in their area (see Nevile 2009b), the apparent conflicting evidence of ‘friendliness’ continues to trouble pilot Popov36. In the next minutes he offers to partner Popov35 various formulations of the vehicles’ visible features and identity, pursuing from Popov35 his seeing and interpretation of the vehicles (see Nevile 2009a, in press). – – – – –

they’ve got something orange on top of them. (at time 1339.09) I think (they’re/>they l’k likeoka:y¿ well they have< orange ro:ckets on ’em. (at time 1340.13) I think killing these damn ro:cket launchers ’d be great. (at time 1340.35) ’kay:, do y’ see the orange things on top of ’em? (at time 1341.24)

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The ongoing uncertainty of the vehicles’ identity, relating to their apparent visible features, is at least in part an outcome of the pilots’ need to remain mobile and distant in the potentially hostile battlefield. For example, unlike archaeologists at a dig studying traces in the dirt (Goodwin 2002), or surgeons standing around a patient (Koschmann et al. 2007), or even landscape architects driving from place to place and stopping to gain a range of views of some site (Büscher 2006), the pilots here are not able to adopt a stable position from which to look. Indeed surgeons are trained not to move even their gaze from an area of interest when they change tools (Koschmann et al. 2012). An added challenge is that the group of vehicles is apparently also mobile, and the manner of the vehicles’ mobility figures in Popov36’s descriptions. After briefly speaking with a ground-based controller, partner Popov35 indicates his availability as recipient (hey dude, 1337.54) and so Popov36 presents a fuller description of the vehicles and their location (excerpt 3). Popov36 offers different formulations for just how the vehicles are moving (“going”, “heading”, “coming”), and are moving relative to one another (“evenly spaced”). Excerpt (3)

Popov36 initially describes the vehicles as evenly spa:ced (.) a-along a:-r:oad go-ehing no:rth. (1337.56). So Popov36 incorporates how the vehicles are moving relative to one another (evenly spa:ced), where the movement takes place in the visible environment (a-along a:-r:oad), and also the direction of the vehicles’ movement (go-eh-ing no:rth.). With the wording “evenly spaced” Popov36 uses the vehicles’ own mobility as a visual cue, as relevantly informing partner Popov35 what to look for. The vehicles’ movement, relative to one another, becomes a detail to distinguish them, as a group, from other possible features of visible scene below. Indeed it is this very aspect which is initially

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picked up by partner Popov35: evenly spa::ced, ah::: where we strafed? (1338.21). It might also be that the vehicles’ manner of movement is relevant for determining what they might be. That is, “evenly spaced” might suggest a coordinated and accomplished pattern to the vehicles’ mobility as an organised group, as in following a common procedure for military vehicles (UK Army 2005). In this sense the description of the vehicles’ mobility is not neutral, and may incorporate already a possible interpretation of their identity as military, rather than as something else (e.g. civilian vehicles). The spacing of vehicles (or other forms of unit) is one characteristic which military personnel can consider when establishing their identity, intentions and actions.1 The vehicles do not just move. Popov36’s representations of their mobility can index a recognisably competent professional view of the world (C.Goodwin 1994), a military view of the world as battlefield and of the actions of its participants. Popov36 treats his own initial description (1337.56) as insufficient: in subsequent wording he shifts his description of the vehicles’ mobility from mundane terms to seemingly more recognisably conventional and institutional (military) terms. Popov36 reformulates the manner of the vehicles’ movement from “going” (go-eh-ing no:rth, 1337.56) to “heading” (>they’re< heading north, 1338.04), and similarly with reference to their movement towards the village from ‘coming’ (comin’ up u-jus’ sou:th of the ah: (.) village. 1338.04) to “heading” (heading up there., 1338.23) (see figure 4). 4.2.

Seeing the vehicles: Where are they?

According to procedures which inform and guide the pilots’ conduct, the pilots work together and are jointly responsible and accountable as a team, so they must both see the vehicles and establish a shared interpretation of the vehicles’ identity before acting either way i.e. whether or not to attack them. Therefore a principal task for Popov36, who first noticed the vehicles and now pursues the response to them, is to tell Popov35 where and how to locate and see the vehicles in the visible external environment which is constantly changing because of the pilots’ mobility. Popov36 began by describing the vehicles, a four ship of:-f vehicles th’t ’re evenly spa:ced (.) a-along a:-r:oad go-eh-ing no:rth. (1337.56), but where are they, where is this road on which they are going north? Popov36’s description is rich with details necessary to make intelligible the vehicles’ location because the pilots’ continual movement creates an ever-changing mobile scene. 1

My understanding here is informed by discussion with an experienced pilot in the Australian Air Force.

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Figure 4. This diagram shows the vehicles’ position and movement on a road running parallel to a canal. The diagram is adapted from an original made available through Wikipedia. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/190th_Fighter_ Squadron,_Blues_and_Royals_friendly_fire_ incident (accessed 19 January 2011).

Excerpt (4)

The vehicles’ mobility becomes a resource for Popov36 to guide Popov35 where to look so he can see them. Excerpt 4 above shows that Popov36 uses the geographic direction and position of the vehicles’ movement (north, south) relative to specific visual landmarks of the external environment (a road, a canal, a village). Excerpt 5 (below) highlights how Popov36, after his initial a-along a:-r:oad go-eh-ing no:rth, then identifies the direction of the vehicles’ movement relative to two landmarks which are visually more prominent and unique than ‘a road’: north (right) along that c-ah-canal. (1338.04);

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and sou:th of the ah: (.) village (1338.04) followed by heading up there (1338.23). Popov36 presents these landmarks as specific, “that canal”, “the village”, recoverable for Popov35 as features of a visible scene able to be shared by the two pilots as they experience it together. Most importantly, the two pilots are mobile and so cannot use their own positions as stable points of reference for locating objects and features in the environment in which they move. So if Popov36 is to describe a location to guide partner Popov35’s looking, then Popov36 must orient to Popov35’s mobility and ever-changing possibilities for viewing the scene. Popov36 draws on different semiotic resources for this. Popov36 guides Popov35 with talk that is rich with directional wording to formulate the vehicles’ location so Popov35 can look and see them for himself (excerpt 5) (cf. Hanks 1990, 2009; Psathas 1991; chapters in this volume). Excerpt (5)

Popov36 uses the points of the clock face as an institutional convention for indicating relative direction. He tells Popov35 that the vehicles are at y’r ri:ght, (0.2) two o’clock, (0.2) uh ten o’clock lo:w (1338:04). Like the Munsell colour chart which provides archaeologists with “a historically constituted architecture for perception” (Goodwin 2002: 22, 2000), the pilots use the clock face as a semiotic resource for orienting themselves relative to features of the mobile surrounding external scene. They treat the clock face as if overlaid on the physical world and structuring it by locating the speaker as the centre. The clock transforms the external physical world by dividing the visible scene into intelligible locations and directions, and so allowing the pilots’ to create and share a recognisable point of reference (or shared indexical ground, Hanks 1990). It serves as a crude measure of relative angle. “Twelve o’clock” refers always to a relevant party’s forward facing direction (“six o’clock” is directly behind), and so for pilots this is the direc-

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tion in which the aircraft is headed i.e. to where the nose of the aircraft is pointing. Therefore, using the clock face terminology requires either that both pilots are pointing and flying in the same direction, or that a pilot can be aware of the other’s location and mobile orientation. The particular advantage of such a convention is that it is maximally sensitive to mobility. The centre of the clock can be wherever I am or you are now, and so like the pilots themselves it is constantly moving. It is a flexible and immediately available resource, ceaselessly updating its potential to organise the pilots’ perception and orientation within the surrounding environment. Popov36 also directs Popov35 for how he should physically target his own looking in space (i.e. “down”, “right”, “low”, “left”), and makes explicit Popov35 as the point of reference (y’r ri:ght … your lef-t, 1338.04). Popov36’s directions therefore claim awareness of his partner’s location and movement relative to the vehicles. The pilots’ mobility presents a challenge which manifests itself in two ways. First, it requires Popov36 to repair and update his descriptions of the vehicles’ locations, for where Popov35 should look. Second, it requires Popov36 to make explicit the relevance of timing for any looking activity, for when to look. There is an imperative to look immediately. Popov36 initially describes the vehicles as at y’r ri:ght, (0.2) two o’clock (1338.04), that is, forward of Popov35 and a little to his right, as if looking from the centre of a clock at the point for two o’clock. However, Popov36 then continues and repairs this with uh ten o’clock lo:w, (0.9) theres ay u-, (0.3) on your lef-t (0.2) left ten o’clock °okay°, that is, forward of Popov35 but now a little to his left. It seems that Popov36 reformulates his descriptions to allow for the pilots’ constant movement through the scene, such that what was once located to the right is now located to the left. Popov36’s descriptions of the vehicles’ location are sensitive to the direction of travel at the time of saying. A similarly occasioned repair occurs seconds later when Popov36 corrects Popov35’s candidate location (ah::: where we strafed?, 1338:21), with no. no. further e:ast, further: ah west. What was once to the east is now to the west. Significantly, the video shows that Popov36 talks here while flying in a continuous left hand turn, and the full transcription indicates that at this point Popov36 is flying directly behind Popov35 in the patrolling formation shown in figure 5 (see discussion below). The pilots have apparently flown their aircraft around to be now reoriented in space relative to the vehicles. Popov36 draws on the two pilots’ current understanding of his aircraft’s position (flying behind Popov35) to make claims about the vehicles’ location relative to Popov35’s perspective (i.e. that “my left” or “my right” is also “your left” and “your right”).

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Figure 5. This is the author’s simplified and approximate representation of the left turn flying pattern of Popov36, based on the evidence of the video record and from Popov36’s descriptions of the vehicles’ location.

The pilots’ constant mobility also impacts the relevant timing for looking. Any claim about the location of the vehicles’ or any other feature of the scene is valid and intelligible only relative to the pilots’ own location at the time of saying. When Popov36 says to Popov35 “your right” or “at ten o’clock” he means relative to where you/we are now. The time to look is now because a location is temporally tied to its description (see chapters in this volume). At some moments Popov36 also directs his partner on where to look by making maximally salient that this looking should be done immediately, “right now”. Excerpt (6)

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Popov36 says right now (1338.23) immediately after (or latched to, shown by = sign) saying the vehicles are further: ah west (1338.38). After detailing again what is to be seen (they- (0.2) >they h’ve-back at y’r six ono factor. ‘I’m right behind you’ > ’okay. let’s move on‘. 4.4.

Seeing mobility: Where are the vehicles going?

Mobility may have figured in another significant way in the pilots’ conduct. The vehicles’ location, and especially their movement along a road towards a village, may have been highly consequential for the unfolding events. As

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mentioned earlier, over the five minutes or so before he dives to attack the vehicles Popov36 repeatedly refers to them and to what they look like. Popov36 offers to his partner Popov35 many candidate formulations of the vehicles’ identity in an attempt to elicit from him a second candidate seeing and interpretation (Nevile 2009a, in press). The UK Army Inquiry Report into the incident (UK Army 2005) said of Popov36 that he showed: “a single-minded pursuit of the UK vehicles and there is no indication that he was sensitive to [Popov35’s] workload” (UK Army 2005: 5–2). It may well be that the vehicles’ movement towards a village created a sense of urgency for Popov36, who was also the pilot who first noticed them. Here again is the moment when Popov36 declares his impending attack, only this time with all turns included. Excerpt (10)

After his partner’s apparent acceptance of the attack (Popov35: you roll in:,… 1341.41) Popov36 says okay. I >wanted t’ get< the first one b’fore he gets to that town then. (1341.50). Popov36 makes explicit his interest in attacking before the vehicles reach the “town” (earlier referred to as a village). According to military procedures, there may be extra constraints for attacking the vehicles once they reach a developed civilian area, such as a town/village. Such a location introduces other unknown factors, perhaps most importantly the increased challenge to hit the target, and also the risk of civilian casualties. So if the vehicles are indeed hostile enemies then now is the time to act. Recall also that the pilots were earlier told by a ground-based battlefield controller that they were well clear of friendly forces (see Nevile 2009b). If the pilots wait it may be too late because it will be more difficult or even impossible to attack the vehicles. The vehicles’ mobility might therefore be an influential factor for Popov36’s action by creating a temporally sensitive legitimacy of opportunity and accountability: if the vehicles are indeed the enemy, and the pilots do not attack them right now, then the pilots will be responsible for letting them get away.

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Further, it is significant that Popov36 uses the past tense, saying that he “wanted t’ get” the vehicles before they reach the town. This wording presents his ‘wanting’ as relating not only to the present moment, right now, but as pre-existing and extending to this moment. It can suggest that Popov36 had earlier formed a view of the vehicles as enemy, and with it an interest in attacking them (as opposed to ignoring them as friendly), so not only in response to partner Popov35’s just-now apparent acceptance of the attack (at 1341:41). This might then help to account for Popov36’s “single-minded pursuit” (UK Army 2005: 5–2) of his partner to establish a joint/team identification of the vehicles before firing on them i.e. to Popov36, the vehicles are heading toward a town, and the vehicles are enemy. What seems therefore to be a small grammatical detail might be powerful evidence for the value of making micro-detailed transcriptions of available audio recorded voice data when investigating incidents and accidents. The transcription accompanying the video recording released by the UK Sun newspaper is very basic with a low level of detail by conversation analysis standards. It presents mainly the words spoken with little or no regard for representing just how the talk is produced and emerges as sequentially organised turns at talk, in interaction developed jointly by the participants. It also contains many errors. It is not clear if it is the official transcription used by the UK and US military boards of inquiry, but from the discussions in UK inquiry report there is no reason to think that these investigations used transcriptions with the level of detail provided here. Such detailed transcription is at least not common practice in commercial aviation investigations (Nevile and Walker 2005; Nevile 2006). Significantly, the basic transcription presents Popov36 as saying “I want to get the first one before he gets into that town”, with ‘want’ in the present tense. However, close and repeated listening to the recording revealed that he actually says “wanted”, i.e. in the past tense.2 Close and detailed transcription can therefore provide greater insight into the participants’ understanding and activities for their collaborative work, and into the factors contributing to the trajectory of events, especially for the influence of mobility.

2

This hearing has also been verified publicly in many data sessions at which I have played the recording. At the time of writing the recording was available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/190th_Fighter_Squadron,_Blues_and_Royals_ friendly_fire_incident (accessed 19 January 2011).

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Conclusions

This chapter has used recorded video data from military aviation to consider when and how mobility can feature in interaction for collaborative work. The chapter examined specifically how mobile participants can see what they are doing and what is going on around them. The data were cockpit video/ audio recordings of a friendly fire incident from the Iraq War, in which a US aircraft patrol mistakenly fired on a British armoured vehicle convoy. The analyses focussed on how two pilots collaborated to locate and see relevant battlefield participants, namely themselves as mobile members of a twoparty team, and some target vehicles on the move thousands of feet below them on the ground. We saw some particular ways by which mobility figured as both a resource and a challenge to the pilots for seeing satisfactorily to enable them to accomplish their activities and goals. This study therefore adds to research on seeing as situated, embodied, and socially accomplished in the practices of members within communities of competent practitioners at work. The chapter furthers understanding of a relatively underexplored area for studies of interaction at work – mobile collaboration. That is, it analysed local processes for seeing together in settings where the interactants themselves are mobile and not co-present around a stable physical site, and indeed where mobility is inescapable, ever-present, ever-relevant, and demonstrably consequential for joint conduct (especially in sociotechnical settings, after Nevile 2001, 2004a). Other related studies of everyday settings have focused on practices of interaction through which participants in ordinary car journeys see in order to accomplish mobility in particular directions and to particular locations (e.g. Laurier 2005; Haddington and Keisanen 2009; Haddington 2010). Here we examined mobility as a constitutive feature of military pilots’ professional work, and highlighted its significance for performing a crucial task – attacking the ‘enemy’. We saw how mobility influenced and created continuous demands upon the pilots need and ability to see and to be seen. Of necessity, the pilots in their aircraft are constantly on the move: they cannot ever just stop. The chapter showed how mobility allowed or constrained particular views of the scene and its relevant objects, participants, and events, and at key moments how and why the pilots could make their own or others’ mobility public and accountable. The pilots responded to some specific challenges and opportunities posed by mobility for establishing the location and identity of the target vehicles within the external environment, as a requisite task for proceeding to a next action: to determine whether or not to attack them. In the first

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instance, the pilots’ movement and need to maintain distance from the vehicles made it difficult to see them, and contributed to the pilots’ initial uncertainty about the vehicles’ identity and then to an ongoing need to resolve this uncertainty. One pilot (Popov36) explicitly guided and directed his partner on where and when to look to be able to see the vehicles, so meeting the demands of standard procedures for the pilots to establish joint understanding to enable a team response. His descriptions of the vehicles’ location were formulated to orient to his own and his partner’s ever-changing positions and views of the scene. He used ‘clock face’ terminology (e.g. “at your two o’clock”) to locate the vehicles with direction reference to his partner’s current position. Such terminology is an ideal and flexible semiotic resource because it is constantly available and updated by the pilots’ own incessant mobility. Pilot Popov36 also oriented to mobility by making salient the appropriate timing for seeing the vehicles. His directions to look for the vehicles included imperatives for looking immediately (“right now”, “right underneath you”), because the pilots’ mobility makes location descriptions temporally highly sensitive: and a description’s veracity and value depends on the participants’ positions at the exact time of saying. The pilots could also use mobility as a resource for seeing by enacting different forms of movement to reconfigure their view of the scene below. While routine patterns of turning offered gradual shifts of view, more immediate and purposefully directed movements to reorient the aircraft, such as raising/lowering the wings, could offer a targeted line of sight to a specific location. We saw too that the nature and direction of the vehicles’ own mobility in the surrounding environment was also a resource for the pilots to locate them relative to visible physical landmarks (“heading north along that canal”), and also potentially for interpreting their identity (i.e. as possibly military – “evenly spaced”). That is, the pilots could treat the vehicles’ mobility as relevantly informing the appropriate course of action towards them. Lastly and relatedly, it is likely, and unfortunate, that the vehicles’ mobility figured significantly in the development of the events themselves. The pilots (one in particular) apparently treated the vehicles’ mobility, relative to significant features of the surrounding scene, as relevant for making them worthy of the ongoing attention and interpretation, ultimately and mistakenly as an eligible target for attack. In short, the vehicles’ continuous movement towards a town in their close proximity, where they would be safe, seems to have created a sense of urgency which may have prompted the action to attack. Participants interacting to collaborate for work are not always stationed and oriented around a stable physical site but may be on the move, and so too

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might the focus of their joint attention and activities. In various ways these multiple mobilities can be consequential for the nature, conduct, and outcomes of collaboration, and particularly for how participants can see together to accomplish shared understanding of what they are doing, what is going on, and what happens next. Mobility can allow or constrain particular views of the scene and its features, participants, and events, mobility can be made public and accountable, and mobilty can create temporal demands for talk and action.

Acknowledgements For suggestions which have improved this paper I thank Pentti Haddington and Lorenza Mondada as my co-editors of this volume, Tim Koschmann, and reviewers. My thinking has also benefited from feedback I have received at numerous gatherings, particularly during visits to Denmark and Finland – including time as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Tampere (September 2007) – as well as at the conferences Language Culture and Mind III (Odense, Denmark, 2008) and the 11th International Conference of the International Pragmatics Association (Melbourne, Australia, 2009).

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Goodwin, Charles (2000): Practices of color classification. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7: 19–36. Goodwin, Charles (2002): Time in action. Current Anthropology, 43: S19–S35. Goodwin, Charles and Marjorie Harness Goodwin (1996): Seeing as a situated activity: Formulating planes. In: Yryo Engeström and David Middleton (eds.), Cognition and Communication at Work, 61–95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodwin, Charles and Marjorie Harness Goodwin (1997): Contested vision: The discursive constitution of Rodney King. In: Britt-Louise Gunnarsson, Per Linell and Bengt Nordberg (eds.), The Construction of Professional Discourse, 292–316. London: Longman. Haddington, Pentti (2010): Turn-taking for turntaking: mobility, time, and action in the sequential organization of junction negotiations in cars. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 43: 372–400. Haddington, Pentti and Tiina Keisanen (2009): Location, mobility and the body as resources in selecting a route. Journal of Pragmatics, 41: 1938–1961. Hanks, William F. (1990): Referential Practice: Language and Lived Space Among the Maya. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Hanks, William F. (2009): Fieldwork on deixis. Journal of Pragmatics, 41:10–24. Harper, H. Richard and John A. Hughes (1993): ‘What a f-ing system! Send ’em all to the same place and then expect us to stop ’em hitting’: making technology work in air traffic control. In: Graham Button (ed.), Technology in Working Order: Studies of Work, Interaction, and Technology, 127–144. London: Routledge. Have, Paul ten (2007): Doing Conversation Analysis: A Practical Guide. 2nd Edition. London: Sage. Heath, Christian and Paul Luff (2000): Technology in Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Koschmann, Timothy, Gary Dunnington and M. Kim (2012): Team cognition and the accountabilities of the tool pass. In: E. Salas, S. Fiore and M. Letsky (eds.), Theories of Team Cognition: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives 405–420. New York: Taylor & Francis. Koschmann, Timothy, Curtis LeBaron, Charles Goodwin, Alan Zemel, and Gary Dunnington (2007): Formulating the Triangle of Doom. Gesture, 7: 97–118. Koschmann, Timothy, Curtis LeBaron, Charles Goodwin and Paul Feltovich (2010): “Can you see the cystic artery yet?” A simple matter of trust. Journal of Pragmatics, 43: 521–541. Laurier, E. (2005): Searching for a parking space. Intellectica 41–42: 101–116. Luff, Paul and Christian Heath (1998): Mobility in Collaboration. In Proceedings of CSCW ’98: Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. ACM Press, 305–314. Mondada, Lorenza (2003): Working with video: how surgeons produce video records of their tasks. Visual Studies, 18: 58–73. Mondada, Lorenza (2009): Video recording practices and the reflexive constitution of the interactional order: some systematic uses of the split-screen technique, Human Studies, 32, 1: 67–99. Murphy, Keith M. (2005): Collaborative imagining: the interactive use of gestures, talk, and graphic representation in architectural practice. Semiotica, 156: 113–145. Nevile, Maurice (2001): Beyond the Black Box: Talk-in-interaction in the airline cockpit. Ph.D dissertation, Australian National University, Canberra

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Nevile, Maurice (2004a): Beyond the Black Box: Talk-in-Interaction in the Airline Cockpit. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Nevile, Maurice (2004b): Integrity in the airline cockpit: embodying claims about progress for the conduct of an approach briefing. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 37: 447–480. Nevile, Maurice (2006): A conversation analysis model for examining aviation communication in context: part I – processes for representing data. Human Factors and Aerospace Safety, 6: 35–50. Nevile, Maurice (2007): Seeing the point: attention and participation in the airline cockpit. In: Lorenza Mondada and Vassiliki Markaki (eds), Interacting Bodies. Online Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies. Lyon: ENS LSH & ICAR Research Lab. Nevile, Maurice (2009a): “Killing these damn rocket launchers would be great”: formulations for distinguishing friend from foe in an Iraq War friendly fire incident. Paper presented at the 11th International Conference of the International Pragmatics Association, Melbourne, 12–17 July. Nevile, Maurice (2009b): “You are well clear of friendlies”: Diagnostic error and cooperative work in an Iraq War friendly fire incident. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 18: 147–173. Nevile, Maurice (2010): Looking for action: talk and gaze home position in the airline cockpit. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 33(1): 3.1–3.21. Nevile, Maurice (in press): Collaboration in crisis: pursuing perception through multiple descriptions (how friendly vehicles became damn rocket launchers). In: Mohd Don, Z. and De Rycker, A. (eds), Discourse and Crisis: From Immediacy to Reflection. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Nevile, Maurice and Pentti Haddington (2010): In-car Distractions and their Impact on Driving Activities. (RSGR 2010-001). Canberra: Department of Infrastructure and Transport. Nevile, Maurice and Michael B. Walker (2005): A context for error: using conversation analysis to represent and analyse recorded voice data. Human Factors and Aerospace Safety, 5: 109–135. Nishizaka, Aug (2007): Hand Touching Hand: Referential Practice at a Japanese Midwife House. Human Studies 30: 199–217. Psathas, George (1991): The structure of direction-giving in interaction. In: Deirdre Boden and Don H. Zimmerman (eds.), Talk and Social Structure: Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, 195–216. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ryave, A.L. and J.N. Schenkein (1974): Notes on the art of walking. In: Roy Turner (ed.), Ethnomethodology, 265–274. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Sanchez Svensson, Marcus (2007): Monitoring practice and alarm technology in anaesthesiology. Health Informatics Journal 13(1): 9–21. UK Army (2005): Board of Inquiry Report into the Death of the Late 25035018 Lance Corporal of Horse Matthew Richard Hull, The Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons) Household Cavalry Regiment. Army, UK. (http://www.mod.uk/Defence Internet/AboutDefence/CorporatePublications/BoardsOfInquiry/BoardOf InquiryReportIntoTheDeathOfTheLateLanceCorporalOfHorseMatthewRichard Hull.htm, Accessed 21 January 2011)

PART III Projecting and engaging mobility

Projecting mobility: Passengers directing drivers at junctions

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Projecting mobility: Passengers directing drivers at junctions 1.

Introduction: Directive-response sequences in a car

This chapter examines how passengers direct drivers in cars. More specifically, it focuses on how passengers use directives to make an anticipated driving action – in this chapter, a turn-at-a-junction – socially salient to the driver. Directives are thus analysed as an interactional resource that enables mobility. The chapter also complements Goodwin’s (2000a, 2000b, 2003) research by showing how participants orient to the locally available array of semiotic fields and the sequential context to produce and respond to directives. It specifically focuses on the mobile aspect of this contextual configuration (i.e. events and features in the “mobile space”) and analyses how interaction in a car (in the car’s “interaction space” (see Mondada 2007a, 2009) is coordinated with driving demands that emerge from events in the “mobile space”. Recent studies in Britain (Department for Transport 2009) and Australia (Nevile and Haddington 2010) show that frequently there is more than one person traveling in a car. In the British study 40 % of car journeys included at least one passenger, and in the Australian study in 60 % of the journeys there was at least one passenger. When at least one passenger accompanies the driver it is common that a passenger participates in and attempts to contribute to driving by directing the driver. This chapter focuses specifically on the social construction of directive-response sequences that take place near road junctions, here called “passenger-initiated junction negotiation” (henceforth PIJN). Methodologically the analysis draws on conversation analytic research on the multimodal features of social interaction. The investigation of interaction as multimodal provides detailed analyses of how humans produce their social actions, moment-to-moment, by building on sequentially prior actions and events (Sacks 1992; Schegloff 2007). Conversation analytic research has provided strong evidence for how the interactional and sequential context, including talk (e.g. Schegloff 2007), embodied actions (e.g. Nevile 2004a, 2004b; Streeck 1993), and various material and semiotic features in the surround (i.e. Goodwin 2000a; Mondada 2009) contribute to the ways in which social actions are produced, recognised and responded to in situated social interaction. It is these sequentially unfold-

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ing situated actions that are seen to show manifestly how participants understand a social situation. The data in this chapter come from video- and audio-recorded interactions of people driving cars in naturally-occurring contexts. They have been collected in Britain and Finland. For this paper, 22 hours of video recordings of people driving and interacting in cars were analysed. The languages used in the recordings are English and Finnish. Each recording has been made with two cameras in order to give two perspectives of the driving situation. One camera, on the dashboard, is directed at the participants inside the car, while the other camera faces forward and gives a view of the changing landscape and traffic in front of the car. Directives are common in social interaction and they are usually used in different kinds of task activities in which participants are doing something together (Goodwin 1990: 63). Directives can be characterised as actions that attempt to get somebody to do something or to prevent somebody from doing something (Craven and Potter 2010; Ervin-Tripp 1976; Goodwin 1990, 2006; Sorjonen 2001: 93–129; West 1990; Mondada this volume). Usually directives come in the form of questions, suggestions, offers, requests, commands, orders, instructions, and so on (see e.g. Goodwin 2006: 517; Sorjonen 2001: 93), but as Cekaite (2010) demonstrates in her analysis of directives in parent-child interaction, a directive sequence can also be a combination of speech and embodied actions. Sequentially, directives start an activity and make relevant a response from the recipient. These responses can be verbal, embodied or come in the form of other “physical” actions (e.g. taking a turn at a junction). Together with responses, directives thus constitute an adjacent pair of actions. Responses to directives can either comply with the directive or not comply with it. A non-complying action is often accompanied with an account (Goodwin 2006: 518). In addition to this, Craven and Potter (2010) show that the issuer of the directive can also claim different levels of entitlement to direct the recipient’s actions through the design of the directive. In the same way, the directive can also display sensitivity to the recipient’s ability or willingness to comply.1 Before analysing in more detail how a mobile context impacts the design of the directive-response sequences in PIJNs and how directives are used

1

It would indeed be very interesting to study how directives display a passenger’s entitlement to participate in the driving activity and how contingency is managed in these situations. However, these questions are beyond the scope of this study.

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for accomplishing mobility2, I next provide some details of the sequential organisation of directive-response sequences in PIJNs. In cars, directives produced by a passenger to the driver usually try to get the driver to do a driving action, to change something (e.g. reduce speed) or correct an error in the driving. In PIJNs, a directive produced by a passenger attempts to make the driver turn at the next junction or to prevent such a turn from happening. Drivers can then either comply or not comply with the directive. We can see an instance of a PIJN activity in excerpt 1 (see ll. 12–15).3 Excerpt (1) (Passenger-initiated junction-negotiation, To the city centre: Talk&Drive#003_1 (4:00))

In excerpt 1 two friends are driving towards a city centre to find the location of a rock club that they are going to that same night. As they talk about their studies (ll. 1–11) they approach a T-junction (see figure 1). Various events, actions, situations or configurations in the environment can be seen to pre2

3

Cekaite (2010) also shows how parents use directives to necessitate a child’s mobile action, for example, to go and take a bath. The transcriptions follow the conventions used in conversation analysis, originally developed by Gail Jefferson (see Atkinson and Heritage 1984, Jefferson 2004). Participants are indicated as follows: DRV = driver, FP = front-seat passenger, RRP = rear right passenger, RLP = rear left passenger. Relevant embodied and other actions are transcribed in grey below talk.

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cede directives, such as junctions, the driver’s use of the indicator, the car’s speed or a road block. Although directives are each a response to something that precedes them, it is important to note that none of these events, actions or situations that precede a directive start a PIJN, because none of these sequentially require a response from a passenger.

Figure 1: Passenger-initiated junction-negotiation

Similarly to directives in general, in driving directives can take the form of suggestions, requests, commands, noticings, corrections, questions, offers or confirmation requests, as in the above extract (ll. 12–13, So, >now to the left orTo the left, yeah. [“Yeah. Marko Viljola you said,”] by which he not only resumes the halted activity but produces precisely the action that was relevant before the directive: recognition of the person in the story. After the passenger’s turn the driver begins to continue the story (l. 12) and at the same time overtakes the car on their right, shifts lanes and then exits the freeway. The above analysis supports Craven and Potter’s (2010: 437) finding that directives often disrupt normative turn-taking conventions and interrupt an unfolding activity. What is particularly interesting here is that the passenger actively resumes the interrupted activity. Craven and Potter (2010: 437) show in their data how a speaker displays lack of orientation to recipient’s talk when she interrupts an activity with a directive. However, in excerpt (4’’) the passenger, by resuming the halted activity, displays that he has in fact been listening to the driver carefully. One explanation for these different findings is probably that the data used by Craven and Potter (2010) (parents issuing directives to children) are very different from the data analysed in this chapter. The passenger’s directive is not about not wanting to listen to the story. Rather, the driving situation poses special temporal demands on the interactional organisation inside the car. Haddington (2012) has shown how incar participants time their navigational initiations in ways that display their orientation to a location in space, and that a driving action has to be produced before that location. It is this temporal constraint, i.e. a need to voice a noticing well before a driving action is required, that explains the interactional slot that directives take in PIJNs: a directive has to be produced early enough so that there is a sufficient temporal slot for preparing and producing a relevant driving action, lest it be too late or require more talk later on (see Haddington 2012).

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In sum, excerpt 4 provides further evidence for how passengers can show that they are monitoring the driving activity, have noticed something, and voice their noticing through a directive. It also shows how the passenger’s directive is jointly understood to require a verbal response, but in addition to this, also to require a mobile action – a turn-at-the-exit – in the projected near future. The analysis also shows that these mobile requirements are reflected in the grammatical design and production of talk. Similarly with excerpts 1, 3 and 4 above, excerpt 5 is an example in which a passenger’s directive attempts to occasion a turn at the next junction. In addition, it bears similarity to excerpt 4 in that the driver is in the middle of telling a story when the front-seat passenger produces a directive. However, what is different in the following excerpt is that the directive-response sequence is managed without talk. The directive itself is produced as a pointing gesture. Consequently, what turns out to be interesting is how the pointing gesture is recognised to be a directive and, moreover, a directive that is tied to the driving activity. In the excerpt, the same group of friends that we saw in excerpt 3 is driving to a sports event. A little earlier the front-seat passenger has noted that they have to pick up a friend from a particular location. During the excerpt, the driver is telling a story about an incident he had witnessed. While the story unfolds, the front-seat passenger looks to her left and sees their pick-up destination, after which she produces a distinct pointing gesture. Excerpt (7) (Pointing gesture: Habitable cars, Picking up Jimmy (0:00))

In line 1, while the driver is telling the story about an event that he has witnessed, the front-seat passenger turns her gaze to the left (figure 8a) and, as it turns out, sees their destination. Next, she starts to produce a pointing gesture (figure 8b) which then soon reaches its apex (figure 8c) and points at their destination. The passenger’s pointing gesture is designed to draw the

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driver’s attention to their approaching destination and that they should turn left at the next junction. It is not clear though what creates the passenger’s projection that the car will continue straight ahead. Similarly with excerpt 4, there seem to be several possibilities: the car’s speed, the driver continues the story and the fact that the driver has not switched on the indicator or is not in any other way making visible that he is going to turn at the junction.

Figure 8: The passenger seeing the destination and the pointing gesture

The driver’s following actions show that he understands the pointing gesture as a directive that indexes a turn at the next junction. First, immediately after the passenger’s pointing gesture, the driver manifestly begins to prepare for the projected mobile action, the turn at the next junction. He shifts his embodied stance by removing his arm from the windowframe and seems to take a quick look in the rear-view mirror (see figure 9b). There is also a slight hesitation in the driver’s telling (l. 2) which can be caused by the driver’s simultaneous involvement in the driving activity (Nevile and Haddington 2010: 64–70). At this stage, the passenger begins to withdraw her pointing gesture, which indicates that the driver has begun to produce a complying response that she recognises and treats as appropriate to her pointing gesture. Immediately after this, the driver switches on the indicator. The driver’s actions display that he has understood the pointing gesture and its relevance for driving. They also publicly display that the projected turn-at-a-junction is on its way. Second, a moment later, they arrive at the junction. The driver turns left and thereby produces the driving action that complies with the directive that

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Figure 9: The driver’s embodied response

was accomplished with the indexical gesture. So it is at this stage that the compliance has been manifestly and accountably produced. Similarly with the other extracts in this chapter, excerpt 7 shows that the anticipation of relevant driving actions cannot only be attributed to the driver, but can require distributed work between in-car participants. We can see how the passenger, after seeing their destination, produces a directive in the form of a pointing gesture which identifies their destination and at the same time aims to occasion actions in the driver that lead to a turn to their destination. The driver’s subsequent actions confirm that his actions are in a sequential relationship to the pointing gesture: they follow the pointing gesture and recognisably respond to it in a way that accepts the directive. Since the passenger does not hold the driver accountable for anything or initiate a repair, it is possible to say that the driver’s actions are treated as a relevant response to the directive and to project the actual turn at the junction. The fact that the directive-response sequence is produced without talk also provides the driver the possibility to continue the story without it being interrupted. Excerpt 7 is also an excellent example of how participants can coordinate multiple tasks by relying on different multimodal channels: the directive-response sequence is produced through an “embodied channel” simultaneously with the driver’s verbal telling activity. This organisation reflects the interactional situation: a verbal directive would halt the story, whereas a pointing gesture provides the driver an opportunity to continue the story.

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Mobility as context: Slowing and stopping as meaningful responses to directives

In excerpt 8 we meet again the two exchange students who are driving to a rock club. As they are approaching a junction, the passenger produces a directive which indexes a turn at the next junction. After this, the driver voices that she sees a pedestrian that is approaching the crossing and that she does not want to drive over him. As we have seen in the above extracts, directives in PIJNs are sometimes designed verbally (e.g. as questions or confirmation requests) so that a response becomes conditionally relevant (i.e. a response is sequentially expected and required) (Schegloff 1968: 1083). In the following example, however, the directive is – as it turns out – neither heard by the driver nor required by the passenger to receive a verbal response. In this case the car’s slowing down and stopping seem to act as meaningful and sufficient responses to the passenger’s directive. Excerpt (8) (To city centre: Talk&Drive #003_1 – 0:02:20)

The driver and the passenger have been comparing driving cultures between their home country and the country they are visiting (ll. 1–3). At the same time they are approaching a junction where they need to turn right in order to

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drive to the city centre. In line 5, the passenger produces a directive by saying Just to the right here. to which the driver does not produce a verbal response. There can be several reasons for the lack of verbal response to the directive and, moreover, that the passenger does not require a response. First, as becomes evident later (l. 24), the driver did not hear the passenger’s directive. The possible reason for this is that when the passenger produces the directive the driver is visibly looking to her left (see l. 8) at a pedestrian that is approaching a pedestrian crossing (see figure 10). Second, the directive is designed verbally as a statement or a command (rather than as a question or a confirmation request) and thereby does not make a verbal response (an acceptance or rejection) conditionally relevant. As a directive, therefore, it fails. Third, it is also worth noting that the passenger does not produce a pointing gesture as part of the directive (see figure 10). As we have seen above, pointing gestures are useful resources for attracting a recipient’s attention, prompting an action, adding meaning to talk and for maintaining the relevance of an action when talk is not produced or fails. Consequently, talk and gesture together can make a stronger directive in PIJNs than either talk or gesture can alone. Fourth, as shown by M. Goodwin (1990), and as we have seen above, directives are part of a broader task and attempt to make the recipient do

Figure 10: Pedestrian

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something. As part of PIJNs, directives ultimately project a driving action at the following junction. What is notable in excerpt 8 is that as the passenger produces the directive, the driver is slowing down and stops the car before a crossing to let the pedestrian cross the street. The crossing is at the junction that the passenger indexed in her directive. The car’s slowing speed and the eventual stop – although primarily responding to the pedestrian – can be treated by the passenger as meaningful, relevant and sufficient responses to the directive and to project a left-turn. And thereby the passenger does not prompt a verbal response. After the pedestrian has crossed the street, the driver laughs (l. 10), takes a quick look at the passenger and accelerates the car. She does not give any signs of making a turn at the junction. At this stage the passenger, in an hastened and loud manner, and with high pitch voice quality, repeats the directive by saying >TO THE #RIGHTIlmasta tutkaan.< >When airborne ((contact)) radar.< (0.2)* >Joo hei,< >Yeah bye,
Neljä sataaFour hundredallô.< hello (0.4) mou:::loud (.) ouais yeah (0.2) t’es chez toi ? you’re at home? (0.3) ouais yeah (0.9) hein:: ? uh? ouais (.) j’suis chez moi yeah I’m at home (0.8) j’peux passer une heure (.) ou pas:::? can I come round for an hour (.) or not? ah: mais bien sûr paco ah: but of course paco (0.5)

This conversation happened at about six o’clock between two colleagues who live close to one another and have become friends. The caller introduces a localisation query (l. 5) after an initial opening sequence oriented towards identification and recognition (ll. 1–4). Its placement suggests the localisation might be related to the reason for the call and that it may be highly relevant for what might transpire thereafter (i.e. that he precisely proposes to visit the answerer at home). The strategic orientation of the caller with respect to the recipient’s localisation may also be visible in the design of the query, which embeds a candidate answer: it makes the home location more relevant than any other. Such a candidate answer also “does” intimacy by displaying anticipations based on the caller’s familiarity with the whereabouts of the recipient and entitlement to do so. So at this stage the caller has constituted the localisation “at home” of the recipient as highly relevant to the ongoing interaction in the background of a yet unstated project of his. The recipient provides a token agreement, “yeah” (l. 6). There follows a silence (l. 7). It is probably significant, for this is a slot in which some action of the recipient could be performed, such as reciprocating the localisation query or prompting the caller to elaborate on the project he has made relevant at this stage. The caller may have expected something of the sort, for he self-selects to utter an interrogative token in line 8, which could either be taken as signal-

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ling an understanding problem, or as offering a slot for the recipient to talk. The recipient takes this as an initiation of repair and overtly states his current localisation (l. 9), which he had only previously acknowledged. Another silence follows at line 10, with a rather similar sequential status to the one in line 7. The caller again self-selects, this time to request permission to visit for an hour (l. 11), “j’peux passer une heure (.) ou pas:::”. The present tense indexes the imminence of the visit with respect to the ongoing conversation, and the proximity of the caller. The formulation of the request, which orients explicitly to the possibility of a refusal, is interesting in the light of the silence in line 7 and the repair work initiated in line 8. It shows that the caller orients towards the possibility that the caller has not displayed a positive stance with respect to the current implications of the sequence in terms of a possible encounter. The recipient replies with a straightforward granting of the sought authorisation (l.12), followed by a unit which stresses the straightforwardness of the request and its permission (“of course”). Since no reason was given for the encounter, nor any joint activity mentioned, the marked go-ahead given by the call recipient for the projected visit can be understood to show that between them such an occurrence is routine and the asking and granting of the permission is a small matter. It could also suggest that the call recipient may have been slightly evasive by not offering anything in the opportunities given by the silences at lines 7 and 10, and somewhat playfully letting the caller do all the work to get to this point. This interaction shows that mobile phone users are not only faced with availability issues, as would similarly be the case with landline phone conversations, when the reason for the call is to test the grounds for a possible meeting. Indeed, in mobile phone conversations, two types of conditions need to be checked before an encounter may be evoked: a suitable location for the participants, and availability. It is easy to understand why localisation is a significant felicity condition in a mobile phone conversation environment: if the participants are too far apart, any project to meet becomes impractical, irrespective of availability and willingness. This dual orientation towards localisation-related and activity-related concerns has been observed in another corpus of mobile conversations (Arminen and Weilenmann 2009). In such contexts, distinctive forms of preliminary work become relevant, departing from the mostly availability-oriented “standard” pre-sequences which can be observed in the openings of landline phone conversations, some forms of which we will study now in more detail.

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Christian Licoppe and Julien Morel

Constituting and recognising mutual co-proximity: Projecting an interactionally generated encounter in mobile phone conversations

Studies of mobile phone conversations have shown that, contrary to standard assumptions, the use of localisation queries of the “where are you?” type are not a constant feature, and that users often rely on activity-related queries (Weilenmann and Leucovichus 2004). When localisation queries are actually used, this may be attributed to the fact that location bears a special relevance (Arminen 2006). The present research is based on a corpus of 350 mobile conversations between 21 mobile phone users, gathered over a period of three months. In these we have identified about 15 instances in which emergent arrangements for encounters (unplanned at least to some degree) are produced as practical accomplishments through talk-in-interaction. The different kinds of location and availability work done by the participants display some regularity while also being embedded and adjusted to specific contingencies in each case, such that relatively extended sequences need to be analysed in full detail for one to get a grasp of what is going on. Because of constraints on the size of this chapter, we have elected to analyse in detail two significant conversations. The conversation analysed below provides a typical example of the way localisation queries may be used to constitute mutual co-proximity as a noticeable feature of the interactional setting, and how this brings the possibility of an encounter into play. Excerpt (3) (Conversation 3) 1

A:

2

B:

3

B:

4

A:

5 6

B: A:

7

B:

8 9

A:

10 B:

(0.9) ouais (.) allô? (0.9) yes (.) hello? (0.2) salut éline (.) c’est martin (0.1) (0.2) hi eline (.) this is martin (0.1) touriste à paris huit a tourist in paris eight hein:::? uh? (1.1) pardon? pardon? je dis martin I said martin (0.9) ah:: martin: (.) ouais:: (.) ça va? ah:: martin: (.) yeah (.) how are you doing? touriste à paris huit (.) et occasionnellement tourist in paris eight (.) and occasionally

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Interactionally generated encounters 11 12 A: 13 14 15 B: 16 A: 17

18 A:

[ ouais::::

]

touriste de chez touriste tourist for sure (0.5) tu es dans le secteur ? are you in the vicinity? ah:::::: mais ça (.) ah:: d’accord (.) ah béh j’comprends (.) ah: but this (.) oh okay (.) oh yeah I understand >parce que l’autre fois j’ai eu un appel< >because last time I had a call
voilà voilà voilà.< (.) tu es dans le coin? >well well well< (.) are you around? (0.7) ouais:: je suis dans le coin: (0.1) mais là je vais à un cours de pagès:= yeah: I’m around but now I’m going to a lesson by Pagès ah::::::. >très bien très bien très bien< (.) très bien ah::::::. >okay, okay, okay< (.) okay

The answerer marks a pause (l. 24), agrees, and confirms her presence on the campus in the same terms (‘yeah:: I’m around’). Because of the sequential organisation and also the similar design of their indexical formulations of location, this does more than just localise her. It asserts their co-presence on the campus and establishes their current proximity. This is a significant social action, as shown by the fact that, after a brief pause, she self-selects to provide an account for her unavailability (ll. 24–25). It blocks (and reveals) some of the consequences of such a mutual recognition of proximity. Through this prospectively oriented mitigating condition, she excuses herself from an encounter that has not yet been evoked. Such an encounter appears as an example of Harvey Sacks’ “interactionally generated action” (Sacks 1992: 211) which emerges from the preliminary work done by the recognition of mutual proximity and availability. The answerer treats the mutual recognition of their “co-proximity” as an action that normatively projects an encounter as a possible follow-up. This is because it demonstrates, on the one hand, that an encounter can be arranged in practice (because they are close) and, on the other hand, that both participants co-orient towards the relevance here and now of their newly acknowledged proximity for any kind of social action for which mutual proximity is meaningful, among which actual encounters figure prominently. She therefore displays her anticipation that a relevant next conversational action of the caller may be a proposal, an invitation, an offer, a request, etc. for a face-toface encounter by providing an account for her unavailability. In doing so she treats the preceding co-location and availability work that turned into an assertion of mutual co-proximity as having a pre-sequential character (Terasaki 2004; Schegloff 2007) with respect to a proposal to meet. The significant pause that precedes her turn might also be interpreted as marking a non-preferred response, that is, a refusal of this expected yet unformulated proposal to meet. Finally, the excuse she provides shows that the recognition of

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co-proximity may display the co-orientation of participants towards the relevance of the kind of social action that it projects. However, it does not overtly treat the question of their availability. So being unavailable is always an option for excusing oneself from the emerging encounter in such an environment. The mutual recognition of proximity may also happen and “do” things in landline phone conversations. Emanuel Schegloff briefly mentions a case in which two participants in the same town recognise the unusual presence of a friend in the same town, in a way that might promote a future encounter (Schegloff 1972: 84–85). However, since in most cases intimate participants know where they are, it is rarely relevant for them to orient towards the recognition of mutual proximity in environments in which an encounter is emerging as a possibility. In the case of mobile phone conversations, on the other hand, the recognition of mutual proximity appears as a very effective resource for doing the kind of preliminary conversational work through which encounters may emerge. In the course of discussing their location, participants may recognise or be made to recognise their proximity, an occasion which projects an encounter as a possible and relevant course of action. Such a phenomenon casts a long shadow over the development of ubiquitous computing and locative media, for these will provide affordances for persons to monitor their positions and become mutually aware of their occasional proximity. Because of this, location-aware mediated environments may support the interactional generation of encounters based on the recognition of proximity, and proximity may become a distinctive and constitutive issue in location-aware cultures, as we have shown elsewhere (Licoppe 2009).

4.

Localising oneself at “thresholds” in mobility and activity paths: A powerful resource for the conversational production of proximities and encounters

What kinds of resources are available to participants during their localisation work to promote the emergence of an encounter? Consider another mobile phone conversation, in which the participants are two close male friends who live in the same area (a suburb of Paris) and very often meet to do things together. They are quite knowledgeable about each other’s daily routines and schedules. In a previous conversation they had agreed to meet later, but the practical arrangements had been left vague enough for the whole project to remain procedurally unplanned. As a result, the meeting has to be arranged all over again through talk-in-interaction. This is what transpires in the conversation we will presently analyse. It displays a dual orientation towards:

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a) localisation work and availability checks aimed at the construction of utterances constituting mutual co-proximity, which are treated as the first part of pre-invitations to meet or pre-announcements of a visit; and b) the formulation of locations as thresholds between activities and mobilities which are powerful resources for the progressive emergence and collaborative advancement of a joint project to meet. With respect to the emergence and stabilisation of joint projects to meet, it provides resources for recipients to infer future proximity and availability conditions, and it makes such inferences interactionally relevant. Excerpt (5) (Conversation 4) 1

A:

2

B:

3 4

A:

5 6

B:

7

B:

8 9

B:

10 11 A: 12 B: 13 B : 14 15 A: 16 17 B: 18 A:

ça va::? how are you doing::? (0.2) thomas à l’appareil (0.2) thomas on the phone (0.4) >t’es à la gare< (.) t’es à la ga:re: là::?= >you’re at the station< (.) you’re at the station now?= =j’en ai fi (.) j’en ai fini avec la gare du nord (.) I’ve fi (.) I’ve finished at the gare du nord j’t’entends pas bien °là° I can’t hear you well °now° (0.7) j’en (inc) du nord::= I’ve (inc) du nord:: [((external noise))] =>j’viens juste d’arriver moi< I’ve just arrived myself et là je (0.6) là (0.2) je:: remonte à saint leu and now I (0.6) now (0.2) I’m going up to saint leu (0.1) je dois faire quelques >photocopies< (0.1) I’ve got to make some >photocopies< (0.5) ouais:: yeah:: (0.2) là: toi (.) tu t’trouves à quel endroit::? now you (.) where are you? (0.4) j’viens juste d’arriver chez moi là: (0.4) i’ve just got home

After a greeting and recognition sequence where the participants hear each other poorly, the call recipient utters a formulaic question (“ça va?”, l. 1). The caller answers with a self-identifying turn. The recipient then utters a two-

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part localisation query (l. 4) in which he provides a candidate answer (“you’re at the station?”). “Being at the station” is a formulation that marks not only a location in space but a threshold between mobilities or a “place between places” which separates prior mobilities (which made him go to the station) from further mobilities (taking the commuter train back home) on the one hand, and activities on the other. The query is then repeated, with the addition of an aspectual deictic that precisely highlights the transitory character of such localisation (“là” which may be translated as ‘now’ in this context). This orients the interaction towards activities in which both the alignment of the participants’ activities and their mobility paths (i.e. coordination activities) may be relevant: i.e. coordination activities. Furthermore, their having evoked the idea of a meeting makes highly relevant coordination moves which might advance such a project at this juncture. The caller responds by indicating that he is “finished with the Gare du Nord”, effectively treating this location as a transitory milestone in his mobility and activity path. Through the time deictic function of the verbal form, “to be finished with”, the formulation of his location marks him as currently mobile or about to be so. The background noise we hear, including his rapid breath, which suggests he is walking while talking, seems to confirm this. The question of his current involvement (since he has ended prior activities and does not mention further involvements) is left open. The caller then mentions his difficulties in hearing (l. 7) and repeats his own localisation (l. 9). It is only then that the recipient reciprocates with a self-localising turn (l. 11). His formulation (“I’ve just arrived myself ”) is interesting in several respects. It is a member-related formulation of place (Schegloff, 1972) that presupposes sufficient interpretive knowledge on the recipient’s part. He also posits himself at a sort of threshold through the use of a mobility-related verb (“arriver”, to arrive) that marks his current location as the endpoint of some prior mobility, and suggests he is going to stay there for a while. However, since he has only just arrived he is not yet likely to be deeply engaged in the kind of things he usually does there. Lastly, his use of the person deictic “moi” (‘myself ’) in line 11 establishes his localisation within an activity and mobility path as comparable and relevant to that of the caller. He displays collaboration in this visible effort to align their mobility and activity paths and to make them commensurable, which orients towards the relevance of a joint coordination project for which the ongoing talk-ininteraction can assume the status of a preliminary. The caller, who has probably not heard properly (see below), continues elaborating on his own mobility and activity path: he states that he is currently on the move, going up to Saint Leu to make some photocopies (ll.

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12–13), which the call recipient acknowledges (‘yeah’, l. 15). Then the caller asks again for the recipient’s localisation, making visible that he has not heard the turn in line 9 because of the communication problem evoked earlier in line 7. His question includes time and person deictics (l. 17), which emphasise the relevance of that localisation with respect to his own ongoing mobilities and activities. This is answered by the recipient’s slightly more elaborate iteration of his earlier and apparently unheard self-localisation in line 9. He now says that he has just arrived at home, displaying his understanding that his previous formulation in line 9, which did not overtly refer to a particular place, might have been the source of problems (l. 18). It also ends with a deictic (“là”) that echoes the one used in the caller’s localisation query. This marks his collaborating in the work of constructing mutual knowledge about their current mobility and activity paths, and aligning them. This time his answer is heard by the caller, as his next turn shows (ll. 19–20), and it is used to step up the coordination process. Excerpt (6) (Conversation 4) 19 B: 20 21 22 A: 23 24 25 B: 26 27 A: 28 B: 29 A: 30 31 32 B: 33 34 B: 35 B:

d’accord (.) donc euh::: t’es là haut okay (.) so er you’re up there (0.6) béh écoute euh::: (0.6) hum listen er::: [ ] >oh bah là< >oh well now< je::::: j’ai des trucs à taper là I::::: I have things to type there [ ] °tu restes là haut (.) là?° °you’re staying up there now?° (0.4) hein:? what:? (0.3) tu restes là haut? (0.3) you’re staying up there? (0.6) ouais: (.) j’vais taper un peu de courrier là (0.6) yeah: (.) I’m going to type some mail now (0.3) d’a:ccord: (0.1) ouais (0.7) bon béh écoute j’fais okay: (0.1) yeah (0.7) well er listen I’ll make mes photocopies (.) pis euh::: je:: reprends la my photocopies (.) then er::: I:: will be back direction du quartier in the direction of the neighbourhood

292 36 37 A: 38 39 B: 40 A: 41 42 B:

Christian Licoppe and Julien Morel (0.7) d’accord à d’t’à l’heure okay see ya later (0.1) se::::: donc j’te trouve chez toi: se::::: so I’ll see you at home: (0.6) >ouais ouais< j’suis chez moi: (0.6) >yeah yeah< I’m at home: (0.4) okay (.) à tout à l’heu:re okay (.) see you la:ter

The caller’s next turn displays another effort at advancing an emergent coordination project (l. 19). He starts by acknowledging the recipient’s localisation and then reformulates it: “you’re up there”. Reformulations are used to display understanding of prior talk and highlight some specific point as relevant (Heritage and Watson 1979). The reformulation concerns place and transforms “at home” into the place deictic “up there”. It re-indexes the recipient’s location with respect to that of the caller, which makes the convergence of his mobility path with that location conceivable. It is followed by prefatory markers (“well er listen”) which make what comes next something noteworthy and occasioned by the previous talk-in-interaction. The recipient breaks in with an overlapping account of why he is staying home, designed as a response to the caller’s reformulation of his localisation. He states that he has some things to type (l. 23), which indicates he is about to engage in an activity, from which one may infer the further information that he will remain at home for some time. The activity itself is presented in an indefinite way, which might suggest unavailability. The caller may again not have heard, for he pursues the line of thought started in line 19 and utters a kind of “mobility” query, sounding out the recipient’s intentions regarding his staying “up there”. This leads to a repair sequence (ll. 25–30) in which the call recipient formulates his projected activity in slightly more detail: he will be typing some mail (ll. 29–30). This suggests a recurring activity that can be stopped and taken up again later. This reformulation displays his orientation towards arriving at a description of his ongoing activities that will not be heard as blocking with respect to the emergent arrangements to meet. The caller then displays his understanding by building on this to produce a crucial turn-at-talk with respect to their emerging coordination, for it indexes a future situation of co-proximity (ll. 34–35). It is prefaced by a conjunctive term followed by an address term, marking what is about to be said as a noticeable elaboration of the prior conversation. The caller then provides a summary of his activities and mobility to come: ‘well er listen (.) I’ll make my

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photocopies (.) then er:::: I’ll::: head back in the direction of the neighbourhood’. This makes the time boundaries of his photocopying activity salient, bringing into play the possibility of his being available afterwards – which is emphasised by the fact that his subsequent mobility is not associated with any goal or further activity. Moreover, it is posited as aiming towards a place formulated as “the neighbourhood”. This is a member-related formulation of place which in this context (it is mentioned after Saint Leu as the site of a possible coordination) narrows the relevant area for a meeting down to a particular part of Saint Leu which emphasises proximity and commonality: a well-known area where both participants can travel by foot and meet in a few minutes. The formulation of place also refers to joint membership (both live in “the neighbourhood” and know they do), to a history of prior experience and a shared sense of space (Schegloff 1972). Such a narrowing down of the scale of their proximity also displays an orientation towards advancing the realisation of the joint project to meet. Hence, this multi-unit turn “does” proximity (the answerer will be at home for an indefinite time, and the caller is soon coming “to the neighbourhood”) and “does” availability (the caller has not stated any activity to take place after he reaches the neighbourhood, although he has had opportunities to mention them; the answerer is staying at home to do things from which he can conveniently disengage). The turn also points towards the occurrence of a co-proximity event in an availability time frame that starts as soon as the caller has reached “the neighbourhood”, and makes such a future occurrence relevant here and now in the conversation. According to our analysis, recognising an occasion of co-proximity projects a possible encounter. Constructing and acknowledging a current or future proximity through talk-in-interaction does some pre-sequential work with respect to an emergent joint project to meet. Here, the recipient provides an agreement token (“yeah”, that can be treated as a “go ahead”) and then moves directly on to the first part of a pre-closing sequence which considers their future encounter as a given thing (‘see you later’, l. 34). It acts as a “prospective indexical” (Goodwin 1996). Additionally, since it topicalises future arrangements to meet, it moves the conversation toward closings (Schegloff and Sacks 1973), thus displaying the conditions of their encounter as a practically settled matter. Here again, we have a recipient treating a coproximity-constituting turn as projecting the joint project to meet. However, since the decision to meet had already been ratified, the construction of a coproximity event does a slightly different kind of preliminary work. It displays the practical conditions of the encounter; it “does” arrangements. Not everything is completely settled though, for this pre-closing occasions a small repair sequence about the exact location of the meeting (ll. 39–42).

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This conversation highlights one of the main resources used by mobile phone users to recognise some form of future co-proximity and to enact the possibility and relevance of a joint project to meet. Mobile phone users constitute themselves as mobile entities along activity and mobility paths. They do so in turns that appear occasioned by their reaching a “threshold” on such a path, which can be either a change in their ongoing activity, in the form of their mobility, or in their proximity to a mutually significant proximity milestone. Such “threshold”-oriented self-descriptions frame phone users as mobile entities for which future proximity and availability may be inferred on the basis of commonsense reasoning.1 The collaborative emergence of arrangements to meet then appears as a mutual effort to make the mobility and activity paths of both participants commensurable. Proximity, availability, an encounter and its relevant time frames, thus all appear as practical conversational accomplishments. They are also mutually elaborative.

5.

Conclusion

We have studied mobile phone conversations in which a particular kind of social action, i.e. the joint project to meet and the practical arrangements to do so, was produced as an emergent phenomenon through talk-in-interaction. We began by showing some of the practical methods in landline phone conversations and mobile phone conversations by which encounters are made relevant. With landline phones, the participants are expected to be in pre-defined locations (i.e. where the phones are), so that the caller generally has some knowledge about where the call recipient is, making localisation queries a less relevant conversational resource in landline phone conversations. One effective way to make an encounter relevant is to perform an availability check at the first available slot after the opening sequence, at a sequential position where the provision of a reason for the call could be performed. Mobile phone conversations provide a different environment for the emergence of encounters. In these, an effective way to orient the conversation towards a forthcoming encounter is to place a localisation query, or to mention one’s location, as in the case of “seductive place formulations” at such a position. Mobile conversationalists probably use location-related checks rather than activity-oriented availability checks (which remain rel1

It seems that, in children, the perception of self and others as mobile auto-propelled entities is related at a very early stage to the recognition of intention. Mobility (in the instrumental sense) and the perception of intentionality are tightly coupled (Premack 1990).

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evant in mobile phone conversations) to initiate such sequences, because the recognition of being far apart would cause an encounter to be irrelevant irrespective of the availability and willingness of the concerned parties. There appears to be a way for mobile conversationalists to do much of the preliminary work needed for a projected encounter to emerge without overtly treating the issue of availability. The two participants work at sharing their locations and mobility contexts so as to allow themselves to recognise that they are close to one another, or will be close in the future. When the encounter is unplanned, such a collaborative recognition of proximity displays the co-orientation of participants towards the relevance of proximity formulated in this way, and therefore of the kind of activity for which the recognition of mutual proximity is meaningful: it strongly projects a copresent encounter as a relevant and expected future course of action, and sequentially it is treated as projecting a turn such as an invitation or a proposal (to meet). In conversational environments in which the decision to meet was previously discussed and ratified but its details left vague, it is a resource to get the suitable practical arrangements to emerge from the ongoing interaction, and therefore to advance such a project. Finally, we have discussed how the emergent coordination work could rely on participants formulating their locations as thresholds in mobility and activity paths. This provides recipients with opportunities for checking preconditions for the encounter (e.g. “when to meet?”, “where to meet?”, “how to meet?” and “what kind of encounter may we expect?”), and for the relevance of such concerns. It also offers a set of resources for recognising occasions of proximity, forms of availability, and for building, displaying and maintaining a co-orientation towards an emergent encounter. By anchoring their activity and mobility paths to their current interactional contexts, participants make them simultaneously salient, and therefore potentially commensurate, through talk-in-interaction. This puts them in a position to recognise the possible spatial convergence of their mobility and activity paths within a relevant availability time frame, and such a recognition of proximity constitutes, as we have seen, an effective way to move forward a project to meet. Such resources for producing emergent micro-coordinations are reflexively tied to the “mobile” character of these phone conversations. At any moment in phone conversations in general (both fixed and mobile), participants can make salient elements of their respective contexts contingent to what goes on in the talk-in-interaction, and move meaningfully between a focus on their environment (mostly inaccessible to the other participants) and a focus on their mutual interaction. However, the possibility and the rel-

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evance of unveiling and mentioning such distinctive semiotic resources as descriptions of or references to current or future location appear to characterise more specifically “mobile contextual configurations” (Arminen and Weilenmann 2009). The kind of emergent coordination that we have analysed relies on the use of location and mobility-related semiotic resources which mobile phone environments make available. At the same time, their conversational use performs the ongoing interactions as a conversation of a certain type, a “mobile” phone conversation. Moreover, the effectiveness of the kind of phenomena we have identified with respect to the management of encounters as emergent phenomena (i.e. localisation queries in the position of a reason for the call, the performativity of the mutual recognition of proximity, and the situated identities of participants as subjects engaged in particular mobility and activity paths) may support the impression of serendipity which is sometimes associated with the use of mobile phones. Some of these phenomena are also relevant to other fields of research. For instance, the way in which mobile phone users describe and categorise themselves in these communication events in which a future encounter comes into play (whether “now” or later), as mobile or immobile beings, and locate themselves at thresholds in mobility and activity paths, also raises interesting issues with respect to current mobility research. Our users, many of whom are heavy and opportunistic users of mobile technologies, display mobility behaviours that could often fit with the “mobility paradigm” analytical perspective. They experience being on the move as a creative and sought for kind of situation that offers many opportunities, instead of just something one must do in order to be able to do something else. It is therefore significant to note that when we look at the practical way in which they coordinate with one another in mobile phone conversations they rely almost systematically on instrumental goal-oriented formulations of their own mobility practices. Such a “traditional” representation of mobility – in the sense of antedating the “mobility turn” described by mobility research – appears as a commonsense interpretive repertoire which allows inferences about the possible future proximity and availability of conversationalists, and therefore constitutes a very useful coordination resource for talk-in-interaction. Recognising the sequential and moral implications of the mutual recognition of proximity points toward proximity’s importance as a resource in the organisation of sociality in very different types of settings. The current development of ubiquitous computing and locative media is leading to the development of environments that precisely provide specific affordances for participants to notice their positions and almost continuously monitor and assess their mutual distance. Such affordances both shape and multiply the

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occasions for members to recognise their co-proximity. Hence the recognition of mutual proximity is bound to be a common event, the management of its moral and sequential implications a recurrent concern, and the way this is done a constitutive feature of the interaction order in location-aware communities (Licoppe and Inada 2010). The kind of analysis we have conducted here opens out onto a wider research program on proximity as an accomplishment, and its implications with respect to encounters and sociality in various mediated settings.

Acknowledgements Part of this research has been funded by a research contract with OrangeLabs and we are grateful to Valérie Beaudouin, Frédérique Legrand and Dominique Cardon for their support.

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Hester, Stephen and Peter Eglin (1997): Culture in Action: Studies in Membership Categorization Analysis. Washington (D.C.): International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis & University Press of America. Hutchby, Ian and Simone Barnett (2005): Aspects of the sequential organization of mobile phone conversation. Discourse Studies 7(2): 147–171. Ingold, Tim (2000): The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. Ingold, Tim (2007): Lines: A Brief History. London: Routledge. Laurier, Eric (2000): Why people say where they are during mobile phone calls. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 19: 485–504. Levinson, Stephen (1983): Pragmatics. Cambridge: University Press. Licoppe, Christian (2004): Connected presence: the emergence of a new repertoire for managing social relationships in a changing communication technoscape. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22(1): 135–156. Licoppe, Christian (2009): Recognizing mutual ‘proximity’ at a distance: weaving together mobility, sociality, and technology. Journal of Pragmatics, 41: 1924–1937. Licoppe, Christian and Zbigniew Smoreda (2005): Are social networks technologically embedded? How networks are changing today with communication technologies. Social Networks 27(4): 317–335. Licoppe, Christian and Yoriko Inada (2010): Locative media and cultures of mediated proximity: the case of the Mogi game location-aware community. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28(44): 691–709. Ling, Richard, and Brigitte Yttri (2002): Hyper-coordination via mobile phones in Norway. In: James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus (eds.), Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, 139–169. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Nardi, Bonnie, Steve Whittaker and Erin Bradner (2000): Interaction and outeraction: instant messaging in action. In: Proceedings of the ACM 2000 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (December 2–6, 2000, Philadelphia, PA, USA), 79–88. New York: ACM Press. Pomerantz, Anita (1984): Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In: John Maxwell Atkinson and John Heritage (eds.), Structures of Social Action, 57–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Premack, David (1990): The infant’s theory of self-propelled objects. Cognition 36: 1–16. Relieu, Marc (2002): Ouvrir la boîte noire. Identification et localisation dans les conversations mobiles. Réseaux 20 (112–113): 19–47. Sacks, Harvey (1992): Lectures on Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1972): Notes on a conversational practice: formulating place. In: David Sudnow (ed.), Studies in Social Interaction, 75–119. New York: The Free Press. Schegloff, Emanuel A. (2007): Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, Emanuel A. and Harvey Sacks (1973): Opening up closings. Semiotica VIII(4): 289–327. Sheller, Mimi, and John Urry (2006): The new mobilities paradigm. Environment and Planning A 38(2): 207–226.

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Szymanski, Margaret, Erik Vinkhuyzen, Paul Aoki and Allison Woodruff (2006): Organizing a remote state of incipient talk: push-to-talk mobile radio interaction. Language in Society 35(3): 393–418. Terasaki, Alene (2004): Pre-announcement sequences in conversation. In: Gene Lerner (ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, 171–233. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Urry, John (2000): Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century. London: Routledge. Urry, John (2002): Mobility and proximity. Sociology 36(2): 255–274. Weilenmann, Alexandra and Peter Leuchovius (2004): “I’m waiting where we met last time”: Exploring everyday positioning practices to inform design. In: Proceedings of the Third Nordic Computer Human Interaction Conference (NordiCHI 2004, Helsinki), 33–42. New York: ACM Press.

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Lorenza Mondada

Coordinating mobile action in real time: The timely organisation of directives in video games 1.

Introduction

Joint activities collectively performed in real time, in which participants engage together in the achievement of a collaborative task, require a high degree of timed coordination. Activities’ coordination is even stronger when mobile actions are performed; in a continuously changing context, joint action is reflexively organised by adjusting to a constantly and contingently evolving situation, constituting dynamic mobile configurations. Jointly coordinated mobile activities are characteristic of professional teams, for example teams of pilots (Nevile 2004, 2009, this volume), teams monitoring the flow of persons or vehicles in control rooms (Heath, Luff, and Sanchez Svensson 2002; Luff and Heath 1998; Koskela, Arminen, and Palukka this volume), teams performing surgery on a patient and adjusting to the circumstances of an emergent and sometimes unplanned anatomy (Mondada 2003, 2007), but also of everyday activities, for example when a driver and a passenger take collective decisions in a car (De Stefani and Mondada 2008; Haddington 2010, this volume). In these mobile contexts mediated by different kinds of technologies, the participants are themselves on the move and/or are monitoring and controlling mobile events. This chapter focuses on the coordination of mobile actions in another technologically mediated environment: video games. In war games as well as in sport games, participants playing within the same team have to coordinate their actions in order to overcome together all sorts of contingent events and situations within fast-changing environments that are monitored on a video screen and through game controllers. The video game studied here is virtual football; it involves mobile actions that have to adjust to other mobile actions within constantly changing spatial organisations. The study is based on a series of video-recorded game sessions documented with two cameras, edited in a multiscope view, allowing us to follow both the action of the players in their living room and the action of their football players on the TV screen. On this basis, the study investigates the ways in which participants coordinate mobile action through the timely production of orders, directives, and instructions relative to the movements of the avatars running across the football field.

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After presenting a first example of the phenomena under examination, and a discussion of the relevant literature (section 2.), the chapter offers a systematic analysis of directives instructing movements, and of their mobile responses (section 3.). These sequences can be closed by positive or negative assessments (section 4.) but can also be expanded by various accounts (section 5.), which retrospectively display how participants deal with issues of time, agency, skills, and norms in coordinating mobile action.

2.

Virtual football: Orchestrating and controlling mobile actions on the screen

This chapter focuses on the situated and finely tuned practices of gamers playing virtual football as they coordinate the moves of their avatars within the highly mobile environment of the football field appearing on a TV monitor. It deals with issues of mobility coordination (section 2.1) on the basis of a corpus of video recordings documenting both the embodied practices of the players and the technologically mediated field in which they are playing (section 2.2). The chapter treats video games as a perspicuous setting for investigating issues of mobility coordination (section 2.3). 2.1.

Real-time coordination of collective tasks in mobile contexts

Moving together, either in a co-present or in a mediated environment, building a common trajectory within space, relies on the collective achievement of mutual attention, aligned projections of the next step, and coordinated movements jointly oriented towards relevant contingent features of the context. These aspects have been investigated by studies of people walking together (Lee and Watson 1993; Quéré and Brezger 1992; Relieu 1994, 1999; Ryave and Schenkein 1974; De Stefani 2010, this volume; Broth and Lundström this volume), making their walk convergent in the creation of a common interactional space (Mondada 2009), or coordinating their walk in order to avoid other “vehicular units” (Goffman 1963). The present study focuses on running trajectories in a technologically mediated environment, and aims to show how players involved in video football coordinate the movements of their avatars on the screen. It deals with the methodical ways by which they coordinate their moves, moment by moment, taking into account the dynamic context of the game. The analysis focuses on directives and instructions implemented in the form of imperatives; it reveals how mobile action is achieved through imperatives adjusted to the emergent construction of turns at talk, to the moving configurations

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observable on the screen, and to the actions undertaken by the players in order to command the movements of their avatars on the virtual field. This mobile coordination relies on multi-layered time: time of the talk, time of the football actions, and time of the embodied manipulations of the game controls. These temporal dynamics do not only concern the momentby-moment unfolding of actions but also the participants’ anticipations, based on their skilled interpretation in real time of projected trajectories of actions, both in talk and in the game, as well as the participants’ planning of game strategies within more extensive lines of conduct. The format of turns at talk containing imperatives orients to these temporal features of mobile coordination (cf. also Haddington this volume) – in brief, to the temporal order of the game. In this sense, the temporality of talk and the temporality of the game shape together the detailed temporal formatting of the imperatives. Moreover, this coordination relies on social relationships, and the players’ identities, gaming competencies and skills, as these are reflexively elaborated and evaluated within the game itself. The way in which imperatives are received, granted, or contested relies on and establishes the legitimacy, authority, and relevance of the moves within the game – that is, the social and moral order of the game. 2.2.

Data

The football game on which this paper is based is FIFA08 for PlayStation3 (PS3). The data set is a 1 h 30 video-recorded session, during which 2 players, Luc and Raph, play 4 matches, always playing together within the Real Madrid team, against other anonymous players connected through the internet. The game is inspired by actual features, teams, and events of the year’s tournaments. At the beginning of each match, the players choose a team/club and select the footballer avatars they prefer; within the game, they monitor the footballers with the game controller, choosing the individual they are playing as. Each avatar inherits the characteristics of the real-life footballer it represents, and has specific skills, which are implemented in the computer system (for example he runs faster, he is good at chip kicks, he is a good defender or striker, a good leader, etc.). Players can either play as a single character throughout the entire match or play with the entire team; in the latter case, which is the mode chosen by Luc and Raph, they successively activate various footballers, and they monitor them using the side-on aerial view of the field (see figure 1 below), preferring it to the over-the-shoulder view. This technological preference is consistent with the task at hand, monitoring mobile agents and mobile configurations and coordinating mo-

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bile actions, which necessitate a global view rather than a proximal view of the field. Players mostly identify with the avatars (referring to them with first- and second-person pronouns) but can also call them by their name or the thirdperson pronoun; sometimes, especially in the case of failures, they clearly distantiate from them and attribute their action to the computer system rather than to their intentional control. In the description of their moves, I use the players’ nicknames to designate the football avatars they are controlling on the screen, as players mostly identify with them; but I make the distinction between players and avatars when this difference is made relevant by the players themselves (these differences can be massively relevant in other game contexts, as observed by Keating 2008). The game session has been video recorded with two cameras, one installed on the top of the TV monitor in front of the players (Luc is on the left, in a black shirt, and Raph on the right, in white) and the other one directly plugged into the game system, recording the screen (see figure 1 below).1 Both views have been synchronised and edited as a multiscope video in order to make possible an analysis of the coordinated actions of the players, taking into account their embodied conduct and their moves on the screen. Excerpt 1 offers a view of both activities in a multimodal transcript. In order to make the finely tuned coordination of the players available for the analysis, relying in a detailed manner on the sequential unfolding of their actions, excerpts have been transcribed by synchronising the relevant game moves with the ongoing talk. The game actions performed by the participants as well as by other agents have been integrated in an extra line: both are synchronised by bracketing the beginning and the end of the actions, aligned with precise points within the talk thanks to a series of symbols (actions performed by Luc are signalled by the symbol *; actions performed by Raph by the symbol +). We join the first excerpt as Raph is running toward the goal: Luc produces a directive, “shoot” (l. 1), complied with by Raph’s shot, which fails to score a goal. 1

This data set is part of a larger corpus of 10 hours of video-recorded video games, collected within a project on teenagers’ talk, funded in 2007 by the Institut de Linguistique Française/Délégation Générale à la Langue Française (ILF/DGLF). Thanks to J. Lascar, J. Ait Hamlat and S. Teston for their collaboration during fieldwork and to I. Colon for editing the video data. The analysis also contributes to the SPIM project (funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche ANR) on repetitions in interaction.

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Excerpt (1) (30.08) rap fig

>>runs with the ball to the goal area and avoids an opponent#-> fig.1A and 1B#

Figure 1A

Figure 1B

Figure 1A. Luc (on the left) and Raph (on the right) are concentrated on the game. Figure 1B. The white footballer avatar controlled by Raph has the ball (circled), Luc is in front of the goal (their activated avatars are signalled by a small triangle above them, blue/dark for Luc and red/light dark for Raph). 1

>frappe,< >shoot,< 2 (0.2)* (0.2) * (0.2) | rap -->*shoots-* eve |the goalkeeper stops the ball 3 LUC: O#H:, *+dommage.*+ # OH:, what a pity. *+mutual gaze*+ fig #fig.2 #fig.3

Figure 2

Figure 3

4 (0.3) 5 RAP: dé*solé. [j’hé*sitais, # j’hé- j’hé-] sorry. [I hesitated, I he- I he-] *looks at LUC* fig #fig.4

Figure 4

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As Raph runs towards the goal, Luc enjoins him to shoot (l. 1). Raph grants the directive and actually shoots the ball, but the goalkeeper stops it and the action fails (l. 2). This outcome is formulated by Luc with a negative assessment (l. 3) as they engage in a mutual gaze. Raph responds with some excuses (l. 5) and offers an account for his late shot, looking at Luc. As shown by figures 1A and 1B, two praxeological environments characterise the game: the home environment in which Luc and Raph are sitting and controlling the game, holding the controllers with both hands, and the technologically mediated environment in which their avatars are playing, monitored by them. Mobile coordinated actions characterise the latter; Luc and Raph are relatively immobile on their couch while they play. Nonetheless, they also move in their co-present environment, as observable in the participants’ changes of posture generated by the failed shot and the consecutive suspension of the game: during the game action, they are concentrated in front of the monitor with their bodies leaning towards the screen; when the game is suspended, they retract, relax, and turn to each other (figures 2 and 3), eventually abandoning the game controller in order to gesticulate and self-touch (figure 4). The gamers move constantly between two alternating interactional spaces, a side-by-side configuration, where they are focusing on the actions on the screen, and a face-to-face configuration, which is realised in a body-torqued position (Schegloff 1998), as the upper part of the bodies reorient reciprocally (see Mondada in 2012 for a detailed analysis of these movements). 2.3.

Coordinating technologically mediated action in video games

Video games offer an example of non-professional, ordinary “centres of coordination” (Suchman 1996), characterised by a complex organisation of fragmented spaces, multiple participation frameworks, and several contemporary activities, mediated through various technologies. As in professional centres, the games imply activities necessitating the simultaneous coordination of participants in a timely way, where the mutual attention and orientation towards relevant landmarks commonly identified within a moving context are often crucial. Despite the abundant literature on video games, detailed studies of the players’ timely coordinated activities are still scarce. Moves in and out of games, between virtual spaces and real spaces, have been discussed in a few studies: Keating observes that “tactility translates into space-transforming action when the computer mouse and keyboard movement results in onscreen avatar movement and players manage environments with particu-

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lar relevant next actions, constantly orienting, manipulating, interpreting the body and the body’s double in constantly changing space” (2008: 72) (see also Keating and Sunakawa 2011); Aarsand and Aronsson (2009) describe the dynamics of switching between in-game and out-game talk, and Licoppe and Inada (2006) show that the articulation between these spaces is a specific element of games like Mogi, a multiplayer location-aware mobile game in which users must gather sets of related objects that are both “virtual” and localised. Although timed coordination is crucial for collaborative games – and it is recognised as such by game designers, interested in supporting effective collaborative forms of interaction between players (see Manninen and Kujanpää 2005) – detailed studies of the way in which players interact within game-related tasks are still scarce, and the few existing studies are mostly ethnographic descriptions not based on detailed transcripts. In an ethnomethodologically inspired ethnography, Reeves, Laurier, and Brown (2007) describe the skilled competences of the players engaged in a multiplayer war game, Counter-Strike: “Successful sequences of action […] involve careful timing, and players must perform them and deploy each sequential action, such as movement, posture (e.g., ducking), orientation, and aiming, artfully and orderly. These orderly sequences must also be engaged with the terrain, such that movements, orientations, aiming and so on are crafted specifically for corners, doors, across open spaces and down corridors. Timing also requires rapid reaction from players in relation to the enemy’s move” (2007: 137). In one of the rare studies to use transcripts of on-screen activities, Bennerstedt (2008) describes the coordination between players engaged in World of Warcraft, focusing on two discursive practices specific to the game, achieved through the skillful and adjusted typing of the phrases “sheep moon”, which makes humanoid mobs harmless through turning them into sheep, and “sap circle”, which puts a mob to “sleep”, immobilising it for a while. This analysis shows how participants coordinate either silently or under the instructions of one participant, after everyone’s roles have been negotiated. Another study of coordinated action between players engaged in playing Final Fantasy X, by Piirainen-Marsh (2010), shows how code-switching is timely used as a resource offered by the game in order to build new sequences of action, to achieve transitions from one activity to another, and to display changes in the participants’ alignments. The present study aims to show how these skills are implemented in timed action, moment by moment, reflexively organised by taking into account the mobile context. It focuses its analysis on the finely tuned coordination between the emergent construction of turns at talk, the moving configurations observable on the screen, and the actions undertaken by the players to

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command the movements of their avatars on the virtual field. This coordination relies on multi-layered time: time of the talk, time of the football actions, and time of the embodied manipulations of the game control. These temporal dynamics do not only concern the moment-by-moment unfolding of actions but also the participants’ anticipations, based on their skilled interpretation in real time of projected trajectories of actions, both in talk and in the game. These temporal phenomena are central to mobile coordination. They are a crucial feature of football, dealt with in practical ways by different professionals: footballers create and manage step by step what will then be retrospectively recognised as a “configuration in movement” (Fele 1997, 2008); referees and linesmen “judge in movement” and actively direct and display players, for example when building a wall (Izquierdo 2003); sport commentators produce a timed description that follows, turn by turn and pass by pass, the dynamics of the game (Gerhardt 2008; Müller 2007). Some of these professional activities, as well as video football, imply a paradox of (im)mobility: sport commentators, sport fans watching the game, as well as video players, do not run, but are relatively immobile – although they might empathically participate in game peaks. Nevertheless, a specific engagement in the game characterises video players: their timely reactions are relative to their skilled manipulations of the game controller and to the performances of the software and the computer; in contrast to sport commentators, players not only follow moment by moment the unfolding of the game, but also actively and reflexively prefigure and shape its emergent configuration.

3.

Giving directives and instructions while performing tasks: A timely sequential organisation

In order to cast some light on the methodical organisation of the mobile coordination of players in video games, my analysis focuses on a specific resource centrally mobilised by them, the use of imperatives for the situated production of directives and instructions. In the following section (3.1), I briefly comment on the literature on directives, before turning to actual instances of sequences of directive-complying responses (section 3.2), highlighting the temporal features of their sequential organisation (section 3.3). 3.1.

Literature on directives: The missing context of action

Directives have been largely studied in the linguistic literature within different perspectives, from speech act theory to politeness theory, socioling-

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uistics, discourse analysis, and conversation analysis. Roughly, two main focuses characterise this literature: a focus on indirectedness and a focus on the social relationships indexed by these acts. On the one hand, indirect forms of directives have mainly been studied (the use of modal verbs such as “could you”/“would you”/“would you mind”/“I wonder if you could pass the salt”), rather than more direct ones (such as “pass me the salt”); within speech act theory, the conditions of interpretation of indirect acts (the inferences to be made to interpret them, as well as the conditions for considering them as successful, generally formulated in terms of cognitive stances, intentions, and abstract capabilities) have been largely discussed since Searle (1975). Within conversation analysis, directives are seen as initiating a sequence where granting constitutes the preferred response and rejecting the dispreferred one. Participants design directives by orienting to possible dispreferred responses, and this accounts for the frequent use of pre-requests and other pre-sequences (Schegloff 1980; Davidson 1984) as well as other request formats sensitive to different forms of entitlement (Lindström 2005; Wootton 2005; Heinemann 2006; Curl and Drew 2008; Craven & Potter, 2010). On the other hand, the social relationships indexed by directives have been privileged. Most of the literature considers that directives’ formulations are determined by social aspects such as politeness, social relationships, power relationships, hierarchy, and status (Brown and Levinson 1987). So, Ervin-Tripp (1976) finds that directives vary according to the rank and familiarity of speakers and hearers. Directives index the relative power of speaker and addressee. Aggravated forms of directives, such as orders and demands in the imperative form, imply that a speaker can legitimately impose on another by stating his or her requirements boldly. By contrast, the use of mitigated forms expresses these acts in downgraded ways and allows a speaker to avoid offending another (Labov and Fanshel 1977: 63, 84–86). Within conversation analysis-inspired work, West’s study of directives produced by physicians (1998) finds that men’s and women’s directives differ and elicit varying patient responses; in her data, men used aggravated forms that emphasised the hierarchical difference between them and their patients, whereas women used mitigated forms that minimised the status differences and stressed the connectedness between one another. Aggravated forms were less likely to elicit compliant responses from the patients. Studying the game activities of boys and girls in an urban neighbourhood, Goodwin (1990) finds that boys use imperative forms and girls use mitigated forms to coordinate their tasks. “Boys’ directives display distinctions between participants and stress individual rights [while] girls’ directives stress the connectedness of girls to each

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other and their caretaking concerns” (1990: 147). For boys, instructing and directing were a way of asserting a status as a team leader. For example, “Michael, as teamleader of his group, not only prescribes the working procedures and division of labour for sling making; in addition he dictates team strategy” (1990: 126). By contrast, girls coordinate collective tasks and decision making with minimal negotiation of status. “Whereas boys’ directives typically constitute commands that an action should be undertaken at the time the imperative is issued, girls’ directives are constructed as suggestions for action in the future” (1990: 129). Even if this latter study pays attention to the tasks at hand in which the participants are engaged, one consequence of the general focus on indirectedness and on social and gender relationships has been that the actual contexts of use of direct directives, in the form of imperative verbs, has been relatively neglected. In this respect, studies focusing on collective actions achieved by using directive forms are relatively scarce. Some interesting observations come from sociolinguistic studies of the workplace: Pearson notes that “‘controlling’ speech acts or directives, occur profusely in ordinary situations where people are set on accomplishing tasks” (1989: 289). In a recent study, Vine finds that “interactions where the main purpose is to ‘assign tasks’ yield, unsurprisingly, a large number of directives and provide more speech acts of this type per minute than interactions with other purposes” (2009: 1397). In a similar vein, Jones (1992) shows that directives cannot be reduced to indexing social or gender relations, but have to be studied considering the specific contexts of action in which they are used. They are massively used in situations with high involvement in the conversation and where another threat to the conversation outweighs the threat of the directive; in these cases, directives can even express solidarity and common interests. This seems especially to be the case of “NOW directives”, which are oriented to an immediate task: “The immediate nature of a NOW directive tends to mean that it is permissible to overlook considerations of politeness” (Vine 2009: 1401). However, these studies do not offer an account of the timely and situatedly sequential production of these directives. More generally, only a very few studies deal with the details of the multimodal actions taking place as a directive is profferred; consequently the fine coordination between the directive and its praxeological context of use remains largely undescribed. A recent notable exception is Cekaite (2010), who studies directives in family everyday life and focuses on two types of embodied parental “shepherding” actions, achieving the tactile monitoring of the child’s bodily movements in the direction of appointed goals. In this context, directive sequences, containing multiple directives (Craven &

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Potter 2010) and “directive trajectories” (Goodwin 2006), often characterised by resistance and negotiation, are designed and constrained both by the embodied moves of the parents and by the architecture of the house. In this chapter I focus on directives designing mobile actions too, but in a technologically mediated context in which coordination between the participants has to be achieved here and now, in a rapidly changing context, where the conditions and consequences for the immediate action are constantly being updated. In this mobile context, imperatives are the form that is most frequently used by the participants. I first focus on the sequential organisation of these actions, and then come back to the social and gender relationships built through the design of these turns and to the specific forms of agencies they display. 3.2.

Directive sequences in a mobile context

In my video-game corpus, one way in which mobile coordination is achieved by the players is through sequences of directives/responses (cf. Haddington this volume for other examples in car conversations). Directives and the related actions complying with them constitute a “sequence” in the strongest sense, where the first action projects the second. The fact that the latter is conditionally relevant ensures that if the second is produced, it is seen as being “responsive” to the first, and if it is not produced it is seen as “noticeably, officially, consequentially, absent” (Schegloff 2007: 20; Nevile 2007). Furthermore, these directives are an occurrence of the pair “instruction”/ “instructed action”; as shown by Garfinkel (2002: ch. 6; see Amerine and Bilmes 1988), rather than unilaterally determining instructed action, instructions acquire a sense through the following of instructions. More particularly, instructions are always incomplete, and “following” them supposes a competent interpretation that retrospectively and reflexively configures their meaning (Mondada 2011). In the following excerpts, I show the way in which directives and complying actions constitute the first and second parts of an adjacency pair (Schegloff 2007). I emphasise their tight organisation, taking into consideration the specific temporality of the mobile situation in which they are uttered. In excerpt 2, Luc and Raph are playing within the same team (Real Madrid, in white/light color), against an opposite team (Juventus, in blue/dark color). Raph asks Luc to run forward:

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Excerpt (2) (PS 19.02) >>luc is running forward with the ball#-->> >>rap is coming back in front of him, on the halfway line--> fig #fig.5 1 RAP: al+lez, fais #péter, (.) at+tends. (.) voilà, go blow up, (.) wait. (.) there it is, ->+turns forward---------+runs forward--> fig #fig.6 2 (0.5) * (0.3) # luc -->*passes the ball, as an opponent runs towards him--> fig #fig.7 3 RAP: oui BIEN, yes GOOD, 4 (0.5) *+ (6.5) luc -->+ rap *receives the ball and runs forward-->>

Figure 5

Luc runs with the ball

as Raph waits ahead of him

Figure 6 Luc runs with the ball and Raph runs ahead

Figure 7 Luc passes the ball

Raph uses various imperative verbs, “allez” followed by a slang expression “fais pêter”, corresponding to “blow up”, “make it explode” – then repaired by “attends”/“wait”, stopping the previous directive. These verbs are timely adjusted to his own movements: as Luc is running forward, Raph is coming in the opposite direction (figure 5); he changes his trajectory and turns forward, beginning to run in the same direction as Luc (figure 6). After being reposi-

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tioned, Raph utters “voilà”. At that moment, Luc, who is being challenged by an opponent, passes the ball in the direction of another white player (figure 7). “Fais pêter” is an indexical action formulation, which can refer to the continuation of Luc’s action in the good position that he occupies, running forward in a space free of opponents, as well as to other actions, such as passing the ball. In fact, the expression is locally understood by Luc, moment by moment, who continues to run and then, when Raph is adequately positioned, passes the ball. Instructions are thus made flexibly intelligible by the participants within a quickly changing environment and within the competent grasping of their moving trajectories within the game. In this excerpt, the actions are taking place within a mobile landscape – made mobile by various players running concurrently. The instructions are temporally adjusted to the ongoing action and to its projectable trajectory, grasped in real time by the recipient by taking into consideration the changing and changed configurations of the spatial context in which they progressively assume their situated value. They are practically managed by the participants by relating the emergent structure of the turn in real time with the changing context of action. Thus, they invite an analysis that takes into consideration these aspects, by a careful representation of the time of the utterance and the time of the action within multimodal transcripts of videorecorded activities, documenting not only the talk but also the situated action in progress and the spatial features of its environment. In the next fragment, Raph has the ball and is followed by an opponent, while Luc’s perpendicular trajectory comes closer and closer to them (figure 8): Excerpt (3) (PS8.46) 1

(0.2) # fig #fig.8 2 RAP: >casse-toi de de#vant,* casse-toi de# devant.< >bugger off from the front, bugger off from the front.< luc >>runs towards R------*crosses his trajectory and runs a way-->> fig #fig.9 #fig. 10 3 (0.5)

Figure 8

Figure 9

Figure 10

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Raph’s turn is formatted with a repetition of the verb and an accelerated pace, which orient towards the fast movement and the projectable trajectories of both players, anticipating the risk of a possible collision. The directive imposes an alternative action, orienting to the urgent and problematic need to abandon the current move; Luc complies with the directive by transforming his trajectory in such a way that it no longer converge with the ball and Raph (figure 10). Moreover, the lexical choice of the verb “cassetoi” [‘bugger off between double’] indexes a negative assessment of the move, and consequently a critique of the expertise of the player: the instruction addresses the ongoing move as a wrong one and the player as incompetent. The form of directives allows blame and online negative assessments to transpire. The directives in the previous excerpts display the real-time analysis of the players’ trajectories and the projection of their possible problematic achievements. In this sense, the virtual game preserves and exploits properties of the mundane experiences of walking and running (Ryave and Schenkein 1974; Collett and Marsh 1974; Wolfinger 1995). Moreover, the directives are based on the prefiguration of an imminent adverse configuration that could hinder their game – evaluated by the skillful vision of the players and by their orientation to the rules of the game and to possible team strategies. The trajectories of players running in various directions are being skillfully observed, interpreted in the context of the game and its rules, anticipated, and thus supported or avoided. The directives do not only adjust towards the temporality of the changing game, but also project possible trajectories and possible outcomes, which can be positive or negative for the score. Trajectories are seen as successful or as risky, as adequate or not; in this sense, projections not only concern the timely order of the game but also the moral order of the game. By addressing an inadequate, risky, or even wrong move, directives convey other actions than coordination of action, such as critiques, complaints, and blame. The orientation towards possible negative outcomes and normed moves is particularly vivid in the use of negative imperatives and in the transformation of positive imperatives into negative ones, as in the following excerpt:

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Excerpt (4) (PS58.44) 1

*(0.3) *starts the game at the end of the first-half and runs into the adversary’s half of the field--> 2 RAP: joue derrière joue derrière joue derri*ère. play back play back play back. luc -->*changes trajectory->> 3 (0.2) 4 RAP: faut pas qu’on perde %la balle, %>faut pas qu’on perde we must not loose the ball, >we must not lose opp %approaches% accelerates--> 5 la balle% 6 %(0.7) opp %takes the ball-->> luc

As Luc starts the game and runs towards the goal of the opponent, Raph first utters a series of commands formatted by three repeated positive imperatives, adjusting to Luc’s continuous trajectory. Finally Luc complies with the command and changes his trajectory, continuing to possess the ball. Raph produces a new instruction, using the negative form of the verb “falloir [faut]”/“to have to”. This negative form orients to the danger represented by an opponent running towards Luc (l. 4) and taking the ball (l. 5–6). Far from being dispreferred, this form seems to display the increased entitlement of the speaker in front of the imminent risk of an action negative outcome (see also Craven & Potter 2010). Indeed, the prefigured failure is realised here. The distribution of the positive and negative forms strongly prospectively orients to the positive or negative projected outcomes of the action. Negative outcomes also occasion retrospective evaluations, negative assessments, complaints, and blame. As shown by the previous excerpts, in the corpus most directives are tacitly granted by the next move in the game, which can be either promptly achieved or delayed. However, some are verbally rejected. Negative responses can be formatted either in a preferred or in a dispreferred way. Excerpt (5) (PS3.55) eve >>R and L are near the penalty area of their team-->> 1 RAP: * [dégage-la,] dégage-la dégage-la dégage-la= [clear it, ] clear it, clear it, clear it= luc *receives the ball--> 2 LUC: =non, non, pas *b`soin, (.) on construit =no, no, not necessary, (.) we construct luc *passes to R--->>

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Excerpt (6) (PS2.44) 1 LUC: voilà, *fais. (0.4) une deux, une*+ deux, une deux, here it is, do. (0.4) one-two, one-two, one-two, *passes to R-------------* rap +runs away with the ball-->> 2 pars dans le fond. go to the bottom. 3 (0.4) 4 RAP: euh: non mais j’ai pas suivi. (.) faut m` le dire avant. ehm: no but I haven’t followed. (.) you’ve to tell me earlier.

In excerpt 5, Luc is in charge of restarting the game with the goalkeeper of their team. Raph produces a repeated directive, imposing a type of move (a long shot). Luc counters it, proposing an alternative strategy consisting of building collaborative passes. His negative response is formatted in a preferred way, latched with the previous turn and constituted by two “no”/“no” and an explicit rejection of Raph’s imposition as “not necessary” (l. 2). In excerpt 6, Luc enjoins Raph to realise a particular configuration, a onetwo (l. 1), but Raph does not comply with him, running away instead of passing back the ball. In this case, Raph’s rejection is delayed (l. 4) and begins with a stretched hesitation (“euh:”/“ehm:”). It is followed by an account that admits his failure, although placing the responsibility on Luc as not having planned the move early enough. In this case, the rejection is formatted in a dispreferred way, and is followed by an account and a complaint, raising the issue of who is responsible and blamable for the failure. Thus, imperative directives are treated by inspecting their temporal fittedness within the game and by evaluating their local adequacy with respect to ongoing and alternative moves, as well as with possibly planned strategies – which suppose mutual coordination during longer time spans. 3.3.

Time issues

The participants format directives by orienting to the temporal features of mobile action in various ways, displayed by prosody, syntactic design, and possible explicit comments. In excerpts 3 and 4, the turn is uttered at a faster pace, prosodically displaying the imminent and urgent circumstances in which the directive is produced. The form of the imperatives, composing short clauses, without any clitic, often without any argument, is particularly suited to this fast temporality of action. Moreover, in excerpts 3, 4, and 5, the directives are repeated, following the emergent trajectory of mobile action.

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When the participants’ primary orientation is the emergent temporality of the instructed action, i.e. the temporality of the game, repeated imperatives are the form that is mostly used. Such cases are analysed in this section, showing how repetitions deal with the real time of mobile action. When the participants’ primary orientation is the attribution of rights and responsibilities, the production of blame and complaints, the directives are characterised by other formats, where different constructions are used and the initial forms are transformed rather than repeated. These cases will be analysed below in section 5. In the following excerpt, the imperative is uttered three times: Excerpt (7) (PS58.44) ((beginning of the half-time)) 1 *(0.3) luc *starts play running with the ball along the halfway line--> 2 RAP: >joue derrière, joue derrière, joue derri*ère.< >play behind, play behind, play behind.< luc -->*changes trajectory-->> 3 (0.2)

Raph’s turn is constructed by three imperatives, at a fast pace. The instruction adjusts to Luc’s ongoing running trajectory, along the halfway line, and imposes another direction on his movement. Luc complies with the directive on the last syllable of the last repeated fragment. Reflexively, the latter is produced with a terminal intonation, orienting to the completion of the sequence. Similarly, in the next excerpt, the verb is repeated until the action is granted: Excerpt (8) (PS 14.55) ((arrangement in front of the goal; L is part of the wall, R is near the goalkeeper)) 1 #(2.5)% (0.5)%* fig #fig.11 eve %opponent shoots a free kick-% luc *stops the ball-->

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Figure 11 Opponent prepares to shoot a free kick; Luc is part of the wall, Raph is near the goal 2 LUC: c’est bon [j` passe ] that’s fine [I pass ] 3 RAP: [>dégage-la, dégage]-la, dégage-la,< >clear it, clear it, clear it,< 4 >>dégage-la>clear it*clears with a long shot-->> 5 (0.8)

After the opponent has taken a free kick, Luc is able to stop the ball. He announces the next action he is about to undertake (l. 2), but, in overlap, Raph utters a directive specifying an alternative kind of kick to be made (ll. 3–4). In this case, Raph produces four occurrences of the verb, followed by a selfsuspended one. Whilst the verbal construction is repeated, its delivery and prosody change, adjusting to the timing of the ongoing action; this first series is produced at a rather quick pace, and the last occurrence is slowed down and stretched, as Luc finally complies with the instruction. Thus, the format of the directive turn is temporally adjusted both to the dynamic game environment and to the delayed complying response of the recipient. The absence of a response is addressed by a new repetition of the directive. The end of the series displays sequence completion, as shown by a terminal intonation, when Luc has finally complied with the directive. In sum, the timing of the mobile action is embodied in the turn format, using as many repetitions of the verbal construction because the action to instruct is ongoing and has not yet complied with the directive. Moreover, the prosodic variations of these repetitions display the online adjustments to the mobile temporality of the field configurations. Repetitions and their prosodic variations (such as faster delivery) display the urgent, online, and on-time necessity of the instructed move. As soon as the instructed action is achieved, the turn and the sequence are completed. Generally, the instruction imposes a change in the ongoing trajectory of action, suggesting an alternative course of action, and even an alternative football move or con-

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figuration. These alternatives can raise issues of strategic choices, skills, and legitimacy among the participants; directives not only implement instructions but also allow to transpire criticism, blame, and complaints concerning an inappropriate course of action. The time of the action is not only embodied in turn format; it can also be topicalised by the participants. In the following excerpt, it is formulated as part of the instruction: Excerpt (9) (PS36.00) (training sequence) 1

(0.3) luc >>is running towards the goalkeeper-->> 2 RAP: dépêche toi. dépêche toi dépêche toi. #°dépêche toi°, hurry up. hurry up, hurry up. °hurry up°, fig #fig.12 3 °°vite vite°° prends la clé sors sors sors sors, # °°quick quick°° steer clear, go out, go out, go out, go out, fig fig.13#

Figure 12

Figure 13

Raph’s directive uses first a verb, “dépêche toi”/“hurry up” (l. 2), repeated four times, in which the urge to act is lexicalised; it is followed by the double repetition of a temporal adverb, “°°vite°°”/“°°quick°°”. These indications go along with the player’s run towards the goal; they do not impose any change of his trajectory. After these temporal indications, Raph’s directive describes in general terms the action to be undertaken in approaching the goal. Raph uses an idiomatic French expression, “prendre la clé des champs” (“to escape”) in a shortened form, further transformed into an even shorter verb (“sors”/“go out”) in order to adjust to the timing of the ongoing movement. Excerpt 10 is another occurrence showing the importance of the temporal orientation of the players:

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Excerpt (10) (PS5.56) 1

*(1.2)# fig #fig.14 luc *is running with the ball, R is ahead of him --> 2 RAP: allez passe, come on pass (it), 3 (0.4) 4 RAP: pas deux heu#res, not in two hours, fig #fig.15 5 (3.0) * (0.3) # fig #fig.16 luc -->*passes to R-->>

Figures 14, 15, 16

In line 2, the instruction is formatted first with “allez”/“come on”, which focuses on the urge to act, without specifying the kind of action to be performed, then with “passe”/“pass (the ball)”. The absence of responsive action in line 3 is treated by a topicalisation of time in line 4, explicitly manifesting Raph’s impatience. Finally, the delayed complying action is achieved after a new gap, as Luc passes to Raph (l. 5). Here two temporal orientations are conflicting: Raph, who first positions himself in order to meet Luc’s trajectory (figure 14) and then runs ahead of him (figure 15), urging him to pass, whereas Luc keeps the ball as long as he can, i.e. as long as his way is free (figures 14 and 15) and he is not challenged. He passes only when an opponent

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threatens him (figure 16). These two temporalities clearly show that there are various ways to comply with a directive, not only in a faster or in a delayed way, but also with an action adjusted to the circumstances; responses are the product of the local interpretation of instructions as well as of the game situation. In this conflicting situation, the focus on the delayed action by Raph’s formulation of time transforms Luc’s ongoing action into an inappropriate move, by a bad player who does not perform the right action at the right time or by a player who acts individually without collaborating and passing the ball. The instruction here evolves into a complaint and a critique. The time of the response can be foregrounded, replacing the directive itself: Excerpt (11) (PS 4.47) 1

*(0.2) luc *is running with the ball--> 2 RAP: >main`nant main`*nant,< >now now,< luc --->*passes to R--> 3 (0.4) *(0.2) luc -->* 4 RAP: ah:. 5 (0.5) 6 LUC: j` te l’ai donnée maint`nant hein, I gave it now didn’t I,

In this case, the content of the instruction is left totally implicit, and only its timing is verbalised. The deictic (l. 2) is uttered not only in a fast way, but also in a shortened way (leaving out one syllable, relative to the standard “maintenant”). As a response, Luc passes the ball, as the second deictic is not yet totally uttered. Raph produces a change-of-state token (l. 4) and, after a lapse, Luc comments on the timely way he passed the ball (l. 6), quoting the deictic again. The time reference is highly flexible in such a mobile context. Its interpretation is always an indexical matter (see Mondada 2011, for other instances of directives, in the context of surgery, specifying time conditions or not): Excerpt (12) (PS10.45) luc

>>runs with the ball, with an empty space in front of him--> 1 RAPv ga#rde-la, garde-la jusqu’au dernier moment.# keep it, keep it until the last moment. fig #fig.17 #fig.18

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Coordinating mobile action in real time 2 luc fig eve 3 RAP: 4 LUC: 5 6 RAP: 7 8 RAP:

(1.#4)*% ->* #fig.19 %an opponent comes in front and intercepts the ball-->> AH mais [non: mec: ] OH but [no: mate: ] [ah putain mais j` l’ai] passée, j` [oh fuck but I passed it, I l’ai passée [j’l’ai passé bien] plus tôt, il a mis du temps, passed it [I passed well ] earlier, it took time, [ben: ouai:s ] [well: yea:h ] (0.4) MAIS TU le sais, que ça a mis du tem-. BUT YOU know (it), that it took tim-.

Figures 17, 18, 19

As Luc is running for a long moment, alone, in an open space without opponents (figure 17), Raph produces a directive that refers to the “last moment” at which he has to pass (l. 1). Contrary to the previous fragment, here there is no urge to comply with the action. The instruction prepares the move, but points to the indexical interpretation of when the “last moment” is, depending on the changing configuration of the field. The appreciation of

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the “last moment” is left to Luc. Luc continues to run with the ball until an opponent runs in front of him (already visible in figure 18, then coming closer, figure 19). Finally, he is intercepted and loses the ball (l. 2). This failure is treated in the subsequent sequence by the change-of-state token and the initiation of a negative complaining turn by Raph (l. 3), overlapped by a change-of-state token and a justification by Luc (line 4). Here time is explicitly discussed not only with reference to the timely response of the player, but also to the particular reactivity of “it”, i.e. the computer system (l. 5). Luc’s justification rejects the responsibility of the failure and attributes it to the system. Raph’s rebuttal (l. 8) refuses this shift of responsibilities, considering that the delays of the system have to be integrated by the skilled player into the temporal management of his moves (see section 5 below about the agentivity attributed to the system). This expanded sequence shows the complex temporalities of the mobile action: the emergent time of the directive turn, the appropriate time of the skilled control of the footballers’ movements, the autonomous computational time of the machine, and the contingencies of the internet connection. These temporalities are mobilised and evoked not only for the management of the coordination of the action but also for the management of the morality of the game. As demonstrated in the previous analyses, time is crucial for the sequential organisation of mobile instructions. As far as the first pair part of the sequence is concerned, the directives are orienting to time in a double way: on the one hand, they are positioned in a timely manner, orienting to the temporality of the current action and of the mobile context. More particularly, the actual location of the players, their position relative to possible passes and other strategic configurations, the direction in which they are moving, their closest opponents, and their movements are taken into consideration. On the other hand, the directives are designed in a timely manner, their own emergent format being reflexively adapted to the mobile circumstances, thanks to repeated verbs, faster or slower pace, and compact or stretched format production. The second pair part also displays a double temporal orientation. On the one hand, the temporality of the response is reflexively elaborated within the moving context; even when the sense of when it is “now” is prosodically or lexically conveyed, this has to be interpreted in a locally situated way, relative to the changing context in which the player is evolving. So, the response is timely positioned too. The local interpretation of the directives by the recipient is reflexively configured by the locally moving context. Moreover, the meaning of the directive itself, i.e. the relevant action to be

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performed in all its details – such as a ground pass, a push pass, a pass into space, a short pass, or a high pass – is never formulated in so many words, but is highly indexical. The instructions are essentially incomplete (Garfinkel 1967: 29), since they cannot provide a detailed account of the embodied practical actions required to realise them (Suchman 1987). This indeterminacy builds the efficiency of the directives, which crucially relies on their situated interpretation by the participants. The way in which the directive is implemented in the responsive action – the instructed action – relies on the skilled interpretation of the recipient and his competent grasping of the mobile situation in terms of game strategies. It also relies on the skilled ability of the coparticipant in manipulating the game controller and commands (see Sudnow 1983; Reeves et al. 2007). The very fact that the players are moving in a fastchanging context, in which other participants are also moving, makes even more salient the ad hoc local endogenous work (Garfinkel 1967) of treating the indexical features of directives and instructions. The situated sense of any particular directive is irredeemably tied to the particular activities and contexts in and through which the particular action it describes is produced. In the next sections, I address more particularly the social and moral consequences of the organisation of these mobile instructions.

4.

Closing assessments

The adjacency pair “directive”/“response” or “instruction”/“instructed action” is often completed with a third turn in the form of a closing assessment. Assessments are typically produced in this terminal sequential position (Pomerantz 1984; Goodwin and Goodwin 1987; Mondada 2009b). They explicitly signal the outcome of the sequence and they make its completion explicitly accountable. Within the game, they are positioned at the end of a “move” or a “configuration”. Just after completion of the game move, they are located in a sequential position where evaluations, attributions of responsibility, authorship, and blame retrospectively treat the move as good or bad. Closing assessments can be either positive or negative, with different prospective and retrospective effects within the talk and within the game, orienting to the outcome of the previous action as right or wrong, as a success or as a failure. With assessments, positive outcomes are celebrated and complimented, and negative outcomes are criticised and blamed. The excerpts analysed below present a few instances of positive assessments and then of negative ones. In excerpt 13, Raph is attacking an opponent who possesses the ball:

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Excerpt (13) (PS11.55) rap >>runs towards the opponent, who has the ball--> 1 LUC: >allez, allez, allez, go, go, go, *takes the ball--> > 2 LUC: °( )° belle belle belle. °( )° nice nice nice.

Luc’s instruction follows the unfolding of the action on the field, first using “allez”/“go” (see above excerpts 2, 10), which aligns with the ongoing action and orients only to its urgent character. Then it changes into two more precise instructions, one in the form of a deictic verb of movement (“vas-y”/“go”) and the other in the form of a technical term (“CONtre,”/“COUNter”), indicating the move to perform. As Raph succeeds in taking the ball from the opponent, Luc produces a series of repeated positive assessments: similarly to repeated directives, they align with the ongoing action and produce a sustained and continuous supportive assessment. In the following excerpts, a directive is complied with and followed by a positive assessment, “bien”. In the first excerpt, the imperative is positive; in the second, it is negative – orienting to different possible outcomes: Excerpt (14) (PS10.04) 1 RAPv écart*e, (.) ro*bben. move away, (.) robben. luc *receives*and passes the ball to Robben--> 2 (0.2) 3 RAP: bien. good. 4 (3.0)* (0.3) luc -->*

Excerpt (15) (PS13.02) 1

*(1.8) *(0.2) luc *recovers the ball*runs towards an opponent--> 2 RAPv °décon*ne pas,° °don’t mess around,° luc -->*avoids an opponent and shoots far away ahead-->> 3 (0.6) 4 RAP: °bien.° °good.°

In excerpt 14, Raph produces a double instruction, concerning first a movement, and then the pass to make. The former is expressed as an isolated im-

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perative and the latter by just producing the name of the footballer to whom the ball has to be passed. These short and compact TCUs adjust to the fast pace of the action. As Luc complies with the double instruction, Raph produces a positive assessment, orienting to the positive outcome. Here the assessment works as a compliment. In excerpt 15, Raph produces an instruction formatted with a negative imperative; Luc complies with it and the sequence is closed by a positive assessment produced in a lower voice. Contrary to the previous case, here Raph orients to a possible negative outcome of the ongoing action, projectable when monitoring Luc’s trajectory. The instruction contains a warning, prefiguring some blame if the projected action fails. Even if the final assessment is positive, it is produced with a soft voice, prosodically downgraded (Ogden 2006). Thus, whilst positive imperatives align with the other’s ongoing trajectory, negative imperatives project a possible unsuccessful move and let blame and complaint transpire. Sequences initiated with positive imperatives are preferentially closed with positive assessments, although they can end up in a failure treated by negative ones; even when sequences initiated with negative imperatives end up with a positive outcome, closing positive assessments are weaker and downgraded with respect to the latter case. Moreover, closing assessments by the speaker who produced the instruction can display his epistemic and moral superiority – his right not only to impose on the recipient but also to evaluate him. They make these sequences very similar to IRE (inquiry/response/evaluation) sequences in educational settings (Mehan 1979). In the case of an unsucessful outcome of the move – when the ball is intercepted, the pass fails, etc. – the sequence is closed by a negative assessment: Excerpt (16) (PS1.07.00) 1 RAP:

*

[cours cours cours cours cours] cours [run run run run run] run luc *receives the ball and runs forward--> 2 cours cours cours. run run run. 3 (1.8) * (0.5) luc -->*is intercepted by an opponent; the ball is out of play-> 4 RAP: i::, *domma:°ge°, i::, too: °bad°, ->*

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Excerpt (17) (PS30.08) rap >>runs with the ball in front of the goal--> 1 LUC: frap+pe, kick (it), rap -->+kicks the ball--> 2 (0.4) + %(0.2) -->+ eve %the gatekeeper takes the ball-> 3 LUC: oh:%, dommage. oh:, too bad. eve ->%

In both cases, an action is undertaken, complying with the directive, but it does not succeed. The third turn is constituted by a “response cry” (Goffman 1978; in computer games see Aarsand and Aronsson 2009), which can be realised by a change-of-state token and by other emotional displays (Wilkinson and Kitzinger 2006) and a negative assessment closing the sequence. Often, these response cries are uttered as the negative outcome is projectable, although not yet realised; they respond to a risky situation and to the anticipation of a failure. The form of the response cry is adjusted to this temporal projection; accompanying it (often it is stretched). Whereas the response cry is uttered during the emergent trajectory, the assessment is produced when the outcome is achieved. A systematic and temporally ordered distribution between these two resources is thus observable. The assessment orients towards the blamable aspect of the negative outcome (Pomerantz 1978): it lets transpire attributions of responsibilities that can be even more explicit in some contexts.

5.

Extended sequences: Accounts

Assessments do not always close the directive sequence: when the action fails and the result is negatively assessed, the sequence is further expanded by a series of accounts which reveal the practical conditions in which the move has been realised. The instructing/instructed sequence and its accounting expansion are embedded in different temporalities. Whereas the instruction sequence, as analysed in the previous sections, is timely produced in a coordinated way within the ongoing game action, its expansion is produced post hoc, not relying any more on the dynamic unfolding of the game – which can either continue or be suspended. Thus, we can distinguish between two temporalities of the gaming interaction, characterising in-game turns vs. out-of-game turns. The former are embedded in the fast-evolving pace of the mobile ac-

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tion on the screen; the latter are detached from it and correspond to moments when the game is paused and the participants sitting on the couch orient one to the other. Between the instructed sequence and the post-sequence, the participants’ focus shifts from an in-game interaction to an out-game commentary. The latter occurs as a retrospective exchange about a past action (see Mondada 2012 for further analyses of these shifts and of the organisation of these two types of temporality and spatiality). 5.1.

Post-sequence elaborations

After a negative assessment, various kinds of accounts can be given, elaborating on the conditions of a failed move. These expansions involve blaming, complaining, and accusing the recipient. They retrospectively reveal how mobile trajectories are morally assessed in context. In the following action, Luc is running with the ball on the right side of the penalty area (circled in figure 20); Raph is running towards the goal (see the arrow in figure 20) and positions himself in order to receive Luc’s pass: Excerpt (18) (PS6.05) 1 fig

*(3#.0) *L runs towards the goal on the right side of the big box--> #fig.20

Figure 20 2 RAP: allez, centre bien:, go on, centre (it) well, 3 (2.0)* luc -->*centers--> 4 LUC: elle est-#(.) elle est pour toi. h, it is(.) it is for you .h, fig #fig.21 5 RAP: [( )] 6 LUC: [°.hoh pu°]tain,* (.)[un poil trop longue] [°.hoh fu°]ck, (.) [a bit too long ]

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7 RAP: luc fig

[centre ] j` t’ai dit. centre BIEN. [centre ] I told you. centre WELL. -->*# ((ball falls well ahead from R)) #fig.22

Figure 21: trajectory of the ball

Figure 22: actual arrival position of the ball

As Luc approaches the bottom of the football field, along the penalty area, Raph produces a directive (l. 2) composed of an imperative verb (“centre”) modified by an adverb (“bien”). Luc centres and explicitly addresses the ball to Raph (l. 4), who is running towards its trajectory (figure 21). While the ball is still in the air, the anticipated outcome of the move (see figure 22) is treated both by Luc with a response cry and a negative assessment (l. 6) and by Raph who repeats the imperative, first in overlap, then by inserting it within reported speech (“j’t’ai dit”/“I told you”), emphasising the adverb (“BIEN”/“WELL”, l. 7). Repeated in this position, the imperative is no longer a directive, but a retrospective quote of the previous instruction, highlighting the positive modality of the prescribed action in contrast to the negative output of the action itself. Whilst Luc recognises the negative outcome of the move (by the swear word “putain”/“fuck”) but minimises it (“un poil trop longue”/“a bit too long”, l. 6), Raph’s contrastive emphasis insists on its blamable character, directly elaborating on the spatial details of the last move. 5.2.

Post-hoc rule formulations

The post-sequence account is a position where rule formulations can be produced, in an occasioned way. In this position, rules are elaborated after the action has been achieved; they show that “instructions have a projected outcome” and that this “is crucial to the process of following them and accounting for ‘what happened’” (Amerine and Bilmes 1988: 325). In this sense, instructions work as “prospective accounts”. If successful, instructions are turned into an accountable course of action, which can be described in terms of the followed rule. If not successful, they can be blamed for not complying with the terms of the rule. As shown by the next excerpts,

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the rule is elaborated after the negative outcome of the action in a way that retrospectively makes them an accountable blamable failure to follow the rule. The rule does not pre-exist the action, but is elaborated after it, making reflexively intelligible the blamed conduct as an instance of not following it properly (Suchman 1987). Excerpt (19) (PS5.28) 1

RAP:

2 3

RAP: luc

4 5 6

LUC: RAP:

fig 7 8

eve RAP:

9 10 RAP: 11 eve luc 12

>>L and R are running toward the ball--> [n’y vas] PA:S, j’y suis. [don’t] GO:, I am on it. (0.2) on n’y va pas à *deux* we don’t go by two --->*stops* (1.1) [hm:, ] [hors jeu] hors j+eu. (.) +mais j’te dis+ on va pas à #deux,+ [off-side] off-side. (.) but I tell you we don’t go by two, +,,,,,,,,+turns to L---+points to him------+ #fig. 23 (1.0)% %stoppage of the game--> d’accord? okay? (0.4) quand euh y a une phase comme ça d’action de jeu, (0.5) when ehm there is a phase like this of action game, (0.5) moi, to- soit toi soit moi. (0.3)%*celui qui est devant, I, yo- either you or me. (0.3) the one which is behind, --->% *does the throw-in-->> (.) i` va dessus, (0.3) l’autre i` couvre. (.) he attacks, (0.3) the other covers.

Figure 23

The sequence begins with a directive in the form of a negative imperative – using the second-person pronoun – followed by a descriptive utterance –

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using the first-person pronoun. They contrast Luc’s prescribed action with Raph’s actual action. Even before Luc complies with the instruction, Raph utters an instruction in the form of a negative statement, which modifies the initial directives into a declarative prefiguring the formulation of the rule (l. 3). As soon as Raph notices the off-side, which causes the stoppage of the game, he turns to Luc and repeats the instruction (l. 6), self-quoting it and waving his index finger, pointing to him in a gesture of reprobation (figure 23). The suspension of the game is the occasion to elaborate on the last action, and to orient strongly towards the addressee. The absence of Luc’s response is observable, both at line 7, then at line 9, after a response is explicitly sought by Raph (l. 8). At that moment, Luc is busy with a cigarette and an ashtray on the floor (figure 23) and does not look at Raph. Raph exploits the suspension of the game for an explicit formulation of the rule (ll. 10–11), which is produced in an emergent way, with self-repairs – which, interestingly, concern the agentivity of the players (see below). He continues even when Luc is re-engaging in the game. The rule formulation takes a bipartite format: first, it describes the condition in which the rule applies (with a temporal clause: “quand …”/ “when …”); second, it indicates the relevant action to be realised by the players in that context. The rule reveals the normative organisation of mobile action and mobile collaboration; it assigns a complementary task to both players, and retrospectively accounts for the negative instruction (“on n’y va pas à deux”/“we don’t go by two”, ll. 3, 6). This complementarity as well as the negative instruction explicitly blame Luc’s action, describing it as making the same move as Raph (challenging the opponent and trying to retrieve the ball), and thus as missing the necessary coordination between players fighting within the same team. Another similar formulation is observable here: Excerpt (20) (PS1.51) 1 2

3 4 5 6

*(1.0) luc *runs backwards towards an opponent who has the ball--> RAP: laiss- LA: laisse-le, laisse le. *n’y vas* pas. n’y vas pas. let it: let him, let him. don’t go. don’t go luc -->*stops--* (0.3) RAP: laisse-le venir, (.) là i`fait tourne:r, il attend let him come, (.) there he turns with the ball, qu’on vienne nous. he waits that we go. (0.3)

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7

RAP: on va fatiguer nos joueurs pour rien. we will tire our players out for nothing. ((6 lines omitted; after a fight, the ball goes off, game is stopped)) 14 RAP: quand i`fait tourner, on s’en fout on laisse tourner. when he turns with the ball, we don’t care we let (him) turn

As Luc begins to run backwards in the opponents’ half of the field, Raph utters multiple directives, first in the form of a series of repeated positive imperatives, then negative ones (l. 2). The transformation of positive into negative directives highlights the blamable character of Luc’s action. As Luc stops and the action continues on the opponent’s side, Raph repeats one of the previous directives in an expanded format (“laisse-le venir”/“let him come”, ll. 4–5). This is followed by a description of what the opponent is doing, imputing to him strategic intentions (l. 5) and explicating their negative consequences for them (l. 7). The previous instructions are here accounted for by an online commentary of the other’s game. A little later, a stoppage of the game is exploited as an occasion for formulating a more general rule, which recycles elements of the previous description, transforming them into a normative account. Again, the rule takes the form of a temporal clause (“quand …”/“when …”), stating the conditions of its application followed by the formulation of the relevant action to adopt (l. 14). Retrospectively, the rule both grounds and accounts for the initial directive. Here, ongoing descriptive and normative work is made explicit along with the production of the instruction, elaborating on the circumstances of its utterance and eventually providing for its legitimacy in the form of a rule. The rule retrospectively transforms the recipient’s change of conduct as an accountable case of following the rule. In accordance with Garfinkel’s (1967) and Suchman’s (1987) discussions about following a rule, convergent with Wittgenstein’s reflections (1953), these excerpts show that the orderliness of the game is not produced through step-by-step adherence to prescriptive rules of conduct provided by the directives or by the rules of the game, but rather through the performance of contingently devised practical arrangements of instructed actions, whose orderly and accountable results exhibit compliance with formal instructions and are eventually described, post hoc, by the invocation of rules presented as grounding the directives.

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Accounts and the negotiation of agency

Evaluations, repeated directives, and the normative elaboration of the game conditions show the importance of moral expectations, attributions of responsibility for failing actions, as well as attributions of authorship for successful ones. These aspects are visible in the organisation of the directives – revealed by who initiates them and who complies with them, manifesting a particular distribution of rights and obligations – and thus the social side of the directives. Moreover, they can be topicalised in post-sequence accounts. The literature attributes the distribution of direct directives to gender, status, and power. Here we see that the use of directives – especially negative imperatives – is a resource through which competing claims of expertise are expressed, in the local establishment of who is the best player. In this sense, directives do not reflect status and power, but are achieved in repeated claims embedded into the local management of actions and confronted with the outputs of actions in frequent prospective and retrospective accounts of exploits and failures, building, in this way, identities and reputations. Mobile action is viewed here as skillful, relevantly expected, and normatively adequate action – or not. In the following excerpt, the ball has been taken by the opponents, B1 and B2; both Luc and Raph attempt to recover it: Excerpt (21) (PS37.45) 1

%(0.5) eve %R has lost the ball, stolen by B1 who passes to B2--> 2 LUC: récupè%re-la, ne l`laisse pas passer là, putain. recover it, don’t let him pass there, fuck. eve -->%B2 runs towards the penalty area--> 3 RAP: [mais attends,] [but wait,] 4 LUC: [surveilles le] cen%+tre. [control the ] center. rap +recovers the ball-->> eve --->% 5 RAP: c’[est toi] qu` aurais dû la sortir hein, it’[s you] who should have put it out isn’t it, 6 LUC: [belle] [beautiful]

Luc’s directives take various forms: after a first affirmative one (“récupèrela”/“recover it”, l. 2), which refers to the ball, a negative one (“ne l’laisse pas passer”/“don’t let it pass”, l. 2) refers to the action that Raph is precisely allowing to happen; a third imperative follows (l. 4). These forms clearly

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attribute the responsibility of the lost possession to Raph, and the transformation of the first positive into a second negative imperative accentuates the consequent blame. After Raph has recovered the ball (l. 4), this outcome is used by him to reject the responsibility of the failure and to attribute it to his teammate (l. 5), whereas the same sequential position is used by Luc to evaluate Raph’s move positively (l. 6). Participants orient toward the use of a particular form of imperative, being sensitive to negative imperatives, to verbs referring to blamable or wrong actions (for example, “lâche-la”/“drop it” is very different from “passela”/“pass it”, the former alluding to an illegitimate or even unreasonable possession). Thus, lexical and syntactic choices are consequential for the attributions of blame and responsibilities. Directives are used for coordinating the action here and there, but also for reacting to a present situation produced by previous actions that are treated as morally loaded, implying blame, accusations, and complaints. In this way, they contribute to the distribution of tasks as well as to a normative order, where moral rights to initiate a course of action and to dictate the trajectory of the other’s actions are claimed, and where some actions are recognised as faulty, blamable, and complainable. Agency, authority, and responsibility are often a controversial and negotiated matter, as shown in the next excerpt, revealing the constant online analysis the participants produce of the ongoing game, imputing and recognising expertise, skills, incompetence, and failures and thus elaborating on the situated identity of the players: Excerpt (22) (PS26.51) 1 eve 2 RAP: 3 LUC: 4 5 RAP: 6 LUC: 7 8 RAP: 9

%(0.7) %an opponent has intercepted R’s ball and runs away with it-->> vas y,= go,= =en occurrence là, =in that case there, (0.6) ça contre hein, they counter don’t they, c’est pas moi qui fait les merdes hein. it’s not me who does the shit isn’t it. (0.7) °euh:: c’est pas moi non plus alors hein,° °ehm:: it’s not me either then is it, parc`que tu en as fait autant que moi, because you have done it as much as I,

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Raph has just lost the ball and urges Luc to recover it (l. 2). This directive occasions the initiation of a new turn by Luc, which is left uncompleted and projects more to come (l. 3). The turn completion is collaboratively achieved by Raph after a delay (l. 5) but Luc adds an alternative formulation (l. 6). The former produces a description of the situation that is expressed in an impersonal way (“ça”, literally “it”), referring to the opponent’s action. The latter produces an even stronger negative description (“fait les merdes”/“does the shit”, l. 6), which makes explicit reference to a person within a cleft construction negating his responsibility (“c’est pas moi qui”/“it’s not me who”) in the context of an emerging adverse situation for their team. Raph recycles the same construction, orienting to its possible contrastive value (“c’est pas moi qui” letting it imply “c’est toi”/“it’s you”) and rejecting the responsibility too (“c’est pas moi non plus”/“it’s not me either”, line 8), attributing as many negative exploits to Luc as to himself (l. 9). Here the initiation of the directive is oriented to within the distribution of responsibilities occasioned by the last move, and rebutted in a way that addresses its legitimacy. The disagreement shifts from the local attribution of responsibility (l. 6) to a more general evaluation of the players’ performances (l. 9) – showing the way in which shifts from the engagement here and now in the game to more general commentaries out of the game can be exploited in service of disclaimers as well as claims of responsibility, competence, and legitimacy – ultimately contributing to a global evaluation of the match and to the situated construction of the identity of the players. A way to reject responsibilities consists of attributing failures to the computer system – revealing the often invisible technological devices that make mobile action possible: Excerpt (23) (PS 49.49) 1

*(0.4) luc *luc runs with the ball against 2 opponents--> 2 RAP: [passe:*-LA::] [pass: IT::] luc -->*looses the ball-->> 3 LUC: [(ah oui)] ben oui:, j`la passe, j`la passe [et comme] [(oh yes)] well yes:, I pass it, I pass it [and since] 4 RAP: [°°putain°°] [°°fuck°°] 5 LUC: il est enc- en duel avec moi et ben i` la passe pas. he is still- fighting with me well it doesn’t pass. 6 (1.1) 7 RAP: °ben:, mon cul. allez, bouton croix. t` sais où il est?° °well:, my ass. go, the cross button. do you know where it is?°

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8 (0.3) 9 LUC: ah ben oui, j’l’ai appuyé trois fois dessus. oh yeah, I pushed it three times on it.

The directive (l. 2) is followed by Luc’s failure to pass the ball. This is addressed by Luc in the first place, providing an account for the fact that “it” (l. 5) does not pass. Here the responsibility is shifted by Luc to the computer, but this attribution is rejected by Raph (l. 7), who refers to the command Luc should have activated (l. 7). Luc himself refers to the fact that he has repeatedly activated it (l. 9). The participants invoke the technical aspects of the game – such as the ergonomics of the commands on the game controller, the time lapse characterising the computer’s responses, and the lags disturbing the internet connection. The computer is transparent during most of the game, but is made observable and relevant in difficult moments. Here the issues of responsibility invoke much more than just the agency of the two participants: whereas distinctions are routinely not made between the video-game players and the footballer avatars i.e. the players activating console commands and the software executing them, with the participants identifying with what happens on the football field, these distinctions can be locally and contingently exploited, making relevant a layered system of agentivity, whereby the players, their skilled knowledge and their ability to use this knowledge with the controller, as well as the reactivity of the console itself, are distinguished and actions are attributed to each of them.

6.

Conclusions

This paper has offered a systematic analysis of the detailed embodied way in which mobile actions are coordinated and instructed here and now, in the context of a video game. Video games provide a perspicuous setting for the study of the organisational impact of mobility coordination on the structures of social action; mobility highlights a fundamental feature of social life, its temporality, and the way in which it is managed in collective action. In the data analysed in this study, directives in the form of imperative verbs are the practice most frequently used by the participants to instruct each other’s actions. The analysis of the timely position and design of these instructions shows that they are produced and interpreted in a finely tuned indexical way, orienting towards the details of the mobile action and mobile context in which they are uttered. The study offers a systematic analysis of the temporal sequential features of mobile instructions and of the work of following instructions on the move – within a continuously changing mobile context.

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Whereas the directive sequence is reflexively adjusted moment by moment to the unfolding of the game, to the projectable trajectories of action, and to the constantly changing landscape of the ongoing activity, post-sequence accounts are produced in a retrospective way, elaborating post hoc the circumstances of the previous achievement. Thus, the study reveals a double feature of directives: on the one side, their prospective production is tied to the temporal dynamics of the ongoing action and cannot be separated from its detailed trajectory; on the other side, their retrospective elaboration shows that they are oriented to as distributing and attributing agency, responsibility, and authorship to past actions, and their practical outcomes. Directives have been studied in the literature by stressing their role in the establishment and expression of asymmetric and hierarchic relationships; their analysis in the context of frequent use for action coordination reveals the way in which they are formatted in an orderly manner and recognised by the participants, but also the way in which they become the object of negotiated and controversial attributions of moral and normative rights and obligations – which contribute to elaborating specific social relationships. The use of instructions in a mobility context shows the local orientations of the participants to “mobile configurations”, which are constructed as an emergent product of the instructed actions whereby members of the team perform and accomplish their football moves and orchestrate the coordination of their passes. It is in the carrying out of instructed actions that these configurations emerge, in a contingent and ad hoc way – which can be referred to as “planned”, “strategic”, and “rule-obeying” only retrospectively, as they have been achieved. This use of directives also shows the situated orientation towards “normative mobile orders”, where in the lived course of instructed actions the participants claim and disclaim, attribute and refuse the responsibility for game configurations that are morally assessed as blamable and complainable or as dangerous and risky for the collective interests of the team. In this context, directives contribute to the establishment of social relationships that can locally highlight asymmetries, impositions, authority, and the right to evaluate and to dictate the other’s conduct. These relationships are not directly indexed by the directives themselves, as claimed by much of the literature associating directives and power, hierarchy, and rudeness. They are implemented by the way in which directives are locally produced, responded to, and assessed by the participants in specific contextual configurations. Thus, in order to describe the kind of social relationship that is established through the use of directives, it is crucial to integrate into its analysis two fundamental aspects: the sequential moment at which it is produced and

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the trajectory of ongoing actions which characterise the complex contextual configurations at hand. In this sense, the chapter aims at contributing to a praxeological, temporal, and multimodal analysis of mobile instructions. The analysis of mobile instructions in virtual football developed in this chapter contributes to the study of mobility and interaction by pointing to the multiple temporalities intertwined in the orchestration, monitoring, online interpretation, and coordination of mobile action: time of the turns at talk, time of the football actions on the screen, and time of the embodied manipulations of the game controls. These multiple temporalities are a key feature of the interactional organisation of mobile action; they are based on dynamic configurations, on trajectories of movements, and on the projectability of actions such as walking, running, passing, and shooting the ball. In video games, these mobile actions are actively monitored in a technologically mediated way by participants sitting side by side in front of a TV screen. This situation both preserves some key features of mobile actions and presents some other specific features. One of these features is the possibility of monitoring mobile configurations by using a specific video perspective on them, thanks to a zenithal view of the field, which captures mobile trajectories in a distanced way, maximising the possibility of projecting and anticipating them. Moreover, these prefigurations of imminent actions are not only related to the monitoring of emergent and projectable movements, but also to normative expectations and moral evaluations of their trajectories. In this sense, mobility makes particularly observable the embodied temporally situated work required for instructing and coordinating action, as well as the social, normative, and moral implications of this work.

Transcription conventions Talk has been transcribed according to conventions developed by Gail Jefferson. An indicative translation is provided line per line. Multimodal details have been transcribed according to the following conventions (see Mondada, http://icar.univ-lyon2.fr/projets/corinte/ bandeau_droit/convention_icor.htm): * * delimit descriptions of one speaker’s actions (Rap). + + delimit descriptions of another speaker’s actions (Luc). *---> action described continues across subsequent lines. *--->> action described continues until and after excerpt’s end. ---->* action described continues until the same symbol is reached. >>-action described begins before the excerpt’s beginning.

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…. ,,,,, luc

action’s preparation. action’s retraction. participant doing the action is identified in small characters when he is not the current speaker or when the gesture is done during a pause description of an event on the football field delimitation of the beginning/end of the event figure; screen shot indicates the exact moment at which the screen shot has been recorded

eve % % fig #

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PART V Creating and performing mobility

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Here in time and space: Decomposing movement in dance instruction 1.

Introduction

Some types of human mobility necessitate formal teaching in order to achieve quality. Skills such as driving, diving and dancing generally fall into this category of activities, while walking and sitting in an aircraft generally do not. Practices of teaching a mobile activity have to adapt to the fact that the essential actions are carried out on the move, in real time. That implies not only coordinated movement by the teacher and the student but also instructing in a timed manner, such as prompting and correcting at right moments. Past and future are of constant relevance, as the bodies are always coming from somewhere and heading into something else. Furthermore, past versions of movements may need to be corrected in future ones. This chapter looks at a conventionalised type of human mobility, dancing, and shows how dance teachers deal with the specific challenges of instructing in a continuously moving activity. Any movement has two facets, a spatial and a temporal one. When a human body is involved in a dance, the bodily configuration is in constant change in the unfolding time. This constitutes a pedagogical challenge for dance teachers who have to discuss types and quality of movement. The chapter focuses on how dance teachers address movements in need of correction and, in particular, how they achieve deictic reference to them. Practices of deictic reference reveal how movement is conceptualised by human actors and how it can be decomposed for pedagogical purposes. A segment of dance instruction may sound as follows: Bunk (h)a d(h)o, ba pe dum, (.) he:::re. (.) bum, I’m pivoting on (.) my right foot (.) to keep this squa::re,.The deictic here is used to point out the movement targeted by the instructive talk, which only makes sense in combination with the embodied performance. Cases like this constitute the subject matter of the chapter and the sentence above will be analysed as excerpt (5). Deictics are generally described as semantically deficient linguistic expressions that require indexical solution. Indexicality has been said to involve some link between utterance and context so that the context can be used as an affordance to find the intended reference (Levinson 2004: 101–103, 110). This understanding of deixis presumes that language is basi-

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cally self-sufficient and only when deictic words are used is it necessary to consider an external “solution”. Context is considered relevant insofar it helps to make sense of the language. In contrast, researchers working on interaction have argued that all reference is thoroughly embedded in the activities in which it emerges and is constituted (cf. Goodwin 2003, 2007; Hindmarsh and Heath 2000: 1856). Context is not a mere affordance for understanding talk. The multifaceted context is what makes language meaningful. Reference is integrated into larger contexts of social life and in important ways grounded in the relation between the participants (Hanks 1990: 7–9). In order to fully understand the functioning of deictic items we have to study them in a variety of human activities, including the ones that are not predominantly verbal. This chapter aims to look at the accomplishment of deictic reference in an activity that is essentially about the body. It explores the relationship between different meaning-making modes used by human beings in the particular context of dance instruction. Dance is an activity that unfolds continuously in time and space. It is predominantly non-verbal but its instruction involves deployment of verbal and other vocal devices. One crucial prerequisite for a correction to be successfully accomplished is that the participants can identify which part of the step sequence it concerns. During instruction the teachers therefore have to make salient a stretch of movement, one segment of a continuously unfolding phenomenon. They have to accomplish a reference. Reference in dance instruction is thus not only of academic interest to researchers but also to a high degree a practical problem for the participants. Besides the teachers, it is a down-to-earth concern for the students who have to figure out which step they have to adjust. To solve the referential problem, dance teachers first of all use their own bodies for physical demonstration. The positioning and movement of the bodies are thereby made available to be used as referents. In addition, teachers use different kinds of linguistic signs, the deployment of which is finely timed with the bodily performance. These signs include verbal descriptions, special terms that the dance students are constantly acquiring, and different kinds of deixis, including demonstratives, determiners, time and space deixis. Deixis accomplishes a link between the context and the language. Deictic devices downright commit a speaker to set up a frame of reference around herself (Saeed 1997: 173), they anchor language in the real world by “pointing” at variables along some of its dimensions (Verschueren 1999: 18). The current study looks at deixis that points at a movement carried out by the speaker. This endeavour necessitates several adjustments in regard to what is usually the domain of studies on deixis.

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First of all, it has often been assumed that deixis at its purest is accompanied by some extralinguistic gesture (Green 1995: 15; Hindmarsh and Heath 2000: 1857) and at least since Fillmore (1971) the usage of deixis has been divided into “gestural” and “symbolic”. Symbolic usage implies merely knowing certain aspects of the situation, while the gestural use of a deictic expression means that it can be properly interpreted only by somebody who is monitoring some physical aspect of the communication situation (Fillmore 1997: 62). The term “gestural” suggests that it prototypically involves hands, and most often some kind of pointing. Discussing gestural deixis, Levinson (2004: 102) has noted that it must be understood in the widest sense, since pointing in some culture is primarily done with lips, nod, or eyes. That description, however, is not wide enough to incorporate deixis to the speaker’s body in dance instruction. At dance classes, any kind of pointing is as a rule out of question, because additional physical movement would destroy the thing being demonstrated, the bodily action. Also, it is not easy to point at your own body, especially your whole body, or jointly at your own and your partner’s body, which are currently involved in a dance. Gazing is also tricky because deviant gaze can put a dancer out of balance and also distort the movement. Prosody can be used to some extent but often it is at the same time in the service of providing the rhythm for the dance. Still, deixis is omnipresent. There have to be systematically different kinds of means available for achieving salience of a referent of a deictic expression without pointing or any other gesture. The current study shows how other aspects of bodily behaviour are involved in the process. Second, indexicality concentrates around the spatio-temporal centre of interaction, the so-called deictic origo (a term by Bühler 1934). Origo consists of the speaker at the time and place of speaking, which has often been considered an unproblematic starting point of deploying deictic terms. It has been argued, though, that by assuming egocentricity of deixis one runs the risk of overlooking the fact that interaction puts in play the reciprocity of perspectives, that the participants produce mutual knowledge, conflict, and asymmetry, and the speaker’s ego is a social construct, as is the act of deictic reference (Hanks 1990: 7). In particular in the current data, there is a huge amount of social knowledge in the understanding of the body inhabiting a space at a dance class, which bears on the participants’ usage of deixis. On top of all that, the origo itself may be constructed within the conventional timespace of the activity. It is not given to the participants in advance but may be brought into being by the participants at particular moments for an interactive purpose. The social construction of origo was first discussed by Mondada (2005) who demonstrated how speakers in the street readjust

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their bodies in order to give directions, how the surgeon zooms in and changes the camera angle for a demonstration to students, and how papers on the table may be reorganised in order to accomplish a reference during a professional meeting. In all of these cases, the origo is created for the particular activity there and then. It is not objectively given in advance. Mondada calls it creation of “interactional space”. In dance instruction, the interactional space is constructed in order to make sense of corrective talk. But space in dance is interwoven with the timely evolvement of the movements, which means that not only the spatial “here” but also the temporal “now” have to be constructed. Finally, much analysis of deixis has separated out talk, while in fact a whole ecology of sign systems may have to be employed and diverse semiotic media juxtaposed to achieve reference (Goodwin 2003). When looking at deixis in instruction of a bodily activity, language cannot be abstracted away from other practices. Reference involves multimodal work, which has been demonstrated in studies on concrete practical instantiations of deixis in lived space. Deixis has been explored in the daily life of language communities (Hanks 1990; Enfield 2003) and as a part of professional practices (Goodwin 1994, 2003; Hindmarsh and Heath 2000). Among others, Hindmarsh and Heath (2000) show that the whole body, including gaze and body orientation, conspires to indicate the relevant object. The current study explores another, arguably even more extreme case of bodily involvement in reference.

2.

Essentials about the data

The data were video recorded in classes of Lindy Hop, and they consist of about 13 hours of teaching. Lindy Hop is a partner dance and in the classes recorded for this study it is taught as a social dance, not as a choreographed performance dance. Therefore, the instruction is often about leading and following within the dancers’ couple. The corresponding dancer roles are called the lead(er) and the follow(er), which will appear in the excerpts. Accordingly, the teachers are called L as in lead teacher and F as in follow teacher. In most cases, the classes are taught by two teachers who can both address problems with any dancer role. The recordings include beginner through advanced levels of non-professional dancing, with the majority of the data coming from the highest levels. As it happens, the nine teachers speak English, Swedish or Estonian, all of which display a mere binary contrast between a proximal and a distal spatial deictic. It is possible that languages with a different number of contrastive spatial deictics reveal a different distribution between them.

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Rhythm is the basic organising principle for dancing and the activity of dance teaching is therefore organised in regard to beats. Lindy Hop is danced to swing music with eight-count rhythm. The steps are accordingly taught in “eights”, which is why the teachers often count beat numbers from one to eight. The “eights” may be worked on separately or in combination with others. There is no music during the excerpts, the rhythm is abstracted into the form of silent or vocal counting, and the teachers are always free to choose the tempo of the demonstration. The beats are accomplished by various embodied accents, such as stepping on the floor or kicking in the air. Actions in the class have to be produced in relation to the performed dance time. As will become clear in the excerpts, even the instructive talk is continuously adjusted to the timing of dance steps. The study thus demonstrates yet another activity where timeliness of actions is crucial. Prior contexts have included interaction in the airline cockpit (Nevile 2004, 2007), archaeological excavation (Goodwin 2002), office environments (Hindmarsh and Heath 2000), and driving (Haddington and Keisanen 2009), just to name a few. In an inherently bodily activity, such as teaching another body to perform, one might wonder why there is talk at all. Indeed, much of dance teaching can be done by imitation. However, talk can serve various purposes, such as prompting, clarification, justification, highlighting, and dealing with issues of social sensitivity. In the environment of a large class, it also has a social organisational function of framing the current activity as instruction to be attended to.

3.

Movement decomposed as a spatial configuration

The study takes as its departing point a simple empirical observation that the spatial deictic word here is used by dance teachers during bodily demonstrations in all the recorded languages in every single class. The locative adverb here is a prototypical item of space deixis, used for referring to a location, place, or region (Hanks 1992). Place or space deixis concerns the specification of locations relative to anchorage points in the speech event (Levinson 1983: 79). It has often been noted that there is inherent plasticity in here in regard to how big an area is meant by it, and that it need not even include the location of the speaker, when it is used for pointing on a map. At the same time, it has been claimed that there is an implicit contrast with there (Saeed 1997: 174). Recently, it has been argued that the demonstratives need not code distance at all, reflecting the contrast between “unmarked” and “not here=location” instead (Enfield 2003). In the activity of dance demon-

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stration, where the teacher is referring to his/her own body, the here still involves the connotation of intimate closeness to the speaker. The use of there is substantially less frequent in the current data but deserves a study on its own, possibly but not necessarily in contrast with here, as these two words seem to achieve considerably different ends in dance instruction. They are hardly ever contrasted. Space deixis may indeed have more to do with social relations than the actual physical distance. It can be used for indexing and constructing various social spaces and speaker roles (Hanks 1990; Laury 1997; Eriksson 2001, 2009), or for indicating shared vs. nonshared attentional focus (Levinson 2004: 110). The here in dance instruction deals with both issues, the role of a speaker as the one currently within the dance in contrast with the onlookers, as well as (re-)establishing the common attention focus of the participants. In addition, it makes use of the spatiotemporal nature of movement and helps to decompose it for instructional purposes. In contrast, the temporal deictic now is not used for identifying the referent in the same way as will be described for here below. Now usually addresses strictly temporal nextness in relation to something that has happened, which is very different from how here locates positions as well as movements in time. We will start by looking at cases where the temporal aspect of the movement has been cancelled out and where here can be understood almost only in spatial terms. We will then move on to cases where the conventional dance time is stopped in order to achieve reference, and finally we will see how referring is done while moving, i.e. when body configurations continue to transform in time, rendering the meaning of here both spatial and temporal. A simple affordance of the deictic here is that it points out the positioning of the speaker’s body in space. In dance instruction, this implies that a bodily configuration may be picked out of its temporal context, highlighted and referred to. The movement can be decomposed into successive spatial configurations defined by the speaker’s body. Each of the configurations is referrable with the spatial deictic here. Excerpt (1) starts by the teacher counting in the students with ja viis kuus seitse [‘and five six seven’]. The beat numbers, defined here by the steps taken by the students, are marked above the line and aligned with simultaneously produced syllables. In line 1, while the immobile teacher is providing the rhythm for the practice with the rhythm-counting syllables pa dim pa dah, the students dance the first two beats. A beat after the teacher stops counting, the students stop dancing and the teacher launches a correction (l. 2).

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Excerpt (1) Estonian 1

F:

1 2 3 .hhh Ja viis kuus seitse. pa dim pa dah, (0.4) ‘And five six seven. Pa dim pa dah’ |students start dancing

2

ma ootan sin# Äi# nii ei ole et no like.this NEG be that I wait:1SG here ‘No, it’s not like I’m waiting here’ |dancing stops |F starts lifting her hands |bends her knees #fig.1 #fig.2

3

millal mul plaks lüüakse, /---/ when I:ADS clap hit:IMS ‘until I get the clap’ |F scanning students with gaze, in position

Figure 1: ‘no’ (l. 2)

Figure 2: ‘here’ (l. 2)

The teacher explains that the wrong thing to do is to ‘wait here until I get the clap’, which is then contrasted with the correct version (not shown in the transcript). The here is defined by the positioning of her own body into the short dance sequence that the students just performed, as shown in figure 2. She extracts a position from the flow of the dance, presents it with her body and refers to it with here. The teacher starts moving into the demonstration position already on the word ole [‘be’]. By the time she initiates the description ‘I’m waiting’ (l. 2), her body is already in place. Thus, the body has been in demonstration position

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for quite a while when here is uttered. It is conceivable that the deictic occurs in her instructional talk because the bodily resources are available for reference. In fact, here could easily be eliminated from the above excerpt. The bodily demonstration, especially together with the verbal description, provides sufficient information for the students. A deictic merely indicates a tie between the talk and the physical demonstration. It is “a semiotic resource for aligning and integrating different orders of communicative phenomena” (Hanks 1990: 9). Crucially, it is not the deictic that alerts the students that there is something outside the domain of talk to be attended to. At least in dance instruction, the bodily resources are always there and in a sense primary – the teacher’s bodily performance renders the position in its full flavour, which would be hard to achieve in words. A deictic is used because the body is available for scrutiny, the body does not act because there is a deictic in need of a solution. This is very different from what many logocentric accounts of deixis have claimed. Excerpt 1 displays the usage of the spatial term here referring to a temporary body position in space. The position itself is extracted from the students’ prior step performance, as if quoting a part of what they just did (see Keevallik 2010 for a full analysis of bodily quoting). The teacher’s talk and her embodied behaviour are only comprehensible in this local sequential context in the immediate aftermath of the students’ performance. The here thus refers backwards in time to the moment when the students were “here”. At the same time, it refers forward in time to all the future performances of the same step sequence. The deictic is at the same time local and generic, anaphoric and cataphoric. It makes use of the conventional and repetitive dance space into which the teacher temporarily places herself. The 1st person reference is used generically in the excerpt. The deictic origo is constituted by any dancer in past and future performances of this particular step; it is removed from the current speaker. This is similar to the transposition of deictic expressions to some other origo in the narrative, most often the protagonist (e.g. Fillmore 1997). Furthermore, the here does not exist before the teacher positions his or her body in relevant ways, it is created for the occasion, for the sake of the argument being made. The origo is thus not given to the participants in advance or by default, it is an accomplishment constructed by the body within the instructive talk. In the current excerpt, the dance teacher makes her body available for scrutiny but does not point. Nor does she direct her gaze towards the referent. Instead, she scans the students with her gaze, catching students’ gazes and thereby enhancing the visual focus on herself. This seems to be a regular variation of the basic human “reference triangle”, in which two actors dis-

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play orientation toward the same object while recognising that each other is attending to that object (Tomasello 1999: 56–70). Here, one participant is not showing orientation by gaze. Instead, orientation is achieved by the activity-specific treatment of the teacher’s body as the primary source of information. By using the spatial deictic here the teacher conceptualises the reference as a position in space, which in the case of dance implies the entire body. The body configures the space and when moving the configurations are constantly transforming. A dance teacher can extract one of them and demonstrate it as a steady position, as if extracting a single picture from a zoetrope. This is illustrated in excerpt (2). The lead teacher is talking about a step forward with the right foot, as is shown in figure (3). He initiates the bodily demonstration of a step sequence together with his partner in line 2 to the count of one. Upon uttering stepping1 the teacher arrives in the position he is talking about and stops the performance. The deictic here is produced while already standing still. Excerpt (2) 1

2

3

4

1

L:

Hey its- its: gonna be weird. 1 2 3 4 one, (0.3) kick-ball change, 5 because you’re stepping he#re, |arrives in position, gaze moving down #fig.3 like #this guys. |points with left hand #fig.4

The teachers constantly adjust the mutual timing of bodily demonstration and talk. Excerpt (2) starts with an evaluative sentence that a step the students have to do is ‘weird’. Even though it relates to something that has been clarified already, the teacher chooses to further exemplify it with a bodily demonstration. But in order to arrive at the relevant position in the step sequence, he first has to arrive there, starting from count ‘one’. The talk is therefore delayed, even though it is then produced as an increment that structurally relies on the prior evaluative statement. The body position is then held still to enable instructive talk. This constant adjustment of the body to the talk is very characteristic of the dance teaching activity and deserves a separate analysis (cf. Nevile 2004).

354 5

Leelo Keevallik so obviously you don’t wanna step too: far. |points further away to the floor

Lead teacher

Figure 3: here (l. 3)

Figure 4: this (l. 4)

Also in this excerpt, the teacher treats the bodily configuration as stable in time, extracted from the flow. He freezes the position and after a first reference with here refers to it with another deictic expression like this, accompanied by a pointing gesture with his free hand. As a further highlight, he looks down on his stepping foot (which he is not supposed to do during the actual dance). Gesture and gaze are here usable particularly because stepping can be understood as the business of only a part of the human body, the foot. Most of the other matters discussed in this paper do not afford that kind of singling out of a part of the body but there are a number of examples like that in the data. Stopping, which is a form of decomposition of the movement, enables these additional bodily activities. Importantly, the teacher’s here is not spatially absolute; it has to be seen in relation to his current dance partner. It could be glossed as “here on the side of my partner’s twisted body”. The later spatial contrast with too far is also to be understood in relation to the partner. The relevant space in a couple dance is formed by each and every dancing couple and is constantly re-configured during the dance. When talking about space, the teacher is indeed using his and his partner’s physical bodies but they represent the abstract redefinable space within any couple. For example, as part of the demonstration, the teacher points to a spot on the floor where his foot is placed, and

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later to a spot further away (l. 5). These spots are not understandable in any absolute sense, their particular geographical placement in the hall is of no relevance. The points can only be understood within the couple’s dance space at the given moment. The here is thus a complex construct affected by the sociocultural context of the dance. The target of the reference is not objectively available before the relevant position is performed. It is constructed within the teaching activity as a body placement in the three-dimensional and conventionalised couple’s dance space. In summary, one way to decompose dance movement for pedagogical purposes is to lift a certain body configuration out of its context and treat it as a steady position that can be talked about in terms of space. The word here simultaneously marks the relevance of a position in space and attracts the attention to the speaker, which together contribute to the achieving of reference to the teacher’s body configuration. The steady body in the excerpts above contributes to the understanding that movement can be conceptualised as a sequence of spatial configurations, each of which can constitute its own origo for the deictic reference. A dance can be stopped at any point (with some gravitational restrictions) and the body position at that moment can be referred to as here.

4.

Movement decomposed as timed space

We have now seen how here is used to index space by tying the talk in a timely manner to what the speaker’s body is demonstrating in the form of immobile configuration. However, the conventional dance space is not only defined in relation to the partner but also in regard to dance time, as the configurations of space actually occur consecutively in time. While decomposing the movement for the students, the timing may be also attended to. How spatial configurations are positioned in dance time is the subject of the current section. Consider the following utterance. Excerpt (3) 1

L:

1 2 When you do your three and four, one two

2

3 4 three# and four#, just stop right here #fig.5 #fig.6

3

and see where you have your balance.

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Leelo Keevallik Lead teacher

Figure 5: three (l. 2)

Figure 6: four (l. 2)

An utterance like this does not make much sense written down, but within the activity of dance teaching it is entirely commonplace. The teacher uses indexical elements, among them the numbers one, two, three, and four referring to beats in the music and respective steps in the dance. During the counting one two three and four the teacher couple dances the first four steps. On four, they stop and stand on the same spot for the rest of the sentence, as shown in figure 6. Stopping the performance is an activity-specific device for achieving a reference to a movement. Right here refers to the moment where the demonstration was stopped and to the position that is now held still. The spatial deictic here is used to locate the body configuration at a specific moment in the dance. It refers to a moment in the conventionalised eight-count dance time and is coreferential with the earlier four. As discussed in the previous section, the here is anaphoric and cataphoric, not only concerning the bodies that are moving at the moment but also student bodies that will be moving within the same conventionalised timeframe in the near future. The person deictic you suggests mostly the latter, as does the future-oriented instruction as a whole. The here points out a moment (beat number four) and spatial configuration within every couple who will soon be dancing. It is thus a members’ formulation of time and can be compared to temporal formulations for current participants in everyday interaction (Button 1990). This shows how a straightforward deictic reference necessitates a deep understanding of the dancing and teaching activity. Deictics are known to provide a crucial point of contact between discourse and the sociocultural body (Hanks 1990: 8–9). In order to make sense of

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them, the participants use “professional vision”, which is always lodged within the endogenous community of practice (Goodwin 1994: 606). They must have developed a way of seeing and hearing that is specific to the practice of dancing Lindy Hop, so that they can transfer the position referred to as here to their own bodies within the step sequence they are about to perform. Indeed, when the students are allowed to dance after the instructive segment shown in excerpt 3, many of them stop on beat four (data not shown). In all the excerpts so far, the deictic is used when the speaker’s body is in a steady position, not moving. An alternative option is to mark the configuration during an ongoing demonstration. A customary way to do that is to perform the step sequence all over starting from beat one, locating the target step within the dance time of conventional “eights”. That happens in excerpts 2–4. The here in excerpt 4, however, is uttered while the body is in constant motion. It is produced on the very step the teacher is focusing, namely a step before a quick turn where the body cannot be dropped down. Instead of putting forward the demonstration as a stable body configuration, the teacher arrives at it within the cyclic dance time and points to it with the deictic here that is precisely timed with the incorrect body position shown in figure (8). She continues to move through it and then demonstrates the problems with initiating a turn from this position (figure 9). The here thus targets the moving body within the relevant timeframe. Note that while the grammar suggests some kind of static position, the body is not stopped until anything (l. 3). Excerpt (4) 1

F:

Well you can’t totally lose all1

2

everything.

3

2 3 4 #Now if you’re #here, (0.3) |moves through incorrect position #fig.7 #fig.8

5 you don’t have #anything to help you to go around. |shows trouble with turning around #fig.9

358

Figure 7: now (l. 2)

Leelo Keevallik

Figure 8: here (l. 2)

Figure 9: anything (l. 3)

The deictic here is a marker of the time slot, the linguistic index to what the constantly moving body is showing, and is illustrating trouble with turning. It indicates “when the embodied resources are available for the other to discriminate the relevant feature” (Hindmarsh and Heath 2000: 1864). Hindmarsh and Heath describe how demonstrative reference can be timed in a similar way. They study referring to objects in a complex work environment, and discuss a case where the demonstrative is withheld until a computer screen has been scrolled to a relevant place and the referent can be pointed at. In a way, in excerpts 3 and 4 the dance is “scrolled” from beat one to four, which is then referred to. The deictic points at the relevant moment in the demonstration while the preceding and subsequent talk gloss the dance problem or give instructions. The participants come to understand this reference as being about a particular step, which involves a particular movement of the body in a particular segment of dance time. Here is thus “not a place in any straightforward sense but a socially mediated field of experience, in which a vast array of knowledge is brought to bear by interactants” (Hanks 1990: 28). In dance instruction, here refers to a body configuration in a culturally and locally defined time slot. Considering the temporality of movement and especially the importance of timing in dance, it is somewhat surprising that temporal deixis is not used in a similar way. This may be explained with the visual capacity of here, which is sometimes referred to as “here-on-the-map usage”. The dance teachers embody the step sequences in order to make them visually accessible to the students and the here is used as a pointer. Words such as now and then cannot be used for this kind of visualisation.

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Time flows irreversibly, but the conventionalised dance time can be brought back. It is cyclic, which makes it possible to reinhabit it, also for pedagogical purposes. References in dance teaching are sensitive to the cyclic time which is segmented and labelled with numbers, much like we label days in calendar. While human time units in general are defined by natural phenomena such as full moon and shortest day of the year (cf. Fillmore 1997: 48–49), in dance the units are provided by the music, its natural habitat. Dance space and bodily configurations are experienced and talked about within the time frame of the music. They reside within a time slot and are constantly transforming. In this section we looked at cases when the time slot is defined as one single body configuration and the time stretch talked about is relatively short, almost momentary. We will now go on to look at larger stretches of movement referred to as here.

5.

Parsing ongoing movement

Movement can be parsed with linguistic means to achieve reference to it. The most straightforward option is to lengthen the word here to cover the stretch of time, the whole length of the target movement. In excerpt 5 the teacher is explaining that the followers have to pivot their bodies on beats five and six. The teacher couple is in the middle of a dance and demonstrates an eight-count step pattern twice, as shown in the transcript (beat numbers defined by teachers’ steps are written above the text lines), and the two-beat stretch of dance where the pivot has to happen is covered with the lengthened here in the follow teacher’s talk in line 2. The simultaneous body movement is shown in figure (10). Excerpt (5) 1

2

F:

1 2 [Bunk (h)a d(h)o,] (.) 3 4 5 6 ba pe dum, (.) he#:::re. (.) #fig.10

3

7 8 1 2 3 bum, I’m pivoting on (.) my right foot (.)

4

4 5 6 7 8 to keep this squa::re, wam pi do.=

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Leelo Keevallik

Follower

Figure 10: he:::re (l. 2)

Obviously, lengthening of a single-syllable word is only possible for a limited amount of time. Another option is to preface the focused stretch of movement with here, since it can be used prospectively, constituting a case of anticipatory usage of deixis (Hanks 2009) and a projective announcement for the participants (Mondada 2005: 90). Here may project a demonstration. In excerpt 6, the teacher is talking about a mistake made on beats 7 and 8 but he demonstrates the whole eight-count step (alone, without the follower). On beats 1–3 he produces the introducing frame when you’re coming here and the crucial second half is accompanied by counting with syllables. The mistake corrected in this case is that a step has to go to the back rather than to the front. The excerpt shows the incorrect version. Excerpt (6) Swedish 1

2

L:

1 2 3 4 När ni kommer här, (.) when you come here ‘When you’re coming here’ 5 6 7 8 pam pam pam-pa-pam |incorrect performance

The referent of here is a segment of dance time but also a trajectory in space. Movement is indeed fleeting but it does have a trajectory that human ob-

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servers are capable to perceive. We can be aware of somebody just having moved or moving from one place to another. The history of movement is perceivable as a trajectory in space, which is why it can be conceptualised as a spatial phenomenon. This seems to be the reason why movement can be referred to with a spatial deictic, either while it is being performed or when projecting the embodied demonstration. It refers to the trajectory of the dancers within the dance time and space. However, in dance it is not only the trajectory that is relevant but also the precise manner of how the bodies move through the space. So the here actually refers to the whole array of bodily configurations that take place on that specified trajectory in time. At the same time, in the projective usage here does not necessarily pinpoint the focused moment, as can be seen in excerpt (6), where here is used long before the defect on beat 7. Instead, it defines the stretch of movement where the problem can be found. In a body-dominated activity like the one discussed in this study, talk is produced in relation to the body and vice versa. Note how the talk in excerpt (5, l. 3–4) is produced rhythmically to the extent that the adjective squa::re is lengthened to cover the same pivoting as the he::re in the prior doing of the step. The description matches and structures the movement. Thus, one way to achieve a referent is to provide a description of the movement while the movement is going on. In excerpt (7), the teacher corrects the intensity of dancing during an eight-count basic step called swingout. The spatial deictic is characteristically used during the bodily demonstration of two swingouts, the beats of the teacher’s dance are again marked above the lines. Excerpt (7) Swedish 1

F:

Och ja- och framför allt tycker jag på swingouterna and yea- and primarily think I on swingouts:DET ‘And primarily I think on the swingouts’

2

på- på tjejerna så dör det gärna på fem sex, on on girls:DET then dies it likely on five six ‘by girls, it tends to die on five six.’

3

här. (0.2) Ni går igång så you go going like this ‘You get going like this’

4

1 2 3 4 PUM. (0.2) yeah. (0.2)

362 5

6

7

8

Leelo Keevallik 5 Och sen här and then here ‘And then here

6 7 8 blir det jämnt, (0.2) becomes it level it becomes level’

1 2 3 4 PUM. hh yeah. (0.3) 5 Och här and here ‘And here

6 7 8 blir det slappt, (0.2) becomes it sloppy it becomes sloppy’

PUM. hh yeah,

The talk in lines 5 and 7 describes the performance of the “girls” as “level” and “sloppy”. In both clauses, the word här [‘here’] falls exactly on the fifth beat, i.e. on the beat where the dance starts to “die”. Several other activities on the move, such as giving instructions to a pilot when flying, or to a driver while driving, necessitate precise timing of the deictic reference in order to be properly understood (Nevile 2004; Mondada 2005: 91–95; Haddington and Keisanen 2009). Even in the excerpt above, the teacher delays the production of ‘and then here …’ (l. 5) and ‘and here’ (l. 7) until the here can be uttered on the right beat. There is a pause before both of these initiations. By timing the word the teacher makes explicit the point in the swingout step, where the problems begin but she does not define where they end. However, both times she extends her critical clauses over beats 5–7 and pauses on 8 before producing the pum again.2 It thus becomes clear that the problem extends over 5–8, because the bodily demonstration of a sloppy dance as well as the verbal description cover the second half of the eight-count step. This again reflects members’ construction of temporal entities on the basis of mutual knowledge and intelligibility (as discussed in Button 1990: 167–168). In this way, here as a demonstrative “function(s) to dynamically create or constitute place and perspective, rather than just refer to objects and spaces which might already “be there” in some objective or concrete sense” (Laury 1997: 58). The implementation of the deictic word indicates to the participants that they should see and parse the swingout in ways they understand to

2

Indeed, as pointed out by an anonymous referee, the teacher generally orients to speaking on the beats. Note, however, that there are beats when the teacher does not speak (both “fours” and “eights”), and there is contracted talk that is fitted in between the beats. Thus, the teacher chooses to talk on some beats and not on others.

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be relevant for improving their performance. They should not only attend to beat number five, which is pinpointed with here, but the whole stretch of dance while it is “sloppy”, which would be the whole trajectory of their bodies from beat 5 through 8. The vocal and visual cues provided by the teacher are designed to ease the parsing task. The prosodically heavy production of pum (0.2) yeah makes it clear that the steps performed during these beats are distinctly non-sloppy. Note that this metaphorical use of prosody means that it cannot be easily used for pointing at the referent of here (cf. Levinson 2004: 108–111). There is indeed some stress weight on here in the last excerpt but this may well be in order to create rhythm for the demonstration, which is also a regular use of prosody during dance instruction. Furthermore, gaze is unavailable, as the teacher is engaged in the dance and cannot turn her head towards the recipients of the talk, which would make her lose her posture and balance. Being in the middle of the dance hinders the teacher from bodily orienting to the students, as well as from pointing. In other activities these two things have been described as crucial in demonstrative reference (Hindmarsh and Heath 2000). What the teachers sometimes do is to change the general direction of their demonstration in consecutive executions so that the whole step sequence becomes observable from different angles for everybody in the room. In contrast to excerpts 1–4, the teachers in the excerpts discussed in the current section do not freeze the demonstration but rather extend and time their talk (together with pauses) so that it matches the target segment of bodily movement. This manner of correcting lies closest to the actual dance, which may be an advantage in teaching. The different usages of here can schematically be summarised as follows: movement in time --------------------------------------------> a)

b)

c)

| | | here here here

( section 3)

|---------| he:::re

( section 4)

|--------------------------------| XXXXX here XXXXXX

( section 5)

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The reference is achieved with synchronised body movement and talk. It involves activity-specific devices such as terminology, conventional beat counts, online description, position-tracking in time, and step demonstration. Just like referents themselves, the practices of referring are activity-dependent and constituted by the activity, reference is done “in, through, and for an activity” (Hindmarsh and Heath 2000: 1855). It is integrated to larger contexts of social life and in important ways grounded in the relation between the participants (Hanks 1990: 7–9). Achieving reference by stopping, by covering a stretch of time with talk, or by redoing the movement several times, are all options that are available in specific human activities and not in others. In dance instruction, the spatial deictic here can be used in an abstract way for referring to an entire stretch of constantly transforming bodily configurations in the conventional dance time, which is at the same time constantly fading into history.

6.

Reference as a stepwise achievement

Finally, it is important to note that the reference is generally not an instant achievement accomplished with the spatial deictic. In almost all the excerpts discussed above, prior action has established relevant context and laid out a more or less elaborate ground for the reference to be successful. In excerpt 1, the stretch of dance and the time lapse between the performance and the correction have been extremely short, thereby limiting the possible range of referents of here. In excerpt 3 the phrase “your three and four” already separates out a temporal chunk of the dance, a somewhat larger one than the teacher ends up referring to. The here is the pinpoint of the very moment. In excerpt 7 the teacher has first provided the term for the step, swingout, then used the beat numbers five, six, and finally exploited the spatial deictic during the bodily demonstration. In short, reference is an accomplishment across a longer segment of instructional talk. The next excerpt (8) is a case where the temporal locating of the referent takes some effort. Prior to this excerpt, the dancers have finished practising a complicated step combination of several “eights”. In line 5, the teacher alerts the leads for an upcoming problem presentation and first defines it largely as the last two eights of the practised sequence. She then runs through one and a half of these eight-count sequences before finally establishing the reference to a particular step with the help of here.

Here in time and space: Decomposing movement in dance instruction

Excerpt (8) 1

F:

2 3

(1.9) F:

4

5

LEADS,

MAKE SURE - sh: sh sh sh:::: ((shushing)) ((parenthetic talk about a follower without a partner))

F:

Eh::. (0.2) the- (.) The last two eights, |two fingers up, withdraws on “eights”

6

Yeah,

7

(0.5)

8

1 2 3 4 5 6 where we are in bum pum pah, (0.2) Bum, (0.2)

9

7 8 1 2 3 Bum, (0.2) Zup# pum ah:#. |arrive in position #fig.11 #fig.12

10

↑R:ight here. (.)

11

You better give some space between you.

12

when you rock.

Follower teacher

Figure 11: zup (l. 9)

Figure 12: ah: (l. 9)

365

366

Leelo Keevallik

The teachers’ couple has started dancing in synchrony with F’s rhythmcounting syllables in line 8. On the last ah: (l. 9) they arrive at the target step of the corrective sequence, which is basically held through the descriptive talk of what has to be done on this step. This position is shown in figure (11). The follow teacher who is speaking stands on the right. The reference is achieved in multiple phases. First, speaker F narrows down the possible range of dance chunks by saying the last two eights. In order to establish a more precise domain of scrutiny, the teacher initiates a reperformance of the last two eights in the practice sequence together with her partner. They dance till beat number eight + three, marked with ah: in her speech (l. 9). She stops, freezing the dance at the moment that she aims to refer to and comment on. Right here (l. 10) refers to the moment where the demonstration was stopped and which is now held steady as a position. The spatial-pointing deictic here is used to locate a momentary body configuration in the dance. The salience is enhanced by the adverb right as well as the lengthening of its first sound r: and the high pitch at its initiation. All these features set this piece of talk apart from the immediately prior counting and contribute to the establishment of reference to the target move. The sequence from line 5 through 10 is exclusively in the service of achieving the reference, demonstrating that this is in no way a straightforward task for the teacher. The excerpt also shows how instructive talk and body movements are constantly mutually reconfigured, emerging in close temporal relation to each other. As it happens in this case, the result may not even be a coherent utterance. The teacher starts some kind of instruction in line 3 but has to abandon it to shush the class, and there is also another organisational matter that has to be dealt with immediately. When she restarts the instruction, she first defines the target stretch verbally (l. 5), but then launches a sentence where we are in which projects a continuation after in. This projection is realised in the bodily performance designed to finely match the timing of the sentence initiation. Only after the dance has been “scrolled” to the right place is it possible to go on with the instruction. This time the bodily illustration (showing space between the partners’ bodies) is accompanied by a verbal gloss (ll. 10–12). The precise timing of talk, voice effects, and the body constitutes a promising topic for further study. The role of the spatial deictic in achieving reference is merely a start.

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7.

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Conclusion

This study focused on how dance teachers in three languages use the deictic here to decompose movement. It showed how the coordinated use of audible and visual signs enables reference to spatial configurations, conventional time slots and stretches of movement. Vocal devices involve online descriptions, prosody, pausing, terms, deixis, and beat counts. Bodily practices crucially include demonstration of dance steps, but also slowing down or stopping the demonstration at relevant moments. In addition, it is sometimes possible to use manual pointing or gaze to direct the attention of the students. For students, here is a device for gluing their gaze to the configuration of the teacher’s body and picking out a moment or a stretch in dance time. It may highlight the very moment that is relevant for the students to locate. It can also be used during a description of a stretch of dance, the length of which may still have to be worked out by experienced participants for their practical purposes. There is a cross-linguistic pattern of conceptualising movement in terms of constantly changing spatial configurations that can be frozen and picked out of their original context for spatial reference. Even though the exact meaning of here is worked out at every individual instance, the proximal deictic seems to be a cross-linguistic means of tying verbal and bodily behaviour in ways that enable the students to identify the target movement of the dance teachers’ corrective talk. It is a means of establishing the figure/ground distinction of referential action. Here functions as a tying device for the multiple modalities in communication. It connects the vocal medium in a timely manner to what else is (going to be) available. Some prior studies have described how deictic tying devices work with gestures, such as the manner adverb so [‘like this’] in German (Streeck 2002), the corresponding nii [‘like this’] in Estonian (Keevallik 2005), or the demonstrative deictic in I need a box this big (Mey 1993: 95). The current study showed how bodily practices may be tied to talk in a similar way with the help of here. When making sense with multimodal means, dance teachers reperform stretches of dance, using proximal deictics to accompany their bodily demonstration, constantly re-creating the “here and now” for the students. Deictics connect text to participants, circumstances, and the actual conditions of interaction. Familiarity with the activity at hand is crucial for making sense of the references, as the referent and the scope of here only become interpretable within the wider context of dance teaching and local construction of relevant movements. While the body locates with complete elaboration the target movement,

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the talk reflectively works on behalf of the bodily demonstration, providing cues of relevant parsing of the continuous movement into time-slots that can be referred to with here. The deictic reference thus helps to constitute locally relevant trajectories and spatial configurations in time. What counts as here is built within the particulars of the social event. In the cases above, the students had always been engaging in a practice session before the corrective talk was initiated. The teacher’s subsequent embodied reference would have to be interpreted in relation to that. In dance teaching, referring may involve stopping, matching segments of talk and vocalisations to dance rhythm, or repetitive demonstrations from multiple angles. Deixis presupposes participation in a sociocultural activity; it anchors the speech, but at the same time constitutes the very essence of the activity of teaching. Referents are interactionally organised, they need not be objectively “there” from the start but are built on purpose, in this case for the dance students. Origo itself is an interactional accomplishment, as for the moving body the referent of here is always to be immediately transformed into something else. In theory, the function of indexing expressions is to tell us where to look for a referent, and the context is responsible for fixing the coordinates of the utterance. Only after establishing them can we decide whether or not the utterance makes sense (Mey 1993: 91–92). In body-predominated activities where language has more of a subservient role, the logic works the other way round. Linguistic items may help the participants to understand something that the bodily modality cannot. Only after linguistic items have helped the dance students to parse the movement can they make sense of the movement and why it was performed. But the students are not in the first instance worried about whether the utterance makes sense. They do not start looking for the context, i.e. the body, once a deictic is produced in order to find the intended reference. Instead, they have to figure out what the relevance of the movement performed by a dance teacher is, so that they can adjust their own performance accordingly. It is the body in space and time that bears the richest information, as this is the essence and the target of the activity. Thus, when different human activities are taken into account, the role of the deixis seems to be more to tie together talk and context, in whatever way the latter is important in the activity at hand. There seems to be no reason for putting language a priori on top of the hierarchy of sense-making devices that human beings use, without regard to the various activities that people engage in. When decomposing a body movement, spatial deixis is a crucial device of conceptualisation, but nevertheless not primary in relation to the body.

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Abbreviations ADS DET IMS NEG 1SG

adessive determiner impersonal negation first person singular

References Button, Graham (1990): On member’s time. In: B. Conein, M. de Fornel and L. Quéré (eds.), Les Formes de la Conversation, Volume I, 161–182. Paris: Reseaux. Bühler, Karl ([1934] 1982): The deictic field of language and deictic words. In: Robert Jarvella and Wolfgang Klein (eds.), Speech, Place, and Action: Studies of Deixis and Related Topics, 9–30. New York: John Wiley. Enfield, Nick J. (2003): Demonstratives in space and interaction: Data from Lao speakers and implications for semantic analysis. Language 79: 82–117. Eriksson, Mats (2001): “Ta bort den där så kan ja ta den här ja” – om den sociala grunden för valet av demonstrativa uttryck [“Take that one so I can take this one” – about the social basis of the choice between demonstrative expressions]. In: Ulla Börestam, Lennart Larsson, Berit Söderman and Åsa Vikström (eds.), Postskriptum. Språkliga Studier till Minnet av Elsie Wijk-Andersson, 81–92. Uppsala: Hallgren & Fallgren. Eriksson, Mats (2009): Referring as interaction: On the interplay between linguistic and bodily practices. Journal of Pragmatics 41(2): 240–262. Fillmore, Charles J. (1971 [1975]): Santa Cruz Lectures on Deixis. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Fillmore, Charles J. (1997): Lectures on Deixis. (CSLI Lecture Notes 65.) Stanford: CSLI Publications. Goodwin, Charles (1994): Professional vision. American Anthropologist 96(3): 606–633. Goodwin, Charles (2002): Time in action. Current Anthropology 43: 19–35. Goodwin, Charles (2003): Pointing as Situated Practice. In: Kira Sotaro (ed.), Pointing: Where Language, Culture and Cognition Meet, 217–241. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Goodwin, Charles (2007): Environmentally Coupled Gestures. In: Susan Duncan, Justine Cassell, and Elena Levy (eds.), Gesture and the Dynamic Dimensions of Language, 195–212. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Green, Keith (1995): Deixis: A revaluation of concepts and categories. In: Keith Green (ed.), New Essays in Deixis: Discourse, Narrative, Literature, 11–25. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Haddington, Pentti and Tiina Keisanen (2009): Location, mobility and the body as resources in selecting a route. Journal of Pragmatics 41(10): 1938–1961. Hanks, William (1990): Referential Practice, Language, and Lived Space among the Maya. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Hanks, William (1992): The indexical ground of deictic reference. In: Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking Context, Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, 43–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Hanks, William (2009): Fieldwork on deixis. Journal of Pragmatics 41(1): 10–24. Hindmarsh, Jon and Christian Heath (2000): Embodied reference: A study of deixis in workplace interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32(12): 1855–1878. Keevallik, Leelo (2005): The deictic nii ‘in this way’ in interaction. In: Daniele Monticelli, Renate Pajusalu and Anu Treikelder (eds.), From Utterance to Enunciation and Vice-versa: Multidisciplinary Views on Deixis, 109–126. Tartu: Tartu University Press. Keevallik, Leelo (2010): Bodily quoting in dance correction. Research on Language and Social Interaction 43(4): 1–26 Laury, Ritva (1997): Demonstratives in Interaction: The Emergence of a Definite Article in Finnish. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Levinson, Stephen C. (1983): Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levinson, Stephen C. (2004): Deixis. In: Laurence R. Horn and Gregory Ward (eds.), The Handbook of Pragmatics, 97–121. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Mey, Jacob L. (1993): Pragmatics: An Introduction. Oxford UK, Cambridge US: Blackwell Publishers. Mondada, Lorenza (2005): La constitution de l’origo déictique comme travail interactionnel des participants: une approche praxéologique de la spatialité. Intellectica 41–42(2–3): 75–100. Nevile, Maurice (2004): Integrity in the airline cockpit: embodying claims about progress for the conduct of an approach briefing. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 37: 447–480. Nevile, Maurice (2007): Action in time: Ensuring timeliness for collaborative work in the airline cockpit. Language in Society 36(2): 233–257. Saeed, John I. (1997): Semantics. Oxford UK, Cambridge US: Blackwell Publishers. Streeck, Jürgen (2002): Grammars, words, and embodied meanings: On the uses and evolution of so and like. Journal of Communication 52: 581–596. Tomasello, Michael (1999): The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Verschueren, Jef (1999): Understanding Pragmatics. London: Arnold

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Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment

The sociality of stillness 1.

Introduction

In the hustle and bustle of urban life, stillness is peculiar. A beggar crouching on the pavement, a commuter asleep on a train, a couple sitting on a bench in a park: they are – involuntarily, exhaustedly, happily – taking “time out”. To practise stillness, people often set themselves apart spatially, making others eddy around them, especially in busy city streets. Stillness is the (often unwelcome) flipside of movement, enforced at traffic lights, in queues, at busstops. Moreover, stillness has the potential to alter people’s frame of mind. When witnessed or, even more strongly, when it is experienced, stillness affords reflection, a transposition of consciousness “from relation-in-theworld towards a relation-to-the-world” (Bissell 2007: 287). In this chapter we examine practices, experiences and the frisson of stillness. We focus on the social organisation and practical achievement of stillness in a particular event to exhibit the reflexivity of (im)mobility and interaction in public spaces. On May 1st 2008, a “freeze mission” took place at Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens, as part of the Futuresonic Festival, where some of the authors were undertaking a “crowd ethnography”. Organised by Improv Everywhere, a New York based group of artists famous for their imaginative performance art interventions, this event was part of a series of events, with precedents at New York’s Central station and London’s Trafalgar Square. Categorised as a “mission”, a freeze is no standard performance. There is no defined physical stage, no set, no announcement, no audience constituted in advance, no applause, no feature distinguishing the performers from other people. Instead, the freeze mission brings strangers together into a secret meeting space, recruiting them as volunteer “agents” who then move as normal pedestrians in a suitable public space until a secret code signals them to freeze. Participants in a “freeze mission” literally “freeze” in the middle of their walking, gesture or action, as if time had stopped, like in a video put on “pause”. Freeze events have mobilised large and small crowds in (so far) 70 cities in 34 countries and 6 continents, and through online networks such as YouTube, where the “Frozen Grand Central” video has generated more than 24 million hits (figure 1).

372 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment

Figure 1. Improv Everywhere’s Frozen Grand Central. http://improveverywhere.com/2008/01/31/frozen-grand-central/

Freeze events are what are currently known as smartmobs or flashmobs: seemingly spontaneous gatherings in public space, but actually organised through extensive online and mobile phone based communication between strangers (Rheingold 2002). Smartmobs enact a highly effective intersection of virtual and physical mobilities that draws crowds of strangers to secret meeting places. They can have explicit political motivations, such as the adhoc demonstrations of 11.4 million people in cities across Spain after the Spanish Government erroneously blamed the 2004 Madrid train bombings on ETA, the Basque separatist movement (Meso Ayeldi 2004). More commonly however, smartmobs are playful disruptions to everyday life. After five to ten minutes, the “agents” quickly disperse, leaving no trace of the event. Improv Everywhere’s freeze events are about creating comedy for comedy’s sake; making someone laugh, smile, or stop to notice the world around them (Improv Everywhere website). Sometimes compared to a “poetic attack”, freeze missions (smartmobs, flashmobs) aim to produce the absurd, scenes of chaos and joy in public places. They are bizarre, ephemeral gatherings of strangers for a shared “mission”. For the Manchester mission, about 20 participants produced a nine-minute long moment of stillness in the hustle and bustle of a busy public plaza and transport hub. They froze in the middle of a covered passageway between Piccadilly Bus Station and Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester. Like previous freeze missions, the Piccadilly event created not only an obstruc-

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tion to passers-by but also a brief moment of collective gathering, surprise and joy in an otherwise mundane day in this public space. The study at hand, based on the analysis of wide angle video-recorded participant observations, allows insight into the practical achievement of this kind of extraordinary – bizarre – stillness and the concomitant brief reorganisation of public space and everyday life. Normally, mobility is the “default” state in public space, characterised by a set of rights and obligations: mobility at a standard pace, civil inattention. In the situation we will be describing, these rights and obligations are disturbed and two types of immobility emerge: i) the unusual freeze, ii) passers-by modifying their pace or stopping, looking. Walking is a total social phenomenon, a collective activity par excellence; the city dweller is a “human being of locomotion” (Joseph 2000). People’s background expectations and common sense knowledge make walking the expected collective behaviour (Lofland 1981, 2008). Ryave and Schenkein (1974), who pioneered studies on mobility in public space, reveal walking as a social phenomenon, practically achieved by “members” – or acculturated actors. Similar to the ways in which people are “doing being ordinary” (Sacks 1992), members on the move “do” walking, that is, they are (precognitively) aware of the communicative power of acculturated embodied conduct and use it to “read” other people’s behaviour, to dovetail their own actions into the flow, and to produce or “gloss” intelligible behaviour themselves. In doing so, they rely upon “ethno” or indigenous methods to avoid collisions, to move purposefully or amble through crowded spaces, including practices of “togethering”, “alone-ing” and “leading”. The ubiquity and familiarity of these methods make the phenomenon of walking simultaneously orderly and un-noteworthy. Indeed, it is through these ethnomethods that the commonplace presents itself to us as ordinary, and the exotic as extraordinary (Ryave and Schenkein 1974). Urban space is characterised by an organised flow; passers-by usually recognise others’ activities and they pace and anticipate trajectories of other walkers. The freeze-in-place mission constitutes a breach in the routine grounds of the “attitude of everyday life” (Berger and Luckmann 1966). Due to the unusual stillness, the expected organised mobility is disturbed as passers-by have to modify their pace unexpectedly to avoid the frozen agents and without giving accountable signs of their actions. Doing walking is no longer the unproblematic member’s accomplishment it commonsensically is, and this is particularly interesting for an analysis of the social organisation of stillness. By disrupting mobility and implementing alternative uses of public spaces, the freeze event constitutes a “breach” in the social order. This

374 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment breach – on the one hand – allows members’ taken-for-granted expectations and methods for walking in urban space to be revealed, and – on the other hand – enables a study of everyday creativity in the production of everyday life (De Certeau 1984). This can be seen as an aesthetic political act (Molnár 2009; Keller 2009; Maffesoli 1996). In the case of the freeze mission described in this chapter, city dwellers’ expectations – about walking practices, attitude in public places, social interaction with other people present in the same space – are made visible. The analysis will focus on how participants orient differently to the unusual stillness of the frozen performers, entering new categories of membership in public space. Impeded or otherwise moved by the frozen agents, people react – avoiding them, playfully taunting them, stopping to watch, talking to strangers, or moving on. By their actions, some gradually form an impromptu audience. Thus, as we will see, in this re-organised public space, relevant rights and obligations are tied to emergent categories of membership (“agents”, passers-by and audience). Reflexively, the participants’ categories are organised in standardised relational pairs and the activities are categorybound. Paired relational categories – husband-wife, friend-friend, strangerstranger, performer-audience – are extremely powerful phenomena of social organisation, perceptively observed by Sacks, and here, the audience emerges in relation to performers. Drawing on these pair categorisations, the agents assume their position as performers, which emerge in interaction with, and projects, a category “audience”. As passers-by actively achieve being an audience, interacting with the frozen agents in different ways, these categories emerge reflexively in relation to this specific type of stillness in the public space, where mobility is ordinarily expected. Therefore, the show emerges as a show, in no small part by the orientations and actions of passers-by who modify their own mobility in response to the agents’ frozen state. In this chapter we will focus on four particularly intriguing aspects: i) the instructed and enacted nature of the performance – the first part of the chapter will provide insight into how the participants conceive of this particular mission as they first discuss the event and coordinate their action online, formulating place and relying on shared background knowledge, and then physically converge onto Manchester Piccadilly Gardens, walking as a group. This then leads into an analysis of ii) the in-situ formation of microaudiences as passers-by orient to agents’ stillness and iii) the unfolding collaborative production of puzzlement and eventually “joy” emerging out of this breach in the expected mobility, and the different playful engagements with the performers. Finally we will describe iv) how walking is achieved in

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this constrained environment, revealing background expectations and common sense knowledge which make walking in public space an expected collective behaviour.

2.

Placing the mission

Since the very nature of a freeze mission is to disrupt mobility practices in public places, “what constitutes a ‘suitable’ space for a mission?” is a central question. Placing the mission somewhere where there is good potential to generate an audience is just one practical challenge, as we will show in this section. This issue is topicalised in the first forum messages – the first virtual meeting – announcing the plan for a mission in Manchester and opening up written exchanges for coordinating the event. On 9th April, “Agent Todd” of Improv Everywhere posted an announcement (figure 2):

Figure 2. Opening on the forum

This attracted a flurry of volunteer agents and suggestions, including Phil’s (figure 3).

Figure 3. Formulating place

376 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment This provides a first orientation for prospective Improv Everywhere volunteer agents, as well as festival visitors who are unfamiliar with Manchester. It also begins the formation of a collective of agents. Apart from its practical goal, this planning of actions and agenda both mobilises and reveals knowledge that is shared in common between the forum participants. Phil documents being part of a category ‘locals’, by referring to some places by their names (“Piccadilly train station”, “Manchester airport”, “Market Street”) and with descriptions, including descriptions of typical activities in the space. It is “a grassy area”, really close to the main shopping street where “lots of people meet”, that is, a place of sociability, where people converge. Phil’s description shows his understanding of social interaction and urban mobility as key issues underlying the accomplishment of the freeze. Agent Todd speaks of “freeze”. A more descriptive reference would be “freeze-in-place mission”, but he assumes that “freeze” will be understood by the people who share the same background and tacit knowledge of what he is referring to. The term is never explained, neither by him nor by Phil who uses the same category, so demonstrating interactional alignment in this digital discourse and co-membership within the wider flashmob community. The term “freeze” is therefore recipient-designed for members, or cultural insiders, who understand the challenges around the choice of place for the mission. To fit the requirements, places must be public, afford mobility and documentation. As we saw already, Phil shows his understanding of some of the issues at stake in formulating different places, highlighting, amongst other things, the presence of “lots of people”. First of all, “lots of people” implies “a lot of urban mobility”: in order to meet at that specific place, people have to walk there. The more people there are walking, the more their mobility will be hindered, the greater the breach. Second, “lots of people” will emerge as part of audience making, a categorial achievement necessary to the volunteer agents’ becoming performers of an event. An event is not a natural outcome of the plan but rather a contingent, assembled product whose properties are cooperatively achieved. A freeze becomes an event by the mutually conditionally relevant interactions between the performers’ actions and the emergent audience’s orientations. Without people noticing and producing some kind of orientation to the frozen’s inaction, freezing in place could pass unnoticed and nothing special would be happening. Therefore, “lots of people” does not automatically correspond to “(big) audience”, as, we will argue, people actively do being an audience, or don’t. The passageway where the mission takes place is the covered area that connects the centre of the city with a busy bus station (figure 4), where people pass through in all directions. It is therefore characterised by walkabil-

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ity – it has been designed and constructed to allow people to move – a characteristic which is topicalised in Phil’s description of place. In figure 4 below, we can see the usual flux permitted by the passage as people walk through in different possible directions. However, actual walking is always accomplished in context, in concrete and precise conditions and configurations that make it possible, creating a walking situation (Thibaud 2008). The freeze performance rests on the playful modification of ordinary behaviours and mobilities. It is expected to disrupt creatively a place’s usual characteristics and flows, as the agents will “go over there” and then freeze in the middle of the passageway. We are going to see how this conceived space is actually perceived and lived by passers-by, in parts 3. and 4. of this chapter, as the usual mobility is disrupted.

Figure 4. Map of the location of the mission

A month and a series of online exchanges later, Improv Everywhere Agents Todd (Charlie) and Cody have travelled to Manchester and have called their fellow agents to Piccadilly Gardens. After having coordinated the event through the exchange of written messages, the whole group meets physically, at one end of Piccadilly Gardens, at the opposite side of the location of the mission, a few minutes before it begins. Charlie opens a briefing discussion. He describes the performance to come, and what participants are expected to do, explaining that he and Cody will be “in the lead”, and act as the other participants’ cue: “when we freeze, you guys freeze, and when we unfreeze, everyone else unfreeze as well”. The posture that each participant adopts when freezing should be “creative” but “natural”, “unconventional” yet “not silly”, anything that looks a “little more striking than just standing”. The instructions that are

378 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment then given draw on common sense competencies around the aesthetics of everyday life and art for the purposes at hand. They also demonstrate a strong comprehension of human bodily movements, as Charlie suggests a freeze in mid walk or bending to pick up a dropped bag, and of the overall impression of the performance when Drew, overall festival director and volunteer agent, asks people to “spread out sideways as well as longways” before they freeze. As the festival director, Drew has a vested interest in an aesthetically appealing documentation of the event, but the instruction is also designed to ensure that there is enough space between the “frozen ones” for people to pass through. The organisers orient to that condition as an essential element of the aesthetic experience of a freeze mission; “spreading out” makes for attractive photographic visual documentation that plays on the contrast between stillness and movement (figure 5).1

Figure 5. Improv Everywhere at Manchester (still from ethnographic video) and photo from andthewardrobe’s photostream http://www.flickr.com/ photos/7803849@N04/1 1

Participants in the flashmob have given verbal informed consent to being filmed for this research. Members of the public could not possibly be given this opportunity. However, recording in public is a common element of the FutureEverything Festival. The images shown in this chapter take all possible care to respect people’s privacy through blurring detail and by not giving any personal detail.

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The reasons for spreading out are therefore aesthetic as well as practical and tightly linked to the very characteristics underlying the mission. As opposed to a line or cluster of people blocking the passageway, “spreading out” means that mobility remains possible. This placement allows the performance to emerge as a modification of expected or usual mobility where ordinary pedestrians are not usually compelled to orient systematically to non-mobility. The stillness of the frozen ones becomes a mystery; passers-by modifying their pace or direction, or voluntarily stopping to look at what emerges as an event, actively become an audience. In section 3. we will see that sometimes passers-by orient to the agents’ stillness by their embodied behaviour. And when they do, interesting phenomena about mobility in public space appear.

3.

Mobility and walking practices

Interestingly, following the brief, as the participants walk around Piccadilly Gardens to come through the covered area they achieve exactly the ordinary mobility that is expected from any member of the urban space. In order to reach the place of the mission, like any passer-by, they have to walk there. The transportation of our bodies is a commonplace feature of our everyday experience of the world, where the body itself is regularly used for its own self-transportation. Town planning defines mobility as physically changing location in space. But urban mobility cannot be reducible to its strictly physical dimension. Mobility constitutes a complex system of action which generates both displacement and encountering, or at least co-presence between people in a social milieu (Thomas 2003). In order to get to the passageway on the other side of Piccadilly Gardens, the participants achieve walking in a group, walking at a relatively slow pace, and orienting to others. In figure 6 below, Charlie turns back at different moments of the walking. These are some observable productions of several visual orientations that occur during the three and a half minutes’ duration of the walk to the location of the freeze. In (1), as the group gets started, we can see Charlie achieving “leading”, positioned at the head of the group. Being in the lead implies checking upon whether the other members are (still) following, and deciding upon the pace, which should allow a certain degree of coordination between the members walking together. Walking as a group is a concerted activity (Joseph 1998). In picture (4), Charlie turns back one last time as the group is a few metres away from the covered area. By turning round – much longer than his previous glance twelve seconds earlier – he probably checks whether everyone is present, thus orienting to the necessity of coordinating, not only the walking, but also everyone’s action in view of the freeze.

380 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment

Figure 6. Participants walking in a group to the passageway

However, they do not achieve walking very tightly as a large group, but break up into smaller “vehicular units” (Goffman 1963). First, maintaining a large group walking-together is a classic street challenge (Ryave and Schenkein 1974). Second, a large group would be identifiable from a distance. Though they are close and orienting visually to each other, the participants featuring in the video record achieve either two by two formations – like Charlie and Cody (1), and the couple at the centre (2) – or alone – the woman wearing the dark dress (2), the long-haired man in black pullover (4). Their “togethering” or “alone-ing” as they walk corresponds to the posture they will adopt for the performance. In figure 7 below, the two couples are doing more than expected walking-together-bound-activities (Ryave and Schenkein 1974), like conversing: They can be seen rehearsing their freeze positions. Though their respective conversations are not audible, it is possible to see and hear in the video that the two couples walking-together are talking to each other. In (1), walking side-by-side, Charlie is on the left. In (2), he shifts, and passes behind Cody, continuing to walk at her right. Four seconds later in (3), as she looks at her watch on her left wrist, he seizes her right hand and accelerates the pace to walk ahead of her, they outstretch their arms and maintain briefly their holding-hands position, and he looks at her, while continuing walking. The posture in (3) that they produce during their walking, we understand later, is the frozen position that they are going to hold during the nine minutes’ freeze (4). This “rehearsal” takes place while they walk to the location of the mission. Walking is a social activity that unfolds in time. Whether on foot or by public transportation, getting from one place to another takes time. In the case at hand, the agents who appear in the video use this walking time to organise and coordinate their future action. As they enter the passageway, no one is seen turning back or giving any visible clue to their being a group or that something is going to happen. Ordinariness is at the heart of the performance in order to progressively generate surprise. They continue walking

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Figure 7. Rehearsing while walking

normally – giving clues about their next actions and orienting to other passers-by – until the signal to freeze is given. Picture (4) of figure 7 above is the exact moment when Charlie and Cody, who are in the lead and serve as other participants’ cue, freeze. The way stillness is achieved is interesting: Charlie and Cody do not stop walking and then take a pose; they freeze in the course of their bodily movement which appears as a natural posture. The specific characteristic of the freeze-in-place mission emerges out of this very contrast between their arriving to the covered area as “normal people” walking, and their freezing-in-place in the middle of a passageway – a place of mobility. In a passageway, people usually assume that others should be walking, or otherwise “do” stopping, that is, stand or wait in a way that is recognisable and understandable by other members in this “public arena” – for example, demonstratively waiting to one side of the flow, as the agents did when they assembled on the pavement on edge of the public space for the brief (figure 8).

Figure 8. Waiting on the edge

382 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment In contrast, immobile, “frozen” people constitute a departure from these expectations, a breach that draws the usually invisible, taken-for-granted moral order of mobility and people’s common understandings to the fore (Garfinkel 1967). Thus, on one level, the participants – stopped in the middle of the walking area – constitute obstacles, creating constrained “navigational problems” for walkers (Ryave and Schenkein 1974). Avoiding collision, suddenly, is no longer the concerted, collaborative effort it commonsensically is, but the responsibility of passers-by. Normally, not respecting these unspoken rules – when walking faster or slower than the average speed, or when stopping unexpectedly – turns bodies into “inference-making machines”, in Sacks’ terms, which enables others to work out reasons and likely next actions (Sacks 1992; Lee and Watson 1993). A person might visibly and audibly be in a hurry, or stop to pick up a dropped item. The material, lived and embodied nature of people’s actions, mobility or stillness, provides other participants with continuous “instructions” for orienting themselves to their environment and making appropriate inferences for their own courses of action (Cicourel 1968). The contrast between their ordinary walking and their now-frozen postures is important: while their former activity did provide clues for projecting next actions, their frozen postures are composed in a way that resists providing such clues. Consequently, the participants in the mission are not simply immobile, explicitly “doing” not walking in an orderly, recognisable and understandable way. Their stillness is “striking” in the postures they have adopted: mid walk, looking at their wrist watches, about to shake hands, tying shoelaces (figure 9). Charlie had asked the participants to freeze in the very process of producing everyday activity. Usually, glances, looks and postural shifts carry all kinds of implications and meanings (Goffman 1981: 1). Freezing is a particular – peculiar – achievement of immobility. Its stillness constitutes a violation of the commonplace flux. Unlike a waiting, stopping or standing person, a participant’s frozen body does not provide clues about their reason for stopping or their likely next action. The result is a mystery, a suspension of the attitude of everyday life, ordinary reality, the taken-for-granted world (Lofland 2008). In the inexplicable frozen ordinariness, passers-by recognise that “something unusual is happening” (Emerson 1970). Indeed, in the YouTube video of the Frozen Grand Central Station event, passers-by jokingly suspect “Aliens!”.

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Figure 9. Frozen positions

4.

The emergence of orientations and audience making

In our data, a range of various actions are produced by passers-by as they orient differently to the freeze. This specific breach of the social order reveals aspects of mobility in urban space; both members’ methods for walking and members’ expectations about normal behaviour. As the rights and obligations characterising public space are disturbed, passers-by either modify their pace or stop. Analysis is interested in the way these modifications of pace or trajectory are finely achieved, and how people progressively orient to the frozen and become – voluntarily or not – an emerging audience. People’s orientation to non-mobility is an important dimension for the analysis as it reveals the collaborative, situated, reflexive production of the event as an event. Public space is not predefined once and for all; it is, on the contrary, the object of a social construction, which is ongoingly and situatedly accomplished. How does immobility give rise to an urban

384 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment public situation where the usual co-presence of passers-by is disturbed? How is mobility ordinarily accomplished? The way navigational problems emerge, when the mobility of walkers is hindered or altered, and how they finely manage to negotiate-coordinate their walking in this constrained environment, or constitute themselves into audiences, will be described below. 4.1.

Becoming an audience

When the participants first freeze there are already people sitting on the benches or standing around. There are also people arriving from the station or the Gardens and using the passageway. Figure 10 below shows the progressive orientation of two members of the public space. In (1), the participants have just spread across the passageway at the very beginning of the performance. The two men on the left of the picture, the older one sitting and the younger one standing, are talking to each other in a vis-à-vis arrangement (Kendon 1990). The public route between the bench and the restaurant adjoining the passageway is clear except for a couple visibly waiting on the corner. It takes a full minute for the two men visibly to take note of the performance (between 1 and 2). Now both men are orienting to the frozen inplace participants (4).

Figure 10. Progressive orientation to “something happening”

By taking a picture, the seated man publicly documents his understanding that something extraordinary has happened, contributing to the surprising, amusing aspect of the performance: something is happening that deserves a picture to be taken. Similar shifts in orientation are observable all around.

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Through these actions, the people already present become an emerging audience. They cannot be categorised as a “ready-made” audience, because it is only by their changing orientation from individual conversations and unconnected focused encounters, or by altering or stopping their walking, that they progressively become a gathering oriented towards a shared focus (Goffman 1963) or an audience. Thus, we see in the progressive emerging of an audience, once more, how the participation framework and engagement with the performance is characterised by a flexible and changing dynamics, which also characterises mobility in urban space. As they become an audience, people are seen documenting and broadcasting their experience, like the man above. It is possible to see a young man taking a picture, while a girl is talking about the performance to a friend on her mobile phone and a young man is texting. In figure 11, the two passersby’s emerging orientation towards documentation is captured. After passing through the “frozen ones” (1), the pedestrian looks back (2), and then starts video-recording the scene, while stepping back and joining the audience (3). His actions are visibly seen by another person, who comes closer (4), raises his camera (5), and rapidly takes a picture (6) before resuming walking.

Figure 11. Video recording and picture taking

It is interesting to note that once he has positioned himself as part of the “audience”, the pedestrian recording in figure 11 does not move again for

386 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment a long time. The second participant’s actions seem to “copy” parts of his doings: first in deciding to take a picture, second by positioning himself to do so next to him. These actions make visible the participants’ common sense understanding of “something unusual happening” that deserves recording and of a “good angle” for capturing it. A face-to-face positioning is the commonsensically expected arrangement of audience to performers (Goffman 1981). At this point, it is important to examine how the audience formation is accomplished in relation to the way the agents positioned their bodies – both in terms of their pose and their distribution “spread out” in space – in relation to the ecology of this specific environment and the new mobilities it brings to the place. On their way to the bus station or through the Gardens into the city centre, pedestrians using the passageway are channelled together and the passageway is characterised by two-way walking traffic typical of many public pedestrian routes (Relieu 1999). Having entered the passageway from the bus station, the performers’ bodies are directed towards the Gardens – an open area with grass and benches, what Mondada (2002) has described as a “natural” stage. People interrupt their walking and look back, increasingly orienting towards the area of the performance, arranging their bodies to face it. Therefore, the unfolding walking, noticing, turning or stopping flow is very much linked to the spatial characteristics of the passageway and the performers’ appropriation of it. We have already seen how the frozen performers occupy and obstruct the flow in the central area. However, pedestrians moving from several directions into the narrow passageway towards the Gardens often do not realise anything unusual, or at least do not respond, until they encounter what appears as a growing audience. Those approaching from the Gardens, increasingly have to weave their way through passers-by, inexplicably slowing down or stopping to orient towards the performance. As they come face-to-face with the frozen participants, many either stop to join the audience, or hesitate but continue walking. The frozen performers disturb the usual flow as walking leaders and their followers (Lee and Watson 1993) evade them. As they orient to the event by interrupting their walking and joining the group, walkers coming from different directions and noticing the frozen participants – ongoingly and collectively – construct a semi-circle around the participants, visibly doing standing and watching as members of the audience. The audience is seen growing as pedestrians encounter turbulence. It is possible to distinguish several levels of mobility / immobility here: i) freezing in place in the midst of unfolding everyday activity, ii) moving on with or without noticing something unusual, iii) noticing, stopping and star-

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ing, doing standing and watching instead of walking, and iv) doing sitting down and watching after having oriented as in (iii). This is how this freezein-place mission as a whole – including performers and audience – emerges as an event that generates surprise and joy. It disturbs common sense expectations about the default passageway flux and creates a visual performance to be looked at. The extraordinariness of the situation is further defined by the fact that it is not usually socially appropriate to take pictures of strangers in public places (Urry, 1990). The frozen participants therefore emerge as part of a category of people that can be gazed at and photographed. The recording and photographing actions (figure 11) also make visible people’s understanding of the best angle view relative to the practical issue of how to orient corporally to the event. Therefore, even before the participants have made sense of the exact nature of the activity, they identify the performers as engaged in a collective activity, with another group watching. Some recognise the performers as an ensemble, and avoid the whole group by circumnavigating them, which makes the emergent audience another point of friction. Members’ common understanding of social situations makes it inappropriate to cut across invisible lines of social engagement, be it a conversation, people walking together, or the categorical pairing of performers and audience. The audience can be considered as an “occasional” crowd (Blumer 1951), an “overpopulated” encounter in Goffman’s terms, in the sense that it presents an exceedingly complex array of mutual monitoring possibilities and constraints (Lofland 2008). The street’s occasional crowd is civilised and, usually without engaging in focused interactions, its members coordinate their respective actions. Coordination as a crowd is most likely based on the visibility of the social connection between them (Lee and Watson 1993). Rather than only considering their individual trajectory and navigational space in front of them, people constantly take others into account, with peripheral vision of near to 180 degrees. People consider others’ categorical incumbency, their spatial positioning, their projected trajectories, etc. In effect, the visual order of things is an omnipresent and potent characteristic of public spaces (Goffman 1963, 1983); visibility represents a critical operational resource for the joint orientation of participants to these dynamic forms of organisation (Lee and Watson 1993). Indeed, in this “public arena” characterised by mutual accessibility to one another’s doings, actions and gazes, members orienting to the frozen-in-place participants are themselves visible to others. Therefore, visibility arrangements appear to be relevant in two ways. First, the deictic gaze contributes to collective concerted action. Members’ visual

388 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment orientations deictically point out the object worthy of attention, showing other members where to look. Second, constraints linked to the impropriety of gazing at strangers are collectively lifted, suspending the principle of civil inattention in public places (Goffman 1963). Therefore, the freeze stillness is visibly treated by members of the public space as a special kind of non-mobility. Surprised at first, sometimes visibly enchanted or disorientated, pedestrians make sense of the situation. They cumulatively align their understanding of the situation and, though they may engage to varying degrees, they collectively constitute an audience. This is how, from people’s doings, the frozen-in-place emerge as performers, their doing stillness as part of a show. One of the main desired consequences of the freeze is the production of joy as some members of the public space engage with the freezing and try to initiate interaction with the frozen participants. Joy and surprise are analysable as visibly manifested by the members in their orientations, in a way that is publicly demonstrated to other members, and is available for analysis. Surprise demonstrations will be described below as people walk through and orient differently to this unusual immobility and impromptu show, and analysis will show how joy is produced in some teenagers’ playful engagements with the performance. 4.2.

Playful engagements with the performance

The first playful engagements with the performance are produced less than a minute after it has started. Two groups of teenagers – one on the left and one at the rear – can be seen in the video. The group of eight at the rear are laughing, turning to face the frozen participants, and making wide gestures, running while waving arms. They progressively come forward and taunt other frozen participants before leaving the passageway, walking-together as a large group. About the same moment, three teenage girls on the left side come forward amongst the frozen. One of them swings her arms, slightly bending her body and maintains this ballet-like position for a second. She recovers a straight position and takes a step back as the group stays in between the frozen for one and a half minute, talking amongst themselves. The girls then go to different areas of the passageway, surrounding other frozen participants, where they taunt the frozen agents, exaggeratedly waving their arms and laughing. This playing with the frozen lasts several minutes. The two male teenagers in figure 12 below arrive from the station about four minutes after the beginning of the freeze. They pass very slowly in

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between the frozen, turning back several times as they come forward, both walking nonchalantly with their hands in their jeans’ pockets. When they pass in front of the camera, both are laughing. T1 laughs out loud and covers his mouth with his left hand. They go to the right side of the passageway and stand at the edge for about a minute before they engage with the performance, shown in figure 12.

Figure 12. “what time is it?”

They both come back (1), walking-together, but T2 hesitates in his walking as he says something to his mate, and stops mid-way. T1 arrives face-to-face with Cody, raises his left hand, looking at his watch, and says something to Cody. As T1 tries initiating interaction, T2 turns his gaze and body away, and laughs heartily (2). He continues laughing, while he turns round, pretends to go (3), stops again, turns back and stands still to look at the scene (4). After the “interaction initiation” fails (of course Cody does not produce any second turn or movement), T1 comes close behind her and looks at her watch over her shoulder (5). Touching his own watch at his wrist, he asks “what time is it?”. Then he quickly straightens his body, directs his gaze in front of him and walks towards his mate, smiling (6). The other playful engagement is produced by another group of teenagers. We present a transcript below.

390 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment (1) “Replay” excerpt: Index of participants Boy 1 = with cap, Girl = Girl using her mobile, Boy 2 = with black jacket 1 Boy 1

((looks at the show))

2 Boy 1

REPLAY↑

3 Girl

((turns over to Boy 1))

4 Boy 1

((looks at Boy 2))

5 Boy 1

[ahah

6 Cohort

[ah ahah::: hihiii eupp

7 Girl

((going to the cohort))

8 Boy 2

what the hell↑ °is tha°

Like T1 looking at the watch, Boy 1 interacts with the event with a personal performance; he points and noisily enunciates “replay”. This is audible beyond his peer group. The Girl turns to look at Boy 1 (line 2), and then walks across to join the rest of the group (line 7, pictures 1–4). A first question that arises at this juncture is what makes this a “peer group”? How do they achieve being a group in public? Apart from being readily recognised as members of the same categories of age, sex, and dressing (they are all male – except for the Girl – teenagers dressed in a hip hop style (Mondada 2002))

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their common orientation to the freeze, their laughing at Boy 1’s performance, their nested F-formation arrangement (Kendon 1990) at the end of the excerpt documented in the visual transcript above, all contribute to their identification as a group. By shouting “replay”, Boy 1 temporarily becomes an object of attention, and in this way a “performer” whose action is oriented to, though to different degrees. Thus, there exist different participation frameworks between categories of “performer” and “spectator”, and limits are not given a priori, they are negotiated. Members can become one or the other, as the categories are achieved in an emergent and situated way, by the actors’ doings, in a way that is characteristic of the dynamics underlying public urban places. Indeed, the performance format emerges as semi-permeable, where different participation frameworks, and where different orientations and understandings of what is happening, are allowed to mix. This type of orientation is quite playful with regards to the freeze, which emerges as a “performance” by the type of orientations produced. Boy 1 making a spectacle of himself is not considered as inappropriate; his orientation seems to be considered as a relevant participation, as achieving spectatorship. In effect, it is socially tolerated that, when watching a “show”, a participant’s production may take the form of a noisy manifestation, like clapping hands, hissing, etc. In view of this public / publicised playing with the freeze, the semantic content of “replay” is quite interesting. First of all, the term “replay” points to the very specific characteristic of the performance, that is, its unusual stillness. Boy 1’s understanding of this specific immobility is made visible. The term metaphorically compares the performance to a recording seen on a DVD player that has been put on “pause”. Indeed, the frozen performers look like they have been “paused”, as if time had stopped, definitely not like ordinary people stopping in the middle of ordinary passageway proceedings (which would require visibly performed reasons and repair actions, such as a retreat to the edges). This brings us back to the core idea of the freezein-place mission, and the very characteristics underlying it. By his physical placement, which is “outside” the passageway which now emerges as a stage, and by his pointing, Boy 1 reflexively positions himself as being exterior to the event, and thus to the performance. He points to this performance as being a show, not a real-life one, but one taken from the TV screen, and that could ideally be manipulated using a distant remote control. The “pause” function / button allows this passage from movement to immobility and back to movement again, by simply pressing a button. In that sense, the practical achievement of stillness constitutes a kind of real-life movie stop, inviting people to play with the divisibility and indivisibility of movement.

392 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment “Replay”, accompanied by the pointing gesture, constitutes an instruction, or a command. It makes a second pair part conditionally relevant, that is, the execution of that instruction. “Replay” aims at unfreezing the performers but it fails. T1’s attempt to initiate interaction, and his asking “what time is it?” also failed. Neither the teenagers T1 and T2, nor the other people around see as problematic this failure to get the frozen back to mobility. The brazen attempt to interact with the frozen participants or to control the performance provokes laughter. Laughing is a joint synchronised activity, federating the members doing the laughing together as an identifiable cohort. It attracts attention and facilitates some embodied flirtation between Boy 1, Girl, and Boy 2. The laughing reveals Boy1 did not expect the performers to actually start moving again on his cue (that would have been a surprise!). It was a playful, humorous exploitation of the show, a document to the creative potential inherent in “doing being” performers, members of the audience and passers-by. Surprise is also revealed by Boy 2’s commentary-question: “(1. 8) what the hell↑ °is tha°” – without doubt voicing the thoughts of many witnesses of the event. 4.3.

Making sense of something happening

We observed that most people, after stopping, sought to understand the emergent situation and organise their actions accordingly. Indeed, the first phase of the Manchester freeze mission resembled catastrophe situations that have been described by collective behaviour researchers (Blumer 1951; Quarantelli 1999), occasioning a collective labour of defining the situation and the focus of attention. Micro-audiences constitute themselves and engage in evaluating, and contextualising available information, as the attitude of everyday life is suspended; the frame of ordinary reality, the taken-forgranted world, is made consciously problematic (Lofland 2008). In these studies, actions are seen as being coloured by emotions, among which figure joy and surprise which are of interest for our discussion. Lofland’s description of the way dominant emotions are publicly communicated and socially shared productively sharpens analytical sensitivities for observing actions collectively produced by people here. We observe that what psychologists often describe as “psychic mechanisms” of “contagion” and “convergence” (Smelser 1963; Kendra and Wachtendorf 2003) are actually actively and practically achieved social phenomena – at least as well, if not predominantly. What appears in the analysis of the unfolding of the event is a collaborative achievement of understanding that something is happening, and a collective orientation to it, though to varying degrees.

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We are aware of the fact that the cameras and the activity of filming and taking pictures has surely contributed to the reflexive establishment of the scene, especially at the beginning of the freeze. By their visible orientations and doings, the ethnographers and the festival photographers contribute to the pedestrians’ emergent sense of something extraordinary happening. They demonstrate for the future audience the importance of the freeze event and offer them the possibility to coordinate their behaviour in the same way. However, it is impossible to know exactly to what degree. Only thirty seconds after the freeze has started, two groups of teenagers (whose actions we have described at the beginning of the previous section), one at the back and one on the left towards the middle – where the cameras are not very visible – are already playfully taunting the frozen. Therefore members of this public space rapidly recognise that something is happening and produce orientations to the frozen, engaging with them to different degrees. Some passers-by also orient to the video ethnographer. More specifically, we have evidence that they orient to the fact that there is a camera filming and that, by passing through, they are in the view. A young man maintains his gaze in the direction of the camera as he comes forward. Coming from the station, he navigates in between the frozen bodies and crosses five other persons who are going in the opposite direction. He turns his head around several times. After he has crossed the last passer-by, he is surrounded by the frozen bodies only, and probably perceives the absence of movement. He looks left, then right – visibly puzzled – while producing a very slow and hesitant step, as if he were going to stop, and resumes walking. He makes three quick steps before he notices and looks at the camera. He raises his hand, orienting to the video ethnographer, as he changes direction “away” from the field of the camera, speeding up his pace. He continues looking at the camera as he maintains his gesture, before looking down in front of him, “watching where he is walking”. Vision is an essential element of walking as it allows passers-by to make sense of the environment, to orient towards their own trajectory but also to detect other persons’ presence and to anticipate their trajectories from a distance. It is therefore possible to consider gaze direction and walking direction as being reflexively linked, mutually elaborating each other, and as being part of trajectory constitution (Lee and Watson 1993). A minute earlier, just after the beginning of the freeze, an old man walking with a cane came face-to-face with the camera as he moved forward. Arriving from the station, he walked between the frozen participants, looked to the right, crossed the first photographer, then the second, and continued walking while looking down in front of him. When he raised his head, he saw

394 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment the camera, looked in its direction and quickly changed walking trajectory, pace and gaze direction. This changing was both visible and audible: the sound of his leaning on his cane was louder and irregular as he shifted direction and crossed in front of the camera. The navigational problem he encountered is more linked to his orientation of his crossing the field than to the physical obstacle constituted by the ethnographer’s body. Despite visible anticipation work on the man’s part, the ethnographer was still at a distance when the man changed direction and pace. In figure 13 below, the young woman also orients to the cameras. She looks at the ethnographer (1), at the photographer (2) and then at the frozen (3). Therefore, we have evidence that the presence of cameras and the photographers’ mobile and picture-taking activity reflexively contribute to people’s making sense of something happening.

Figure 13. Visual orientations to participants, picture-taking around the freeze.

Apart from the joy and surprise produced, or how people progressively make sense of something happening and orient to it, the central issue of interest for this chapter is how walking is achieved in this constrained environment, and what this reveals about ordinary walking practices. How do walkers adapt their pace and trajectory as navigational problems emerge and their mobility is hindered or altered? 4.4.

Walking in a constrained environment

As the normal flux of the passageway is modified by the frozen bodies and the activities surrounding and emerging from the freeze, passers-by have to manage their mobility in this constrained environment. They need to find their way between the frozen and navigate in order to avoid collision with other co-present members of this public space. The way mobility is negotiated in a contingent and situated way makes visible how the freeze performance rests on the playful modification of the place’s usual characteristics and flows. While the passer-by in figure 13 visually orients to the cameras and

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to what is being filmed / photographed, she also orients to the necessity of avoiding collision with the photographer. In figure 14, we can see how she changes direction (2) to get around the photographer and pass behind her (3) and continues her way.

Figure 14. Navigational problems

Due to their mobility and non-linear trajectories as they move in between participants or step backwards, the photographers’ bodies constitute physical obstacles that passers-by need to avoid. The avoidance of collision is a basic index to the accomplished character of walking (Ryave and Schenkein 1974). Visually orienting to the freeze and looking into the lenses of their cameras, they give priority to the contingencies of what is happening around the frozen – people walking, engaging with the freeze, etc. – and move in order to capture the action from the appropriate angle. Engaged in their activity of taking pictures – in a way that is visible and accountable to others – they actively accomplish the category “photographer”. The expected behaviour of doing being a professional photographer exempts them from the “set of rights and obligations” expected from members of the category “passer-by” or other members of the public space. Though they achieve the work of managing not to collide, the photographers do not make visible their projected action and trajectory to other people who cannot anticipate what will be their path or pace. In figure 15 below, the two young women are walking-together at the same pace when the one leading abruptly stops (1). At this precise moment, the young woman following her is denied indication of this sudden change of rhythm, and does not recognise the projected stopping. Anticipation work is not achieved and she narrowly avoids collision (2). Usually, avoiding collision is a collaborative and concerted effort; here it is the sole achievement of the follower. As she bypasses the one that suddenly stopped she progressively slows down her pace and orients to “what the other is looking at” (3) and stops in turn (4). The temporality of the passer-by’s transition from walking

396 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment to standing (Mondada 2009) is linked to her progressive understanding that something is happening. By stopping and looking she aligns with the action of the other people around, and organises her conduct according to the audience formation.

Figure 15. “Managing” not to collide

Once again, it is possible to see the mixing format: the limit between the category “passer-by” and “spectator” is not fixed, and can change at any moment. Categories progressively and situatedly emerge by the ongoing actions of members as they make urban space their own. Adjustment in avoiding collision occurs also in the example below, as the two passers-by achieve a different type of walking-together by avoiding collision with another person (figure 16). Coming from the central aisle of the Gardens, two young men are walking towards the bus area and are going to pass in between the frozen. In (2), the man on the right turns his head as they arrive at the same level as Cody, whereas the one on the left gives no sign of having noticed anything unusual. They come face-to-face with a man – let us call him Jack – who, at that moment, is accountably walking in the opposite direction as them (2). According to the continuity maxim (Relieu 1996), a passer-by moves forward in a specific direction, following a displacement lane that is being drawn beyond the position he is occupying at a given moment. Mobility rests on passers-by’s mutual trust: each one is going to respect the displacement lane, or is going to give clues of adjustment when changing trajectory. But Jack is not “ordinarily” circulating in the passageway, even if one minute earlier, he was. Coming from the right through the passageway, he walked in between the

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frozen until he arrived towards the middle. He slowed down, stopped completely, turned around, made a few steps, and stopped again with his right fist on his hip.

Figure 16. “Managing” not to collide and walking-together

A minute later, when the two young men are approaching, Jack is still in the middle of the passageway, visibly wondering and looking around in trying to make sense. He makes a few steps forward (2), like he did previously in between the frozen, and therefore projects a walking path. Anticipating his trajectory, the two young men head forward, preparing to cross him on his left. But he suddenly changes his trajectory, taking a 90° turn on his left, and stops after one footstep (3). By not giving attention to his navigational responsibilities, Jack makes visible that he is orienting to something else. His abrupt and unaccountable change of trajectory and stopping blocks the way of the two young men. They avoid collision by stopping and rapidly continue on their way by going around him. The way they do bypassing – both passing on the left – is interesting in two ways. First, they continue doing togethering, maintaining their walking side-by-side despite the natural boundary constituted by Jack’s body. Second, they show preference for passing behind him. By his corporal orientation, it is more likely that Jack will move right, that is forward. By passing behind him, they show their real-time reasoning of his predictable path, and accomplish the anticipation work of “managing” not to collide. Two other walkers’ orientation to this situation documents the extraordinary production of walking, in a passageway designed for walking, as infring-

398 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment ing (figure 17). Coming from the bus area, both can be seen slaloming between the frozen-in-place performers. In (1) below, the projected trajectory of the walker on the left (W1) is directed towards the right part of the screen: the legs, trunk and head orient forward. The walker on the right (W2) is orienting towards the middle. As they come forward, W1’s upward glance is an indication that he has noticed something. He modifies his trajectory. W2, too, changes his intended direction at exactly the same moment. In (2), the position of each walker’s legs and feet clearly shows the modification of their respective initial trajectories, which would have put them on collision course. W2 makes a sharp swivel of the leg, slows down slightly and walks through passing behind W1 (3). It is not possible to know exactly what these two walkers are orienting to in changing their trajectory so strongly as they come forward (possibly noticing a gap allowing access to the path ahead). But they both achieve an artful modification of their trajectories, and succeed in avoiding collision. In (3), W1 casts a quick glance behind him. Note also how the frozen-in-place participants’ stillness is made visible in the contrast to the walkers’ mobility and changes in direction.

Figure 17. Artful modification of trajectories

They achieve doing walking around a navigational problem, made up first of several frozen performers, and then other people looking in their direction identifying them as breaking the rules. We already know that the nature of the performance rests on the breach of routines, expectations, and culturally

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methodic practices of walking (Ryave and Schenkein 1974). The participants do not strongly orient to the still participants as hindering the normal and identifiable walking flux characterising dynamic public spaces (Lee and Watson 1993). Rather, they orient to their crossing through the participants as a departure from the expected action. Their breach of the area of performance reflexively breaches the civil inattention that is expected of them; their movement and corporal positioning (facing the audience) makes of them relevantly ratified members of a category of people that can be looked at. Our observation of people’s trajectories, especially during the first minutes of the performance, suggests that people’s visual access to the faces and front bodies of the frozen agents is crucial to their understanding of the performance. We have shown in section 4.1. how people taking pictures or video recording the event are oriented to the face-to-face position. This becomes clear as we change direction. While most walkers coming from the Gardens and facing the performers either stop short or bypass the group, people coming from the bus station cross through the area where the participants have frozen in place, seemingly only mildly disturbed. Passers-by do not readily recognise the performance, or at least the group’s common activity, and walk through. As they move forward they come face-to-face with the audience. Contrary to the performers whose action they visibly had not recognised, the audience can be identified at a glance. And, by following the audience’s orientation, the passers-by reflexively recognise that something is happening, and at the same time that they must have just crossed the area and activity taking place there which has emerged as worth the audience’s attention and gaze. Being gazed at with curiosity turns their cutting across the group of performers, arguably, into an infraction. We can see here the importance of practices – and shared orientation to practices – in creating order, and how interactional breaches cause immediate trouble. As passersby violate the local order, they become the Accountable Other (Rawls and David 2006), strangers in this peculiar urban space, where conformity is the moral obligation of situated interactional expectations. They are achieving neither of the two categories – performers and audience – that have emerged. Having pointed out unwritten rules of avoiding to cut across invisible lines of social engagement, can this crossing of the area of the performance, walking in between a group of participants, be considered an infraction? Maybe. If so, passers-by are drawn into the breaching experiment as unwitting performers, which may contribute to the joy of experiencing the freeze missions. In these descriptions of the work accomplished to avoid collision it is possible to examine how surprise emerges. Jack (figure 16) stops in the

400 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment middle of the passageway and walks around for a whole minute, looking at the frozen agents, looking dramatically puzzled by this strange situation. The young woman in figure 15 abruptly stops, forcing the woman following her to orient to the freeze too. As she avoids a collision the follower looks towards the frozen, looks at the young woman who made her stop, looks at the camera and looks around. The woman who first stopped dead in her tracks also looks around, turning her head in all directions. Both are noticeably surprised and are looking around, trying to make sense of the situation. Arranged side-by-side, like other people around orienting to a common object and focus of attention, they achieve their becoming an audience. After looking all around, the first woman rummages through her bag, takes out her camera and takes a picture before leaving. The actions we have been analysing are empirical descriptions of some reactions occasioned by this moment of stillness. We have described how passers-by orient to the navigational problems occasioned by the event and adapt their walking to the mobility contingencies in the passageway. Before that, analysis has focused on how people achieve “being an audience” in a recognisable way, after having made sense of something happening; some members document the event by taking pictures or filming. Other members, like the groups of teenagers, go beyond “audiencing” and engage with the performance in a playful manner. In this way, they express the joyful and playful character of breaching common sense expectations. They engage with the performance, either mimicking the participants’ stillness, dancing in an exaggerated way just beside them, or taunting them by coming very close to them and trying to disrupt their stillness. 4.5.

Back to mobility

The playful instruction “replay” did not restore the proper order of flow and counterflow mobility in the passageway, but Charlie’s and Cody’s unfreezing does. Nine minutes after the participants froze in place, they resume normality. They had agreed upon the fact that everyone should keep an eye on Charlie and Cody, who, like for the freezing, would serve as the cue for the unfreezing. Finely coordinating their action, the performers all unfreeze at about the same moment. No prior indication is given to the audience; the performers slip away, dissipate into the crowd, simply by doing walking again, in a visible and recognisable way. Once again, visual accessibility to each other’s action in this public space proves to be essential; first, for the performers to coordinate their action; and second, for the audience to grasp that the event has ended.

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This is, again, a delayed recognition. Members of the audience do recognise that the performers are resuming moving. In figure 18, a girl continues looking and pointing until losing one of the performers who walks away (2–4).

Figure 18. Pointing gesture towards the performer

She and other members can be seen to be puzzled by the dissipating performers, but not for long. Like the performers, many audience members join in the re-creation of a mobile state of passageway order. The man turning towards the visual performance simply keeps walking, and the young women captured standing still at the edge in (1) resume walking, like the performers doing a switch “back to mobility”. No applause is produced as the performers disappear. This absence attests to the audience’s puzzlement over the end of what has been oriented-to as a performance, over its precise intention and what was / is expected from them. As we have shown, people have displayed surprise, enchantment, and incomprehension throughout the event. Though some people orient to the end of the stillness, they do not visibly recognise it as marking the end of the / a performance. In effect, the codes of a show are, once more, missing. Performances are generally properly delimited, characterised by an identifiable “closing”, often with the artists bowing or saluting. Here, the audience is denied the resources for making sense of the situation, as the ending is not introduced or marked by an account. Their practical reasoning as competent “spectators” cannot align fast enough with the performers’ competence in doing and now dissolving the freeze. It is another source of aesthetic enjoyment to note how this process reverses roles: as the

402 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment Improv Everywhere freeze agents walk away they pass through an assembly of audience members “frozen” with intrigued curiosity. This “natural”, “common sense”, “normal” aspect of the event constitutes its very specificity and attraction. The performance oscillates with normality, making what is being done ambiguous in an intriguing, pleasing, entertaining and humorous way, not easily recognisable and categorisable as a performance. It is the extra-ordinary nature, but ordinary appearance of activities achieved by “normal” looking people, acting “naturally”, which makes of this performance a surprise and an occasion for joy and wonder. The juxtaposition of the subtly extra-ordinary with the ordinary modifies members’ common sense expectations, breaching their expectations of both the public space and the codes of a performance.

5.

Conclusion

In this chapter we have discussed the unfolding of a naturally occurring artistic achievement, which is based on the playful modification of expected mobility and behaviour in public places. The experience and the way the categories of performance and audience emerge sheds light on taken-forgranted aspects of the mobile social order. Members’ expectations about ordinary walking pace and flows in public places are made visible. What is at stake is the mobile social order in urban places, and the ethnomethods resorted to for understanding and participating to produce it, as well as the emergent conformity with the situation. The “freeze mission” raises questions about how we ordinarily behave in the public arena, how we walk in public spaces, how public spaces are achieved by people in a continuous flux in a socially acceptable and expectable way. Mobility is restored after nine minutes of peculiar, “frozen” stillness progressively oriented-to as a performance in a public space where mobility is expected. The frozen performers’ doings disrupt expectancies about mobility and everyday life; their bodies form natural obstacles in the public space – navigational problems for pedestrians. Friction emerges between the “frozen ones” and walkers, and it is this friction that makes for the “spectacle”. The “mission” also rests on the ambivalent character of freezing the ordinary practices of collective mobility production. The performance emerges as a social fact and exists through people’s orientations, their surprise and joy. Although passers-by are denied a physically well-delimited stage, the codes of a show, clearly identified performers, and clues for recognising beginning and ending – they gradually, reflexively co-produce the event as an event. Not unlike conversational turns, the mobile social order is reflexively constituted,

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that is, each move defines the shape and status of the other, one prospectively, the other retrospectively. This makes analysable the other-oriented character of the performance. Thus a gaze is a recognisable unit that can express an orientation, which through its timing and shape can confirm the status of the object of attention as worthy of attention, even recording in a photograph or on video. But when taking place in ambiguous circumstances, a person’s first “turn” (e.g. a gaze at the performers) may only become a noticeable “unit” by virtue of the fact that someone else imitates it. Mobile, embodied interactional moves have far less definition, implicative force and “direction” in terms of a next move, than turns in talk. Extremely subtle interpretations of possibly physiologically or socially automatic embodied conduct as meaningful become visible in our analysis, especially in the emergent shift in the mobile social order of the passageway. The high degree of reflexivity, or mutually determining character, of such subtle movements, decisions to linger or join others in doing being an audience, requires heightened sensitivity to others’ bodies in relation to the environment. As such, reflexive production of sociability around the event may well contribute to the pleasure derived from it. Indeed, one might speculate whether it also opens up public space for a new aesthetic, gently political sociability in public (Keller 2009; Maffesoli 1996; Molnar 2009). Reflexivity generates space for everyday creativity. As passers-by make sense of events, they draw upon physical as well as social resources, including the increasing “intertextuality” of activities in public space – recorded and “replayed” in multiple media – to create new meanings. From their own recordings using mobile phones, their experience of cameras, TV and DVD, members are familiar with notions of “pause” and “play”, that is “freeze” and “unfreeze”. This familiarity is played with by the artists regarding the issue of mobility in public places, which creates opportunities for playful audience participation. Finally, the reflexive production provides “time-out” from the ordinary hustle and bustle of urban public space. It affords a shift of orientation “from [a] relation-in-the-world towards a relation-to-the-world” (Bissell 2007: 287). Literally, as passers-by stop to gaze, they transpose their attention from getting on with the job of getting from A to B to gaze at and puzzle over “something happening” (Emerson 1970). More speculatively, this collective joyful achievement of time-out may constitute a breach of the anonymity of urban people, who live in the city and criss-cross it daily (Mondada 2002), generating opportunities for emotionally rewarding citizen encounters.

404 Karine Lan Hing Ting, Dimitri Voilmy, Monika Büscher, and Drew Hemment

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Improv Everywhere and the agents for their cooperation, Christian Licoppe, the organisers of the Futuresonic (now FutureEverything Festival), ImaginationLancaster, the Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster for their support for the research, Lucy Suchman for drawing our attention to the Madrid flashmobs, Rod Watson for discussions of participation frameworks and categories of “performer” and “spectator”, and the two anonymous reviewers and the editors for their extremely valuable comments.

References Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann (1966): The Social Construction of Reality: a treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. Bissell, David (2007): Animating suspension: waiting for mobilities. Mobilities, 2(2), 277–298. Blumer, Herbert (1951): Collective behavior. In: A. M. Lee (ed.), Principles of Sociology, 67–121. New York: Barnes & Noble. Certeau (de), Michel (1984): The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cicourel, Aaron V. (1968): The Social Organization of Juvenile Justice. New York: Wiley. Emerson, Joan P. (1970): Nothing unusual is happening. In: Tamotsu Shibutani (ed.), Human Nature and Collective Behavior. Papers in Honor of Herbert Blumer, 208–222. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Futuresonic is now. FutureEverything: http://www.futureeverything.org/ (accessed 28 September 2009). Garfinkel, Harold (1967): Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: N.J.: PrenticeHall. Goffman, Erving (1963): Behavior in Public Places. Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: The Free Press. Goffman, Erving (1981): Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Goffman, Erving (1983): The Interaction Order. American Sociological Review, 48(1): 1–17. Joseph, Isaac (1998): La ville sans qualités. Paris, Editions de l’Aube. Joseph, Isaac (2000): Décrire l’espace des interactions. In: Jacques Lévy and Michel Lussault (eds.), Logiques de l’espace, esprit des lieux. Géographies à Cerisy, 49–55, Paris, Berlin. Keller, Reiner (2009): Welcome to the pleasuredome? Konstanzen und Flüchtigkeiten der gefühlten Vergemeinschaftung. In: Ronald Hitzler, Anne Honer and Michaela Pfadenhauer (eds.), Posttraditionale Gemeinschaften: theoretische und ethnografische Erkundungen, 89–114. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Kendon, Adam (1990): Conducting Interaction: Patterns of Behavior in Focused Encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kendra, James M. and Tricia Wachtendorf (2003): Reconsidering Convergence and Converger: Legitimacy in Response to the World Trade Center Disaster. In: Lee

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Clarke (ed.) Terrorism and Disaster: New Threats, New Ideas. Volume 11, Research in Social Problems and Public Policy. 97–122. Lee, John and Rod Watson (1993): Regards et habitudes des passants. Les arrangements de visibilité de la locomotion. Les annales de la recherche urbaine 57/58: 101–109. Lofland, John (1981): Collective behaviour: elementary forms. In: Moris Rosenberg and Ralph Turner (eds.). Social Psychology. New York: Basic Books. Lofland, John (2008): Protest: Studies of Collective behaviour and Social Movements, 35–70. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. Maffesoli, Michel (1996): The Time of the Tribe: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society. London: Sage. Meso Ayeldi, Koldobika (2004): Teléfonos móviles e Internet, nuevas tecnologías para construir un espacio público contrainformativo: El ejemplo de los flash mob en la tarde del 13M. http://www.ull.es/publicaciones/latina/20041558meso.pdf (accessed 28 September 2009). Molnár, Virág (forthcoming): Reframing public space through digital mobilization: Flash mobs and the (f)utility of contemporary urban youth culture. Submitted to Theory, Culture and Society. Available at http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/ icb.topic497840.files/Molnar_Reframing-Public-Space.pdf (accessed 27 January 2011). Mondada, Lorenza (2002): La ville n’est pas peuplée d’êtres anonymes: Processus de catégorisation et espace urbain. Marges linguistiques, 3: 72–90. Mondada, Lorenza (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 Quarantelli, E.L. (1999): The Sociology of Panic, Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware. Rawls, Anne and Gary David (2006): Accountably other: Trust, reciprocity and exclusion in a context of situated practice. Human Studies, 28: 469–497. Relieu, Marc (1996): Voir et se mouvoir en marchant dans la ville. Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography, Dossiers, Les Bonnes Feuilles du PIRVILLES. http://cybergeo.revues.org/index307.html (accessed 10 April 2010). Relieu, Marc (1999): Travaux en public: La dynamique d’une situation problématique. La logique des situations: 95–117. Paris: Editions de l’EHESS. Rheingold, Howard (2002): Smartmobs: The next social revolution. New Caledonia: Basic Books. Ryave, A. Lincoln and James N. Schenkein (1974): Notes on the art of walking. In: Roy Turner (ed.), Ethnomethodology, 265–274. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Sacks, Harvey (1992): Lectures on Conversation. Edited by Gail Jefferson, with an introduction by Emanuel A. Schegloff. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell. Thibaud, Jean-Paul (2008): Les compositions de la marche en ville. In: Yves Winkin et Sonia Lavadinho (eds.), Des villes qui marchent, tendances durables en urbanisme, mobilité et santé, Projet ANR SEST 05 019, Rapport final, Université de Lyon, ENS-LSH. Thomas, Rachel (2004): Quand le pas fait corps et sens avec l’espace. Aspects perceptifs et expressifs de la marche en ville. Cybergéo: revue européenne de géographie, 261. http://193.55.107.45/eurogeo2.htm (accessed 10 April 2010). Urry, John (2002[1990]): The Tourist Gaze, 2nd ed. London: Sage Publications.

PART VI Epilogue

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Interacting outside the box: Between social interaction and mobilities It has been my pleasure to read the chapters of this book, and to connect the book’s issues, themes and concepts to broader research, discussion and current developments in studies of interaction, discourse and mobility, and thus to go some way to considering the contribution that the chapters make to advancing our understanding of mobility in contemporary life, particularly the “little mobilities” or “micro-mobilities” (Adey 2010; Urry 2007). In this short overview, my main concern is to consider the contribution that this book makes to the emerging field of interactional mobility studies, particularly the mobile videoscoping that enables us to document and re-vision the fleeting orders of mobile practices. Attention will also be given to reflecting on the opportunities ahead in this emerging field of study as it takes seriously the mobility paradigm (Sheller and Urry 2006). Recent books and special issues of journals on mobile methods illustrate the creativity to be found when we expand the range of methodologies and approaches to analysing mobility as a social and human phenomenon (Adey 2010; Adey et al. 2013; Bissell and Fuller 2011; Büscher, Urry and Witchger 2010b; Canzler, Kaufmann and Kesselring 2008; Cresswell and Merriman 2011; D’Andrea, Ciolfi and Gray 2011; Ehn and Löfgren 2010; Fincham, McGuinness and Murray 2010b; Freudendal-Pedersen 2010; Hannam, Sheller and Urry 2006; Ingold and Vergunst 2008; Pink et al. 2010; Vannini 2009). Authors from this volume also appear in some of these collections (e.g. Büscher et al. 2010; Laurier 2010, 2011; Mondada 2010; Morel and Licoppe 2010). Indeed, the forms of data collection and the methods to be found here in this collection are appreciated as a strong component in the emerging qualitative toolbox of the mobility studies researcher. For example, in their introduction to a range of twelve mobile methods, Büscher et al. (2010a) give the following examples: 1) “participating in patterns of movement while simultaneously conducting research” (p.8); 2) using mobile video ethnography; and 3) “examining conversations which are in many ways the stuff of life and central to how and why people are moving about” (p.12).1 1

In an account of mobility studies in many ways sympathetic to the volume here, Adey (2010: 219–220) gives one of his many mobile methods the name “tracing mobilities”. Eric Laurier, one of the authors in this collection, is cited and his re-

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These three methods overlap – at the intersection of talk, video recording and the participant-researcher – and they are clearly and substantively practised in this collection. In essence, there are several key elements of a multimodal conversation analytical approach to mobility. First, this collection heartily recommends that we focus on situated mobile practices. It can be argued that by focusing on practices, rather than categorising different types of mobilities, it becomes possible to view individuals not as mere mobile subjects, but as actors who are engaged in shaping and (re)producing mobilities. Second, there is a prominent focus on mobile ethnomethods (Brown and Laurier 2005; Coates 1999; Collinson 2006; Hester and Francis 2003; Ryave and Schenkein 1974; Watson 1999) – that is, the emic methods that people use to assemble and account for the sensefulness of their mobile practices and actions (this applies also to disability/immobility as well, see Robillard 1999). Third, the chapters in this collection demonstrate the power of an inductive methodology to examine sequences of mobile action (for other recent work see the special issues edited by Haddington, Keisanen and Nevile 2012; McIlvenny, Broth and Haddington 2009). This book is therefore an antidote to “just so” accounts of micro-mobility practices that assume mobility is practised in specific ways but without ever elaborating or investigating just how. Beyond these three key elements, there are several methodological problematics raised in this book that seem to me to be crucial. There is the question of how to trace mobility practices and collect data. All of the studies in this book use video technology as a sociological microscope (Büscher 2005) or mobile videoscope that helps construct the video record as an immutable mobile that can be translated from one set of practices to another without deformation. In mobility studies, Fincham et al. (2010a: 8–9) note the importance of video as a technological fix that affords pertinent observations of the mobile social world.2 With the miniaturisation of audiovisual recording technologies it is increasingly possible to go where no other research has “gone along with” before (Brown and Spinney 2010). But there

2

search is given as a good example of how to trace mobile practices using video technologies. Spinney (2011) argues that video can be useful for a mobilities approach in three ways: “a way of ‘feeling there’ when you can’t be there; … as a way of apprehending fleeting moments of mobile experience; and … as a tool to extend sensory vocabularies” (161). There are other ways to use video technology to study mobilities, such as autoethnography, narrative and evidential research (Albrecht 1985; Brown, Dilley and Marshall 2008; Brown and Spinney 2010; Noy 2012; Pink 2007).

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are complicated issues with the use of video. For example, what is the importance of “being there” in situ and/or “moving with” as a mobile researcher (Fincham, McGuinness and Murray 2010a), or is researcher absence sometimes an asset (e.g. Laurier; see Spinney 2011)? How does a mobile video researcher shape the activity itself (e.g. Broth and Lundström) and what ways of seeing/documenting are possible (and not possible) with video technology? In his ethnographic study of working professionals driving in forests, Watson (1999) argues that there is a danger in misconstruing interaction and its (mobile) environment as a pre-existing dichotomy. He contends that “we have an a priori theory-driven opposition that is far from evident in interactants’ own orientations and one which, in fact, derives far more from a classical behaviouristic approach than from that of ethnomethodology or any consonant one” (p.56). We could conclude that it is not fitting to think a priori of the matter in terms of (a) how participants manage to “interact” in a “mobile environment” or (b) how mobile (inter)action is accomplished in an “environment”. What gets lost, according to Watson, is how members’ practices produce what is for those members (for the vehicle occupants) a “phenomenal field”, encountered in terms of a temporally-unfolding flow of relevant detail (p.57). Following Watson, videobased analyses of collections of instances of interaction and mobility are used specifically in this book to document and account for members’ perspectives on interaction in the context of mobility: they are specifically grounded in representing and analysing the interactants’ own actions, and their demonstrated understandings and orientations. There is also the issue of research ethics that goes with the territory of video research, but now we must deal with the extra complication of moving subjects and a mobilescape which throws up unexpected and fleeting situations, participants and actants. Furthermore, there is the question of how to describe, represent and transcribe mobile social interactions and movement. There is much experimentation in interactional mobility studies with transcription systems to find out which are appropriate and what resources the visual semiotics of such systems afford methodologically. For example, how can motion (and scale) be represented? How does one represent “fragments of mobility” visually in a publishing format? Contributors have used different, creative solutions, such as scores, tracks and cartoons (eg. Broth and Lundström; Laurier; and Mondada). There is much potential for designing software specifically to support transcription and re-presentation, though it is not yet clear if the solutions do need to be standardised across the community or that they are, and should remain, uniquely adequate to describing that particular mobile phenomena they were designed to represent.

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Finally, there is the issue of what are the appropriate natural (i.e. participant) analytical units and what empirical status do they have. Authors in this collection refer to actions, sequences and practices, which are units typically found in conversation analytical studies. In an early encounter between ethnomethodologists – Harold Garfinkel, Harvey Sacks and David Sudnow – and sceptical sociologists, Sudnow (quoted in Hill and Crittenden 1968: 58–59) notes that: “[h]aving followed Sacks’ work for several years, I wanted to be able to take a sequence of behavior and lay it out in front of me like a sequence of talk and then study it intensively. I wanted to look at the beginning of it, the end of it, the whole thing at a glance. I wanted to be able to disorder it various ways, chop up the paper and rearrange it, read three lines and go back and then read the first line, and so on. I found that, with film, I had to be viewing the phenomenon as it came off. I had to watch it as it was happening and always watch it over a temporal course. You could go back over and over it again a hundred times. You could make a film strip which would circulate through the camera and show you time after time. Nevertheless, at any point you always have to rely on the unfolding, developmental character of the actions being depicted to make them out and decide what they were.” Sudnow complains that he was stymied in demonstrating the sensibility of the visible action, for example through a burst of images representing individual sequences. Mobile actions that he considered were glossed as “getting out of a cab” or “stepping his left foot in front of his right foot opening the door with his arms flexed at the following angle”. What concerned him was how these are recognisable, ie. “the ways in which the access to temporal features is a criterion for the recognition of social activities” (p.62). What we can begin to see in this collection is the delicate complexity of exactly how mobile actions can be negotiated and parsed into discrete actions and temporal sequences (in dance, for example – see Keevallik). Mobile actions have trajectories or arcs that can be interrupted or punctuated. Thus, an exciting and diverse range of phenomena and concepts are documented in the collection, such as – Practices of getting mobile and sustaining mobility with others, e.g. entrance/withdrawal, stop-and-go and body torque. – Co-mobility or joint mobility, which involves maintaining a joint focus of attention or proximity. – Mobile embodiments and artefacts. – Mobile (contextual) configurations. – Centres of mobility coordination.

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– A “mobility nexus”, in which several orders of social action come together in situ to promote mobility. – Embedded and relative mobilities, e.g. moving at different rates and in different directions. – Mobility transitions and moorings, e.g. punctuated mobilities, docking/ ports, moorings, thresholds. – Mobility scales. – (Im)mutability and (im)mobility. – Normative mobile orders. From this list, it is clear that there are resonances between the concerns of many of the chapters in this collection and recent work in mobility studies in different disciplines, such as anthropology, transport studies, performance studies, cultural studies and sociology. It is on this count that we can most easily see fruitful dialogue and collaborations emerging. A definite point of contact can be found in the work of Erving Goffman on behaviour and relations in public places (Goffman 1963, 1971). Goffman is a grounding figure for several chapters in the book and for recent work in mobility studies (e.g. Jensen 2006, 2010a, 2010b; Pinch 2010). One phenomenon that crops up repeatedly is the notion of a “with”. In fact, Jensen and others have extended this concept in order to examine the “mobile with” (Adey 2010: 18; Jensen 2010a). Other examples of points of contact include Broth and Lundström, vom Lehn and De Stefani, who have much in common with the anthropology of walking (Ingold and Vergunst 2008; Myers 2011; Pink 2007), Laurier and Haddington with the work on automobilities (Böhm et al. 2006; Featherstone, Thrift and Urry 2005), and Nevile and Koskela et al. with the transportation and aeromobilities field (Cwerner, Kesselring and Urry 2008). Lan et al. and Keevallik have a common interest with performance studies and studies of the use of urban space (Adey 2010; Farías and Bender 2010; Mondada 2002), while vom Lehn and De Stefani overlap with studies of cultural consumption practices (Shove, Trentmann and Wilk 2009). From a technological perspective, Mondada and Licoppe & Morel engage with issues in common with video game research and studies of mobile phone usage (Borries, Walz and Bottger 2007; Ling and Campbell 2008; Ling and Donner 2009; Newman 2008). Laurier, Broth and Lundström, and Lan et al. engage with mobile actants, artefacts and materialities, as well as inaction (Bissell 2010b; Roderick 2001). A final point to be made is that the chapters in this book beautifully illustrate how mobility practices are being studied afresh and in novel settings or

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situations – there is an ethnographic turn in mobility studies that is not content with grand theorising, and this collection stimulates many new and promising areas to study in the near future. For example, in my own recent research I am beginning to examine social interaction and vélomobilities (Furness 2007; Pesses 2010). In this project, I am exploring how different types of bike-rider-passenger configurations are interactionally organised as a “mobile with” in urban settings, e.g. there is the adult who rides with a child who is learning to bike, or the commuters who cycle together to and from work. After several experiments, more than one video camera was found to be necessary, and later “extreme sports” micro video cameras (Brown, Dilley and Marshall 2008; Brown and Spinney 2010; Spinney 2011) were put to use to capture audio and visual features of the local organisation of the ride from the participants’ perspective(s). In addition, and inspired by the work represented in this collection, new ways to represent (in transcript form) specific features of the sensefulness of riding together, e.g. relative mobilities, elastic interactions and the maintenance of a “stretchy copresence” while doing “being mobile”, are being developed (McIlvenny in press). As a reader and scholar I am fascinated by the chapters in this collection and I look forward to seeing interactional mobility studies flourish. Not only does the book set out to illustrate and document the richness of the micropractices of being mobile, it has taken on the challenge and the spirit of the “mobility turn”.3 It is indicative of a deep and exciting focus on the ethnographic in mobility studies, in which many modes and practices of movement – interacting outside the box – are as yet undocumented and unresearched. We shall have to wait and see if this empirical journey is to be understood metaphorically as learning to dance, taking the right turn on a main road, politely strolling through the exhibits, cruising pre-packaged consumables in the supermarket, peering down from ten thousand feet, casually walking on the brink, or standing frozen still. Maybe we need to give up the mobility metaphors for a while and look at practices first. 3

In a rather sweeping gesture, Bissell (2010a: 56) argues that ethnomethodological approaches to the study of mobilities focus “on only a narrow range of what it is to be mobile, which privileges speech patterns, bodily movements, gestures and placings.” He acknowledges that while this approach apprehends an active, agentive rendering of (inter)subjectivity, it may end up reducing the rich variety of experiences and subjectivities to an over-animation of the body consisting of “the various permutations of kinaesthesia, the ‘reeks and jiggles’ of movement” (p.56). In contrast, this volume clearly demonstrates that there is much to be gained by focusing intimately on the “reeks and jiggles” of mobile action as well as interaction in the context of mobility.

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References Adey, Peter (2010): Mobility. Abingdon: Routledge. Adey, Peter, David Bissell, Kevin Hannam, P. Merriman and Mimi Sheller (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities. London: Routledge. Albrecht, Gary L. (1985): Videotape Safaris: Entering the Field with a Camera. Qualitative Sociology 8: 325–344. Bissell, David (2010a): Narrating Mobile Methodologies: Active and Passive Empiricisms. In: Ben Fincham, Mark McGuinness and Lesley Murray (eds.), Mobile Methodologies, 53–68. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bissell, David (2010b): Vibrating Materialities: Mobility–Body–Technology Relations. Area 42: 479–486. Bissell, David and Gillian Fuller (eds.) (2011): Stillness in a Mobile World. Abingdon: Routledge. Böhm, Steffen, Campbell Jones, Chris Land and Mat Paterson (2006): Part One Conceptualizing Automobility: Introduction: Impossibilities of automobility. The Sociological Review 54: 1–16. Borries, Friedrich von, Steffen P. Walz and Matthias Bottger (eds.) (2007): Space Time Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism – The Next Level. Birkhauser Verlag AG. Brown, Barry and Eric Laurier (2005): Maps and Journeys: An Ethnomethodological Investigation. Cartographica 40: 17–33. Brown, Katrina Myrvang, Rachel Dilley and Keith Marshall (2008): Using a HeadMounted Video Camera to Understand Social Worlds and Experiences. Sociological Research Online 13(6). (http://www.socresonline.org.uk/13/6/1.html). Brown, Katrina and Justin Spinney (2010): Catching a Glimpse: The Value of Video in Evoking, Understanding and Representing the Practice of Cycling. In: Ben Fincham, Mark McGuinness and Lesley Murray (eds.), Mobile Methodologies, 130–151. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Büscher, Monika (2005): Social Life Under the Microscope? Sociological Research Online 10 (1). (http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/1/buscher.html). Büscher, Monika, Paul Coulton, Drew Hemment and Preben Holst Mogensen (2010): Mobile, Experimental, Public. In: Monika Büscher, John Urry and Katian Witchger (eds.), Mobile Methods, 119–137. Abingdon: Routledge. Büscher, Monika, John Urry and Katian Witchger (2010a): Introduction: Mobile Methods. In: Monika Büscher, John Urry and Katian Witchger (eds.), Mobile Methods, 1–19. Abingdon: Routledge. Büscher, Monika, John Urry and Katian Witchger (eds.) (2010b): Mobile Methods. Abingdon: Routledge. Canzler, Weert, Vincent Kaufmann and Sven Kesselring (eds.) (2008): Tracing Mobilities: Towards a Cosmopolitan Perspective. Ashgate. Coates, Sally (1999): Analysing the Physical: An Ethnomethodological Study of Boxing. Ethnographic Studies 4: 13–26. Collinson, Jacquelyn Allen (2006): Running Together: Some Ethnomethodological Considerations. Ethnographic Studies 8: 17–29. Cresswell, Tim and Peter Merriman (eds.) (2011): Geographies of Mobilities: Practices, Spaces, Subjects. Farnham: Ashgate. Cwerner, Saulo, Sven Kesselring and John Urry (eds.) (2008): Aeromobilities. Abingdon: Routledge.

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D’Andrea, Anthony, Luigina Ciolfi and Breda Gray (2011): Methodological Challenges and Innovations in Mobilities Research. Mobilities 6: 149–160. Ehn, Billy and Orvar Löfgren (2010): The Secret World of Doing Nothing. Berkeley, CA: California University Press. Farías, Ignacio and Thomas Bender (eds.) (2010): Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies. Abingdon: Routledge. Featherstone, Mike, Nigel Thrift and John Urry (eds.) (2005): Automobilities. London: Sage. Fincham, Ben, Mark McGuinness and Lesley Murray (2010a): Introduction. In: Ben Fincham, Mark McGuinness and Lesley Murray (eds.), Mobile Methodologies, 1–10. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Fincham, Ben, Mark McGuinness and Lesley Murray (eds.) (2010b): Mobile Methodologies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Freudendal-Pedersen, Malene (2010): Mobility in Daily Life: Between Freedom and Unfreedom. Farnham: Ashgate. Furness, Zack (2007): Critical Mass, Urban Space and Velomobility. Mobilities 2: 299–319. Goffman, Erving (1963): Behaviour in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organisation of Gatherings. New York: The Free Press. Goffman, Erving (1971): Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. London: Allen Lane. Haddington, Pentti, Tiina Keisanen and Maurice Nevile (2012): Meaning in Motion: Interaction in Cars. Special issue of Semiotica 191 (1/4). Hannam, Kevin, Mimi Sheller and John Urry (2006): Editorial: Mobilities, Immobilities and Moorings. Mobilities 1: 1–22. Hester, Stephen and David Francis (2003): Analysing Visually Available Mundane Order: A Walk to the Supermarket. Visual Studies 18: 36–46. Hill, Richard J. and Kathleen Stones Crittenden (eds.) (1968): Proceedings of the Purdue Symposium on Ethnomethodology. Purdue, IN: Purdue Reseach Foundation. Ingold, Tim and J. Lee Vergunst (eds.) (2008): Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot. Aldershot: Ashgate. Jensen, Ole B. (2006): Facework, Flow and the City: Simmel, Goffman and Mobility in the Contemporary City. Mobilities 1: 143–165. Jensen, Ole B. (2010a): Erving Goffman and Everyday Life Mobility. In: Michael Hviid Jacobsen (ed.), The Contemporary Goffman. Abingdon: Routledge. Jensen, Ole B. (2010b): Negotiation in Motion: Unpacking a Geography of Mobility. Space and Culture 13: 389–402. Laurier, Eric (2010): Being There/Seeing There: Recording and Analysing Life in the Car. In: Ben Fincham, Mark McGuinness and Lesley Murray (eds.), Mobile Methodologies, 103–117. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Laurier, Eric (2011): Driving: Pre-Cognition and Driving. In: Tim Cresswell and Peter Merriman (eds.), Geographies of Mobilities: Practices, Spaces, Subjects, 69–82. Farnham: Ashgate. Ling, Rich and Scott W. Campbell (eds.) (2008): The Reconstruction of Space and Time: Mobile Communication Practices. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Ling, Rich and Jonathan Donner (2009): Mobile Communication. Cambridge: Polity Press. McIlvenny, Paul (in press): The Joy of Biking Together: Sharing Everyday Experiences of Vélomobility. Mobilities.

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McIlvenny, Paul, Mathias Broth and Pentti Haddington (2009): Editorial: Communicating Place, Space and Mobility [special issue]. Journal of Pragmatics 41: 1879–1886. Mondada, Lorenza (2002): The City Is Not Made of Anonymous People: Categorization Process and Urban Space. Marges Linguistiques 3: 72–90. Mondada, Lorenza (2010): Reassembling Fragmented Geographies. In: Monika Büscher, John Urry and Katian Witchger (eds.), Mobile Methods. Abingdon: Routledge. Morel, Julian and Christian Licoppe (2010): Studying Mobile Video Telephony. In: Monika Büscher, John Urry and Katian Witchger (eds.), Mobile Methods. Abingdon: Routledge. Myers, Misha (2011): Walking Again Lively: Towards an Ambulant and Conversive Methodology of Performance and Research. Mobilities 6: 183–201. Newman, James (2008): Playing With Videogames. Abingdon: Routledge. Noy, Chaim (2012): Inhabiting the Family-Car: Children-Passengers and ParentsDrivers on the School Run. Semiotica 191 (1/4): 309–333. Pesses, Michael W. (2010): Automobility, Velomobility, American Mobility: An Exploration of the Bicycle Tour. Mobilities 5: 1–24. Pinch, Trevor (2010): The Invisible Technologies of Goffman’s Sociology: From the Merry-Go-Round to the Internet. Technology and Culture 51: 409–424. Pink, Sarah (2007): Walking with Video. Visual Studies 22: 240–252. Pink, Sarah, Phil Hubbard, Maggie O’Neill and Alan Radley (2010): Walking Across Disciplines: From Ethnography to Arts Practice. Visual Studies 25: 1–7. Robillard, Albert (1999): Meaning of a Disability: The Lived Experience of Paralysis. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Roderick, Ian (2001): Bodies, Materials, Practice: Habiting Space and the Representational Limits of Latour’s Semiotics of Assemblies. Social Semiotics 11: 343–360. Ryave, Lincoln and James N. Schenkein (1974): Notes on The Art of Walking. In Roy Turner (ed.), Ethnomethodology. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Sheller, Mimi and John Urry (2006): The New Mobilities Paradigm. Environment and Planning A 38: 207–226. Shove, Elizabeth, Frank Trentmann and Richard Wilk (eds.) (2009): Time, Consumption and Everyday Life: Practice, Materiality and Culture. Oxford: Berg. Spinney, Justin (2011): A Chance to Catch a Breath: Using Mobile Video Ethnography in Cycling Research. Mobilities 6: 161–182. Urry, John (2007): Mobilities. Oxford: Polity Press. Vannini, Phillip (ed.) (2009): The Cultures of Alternative Mobilities: Routes Less Travelled. Farnham: Ashgate. Watson, Rod (1999): Driving in Forests and Mountains: A Pure and Applied Ethnography. Ethnographic Studies 3: 50–60. (http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/ disciplines/sociology/about/events/ethnography/journal/).

Person index

419

Person index

Adey, Peter 25, 29, 46–47, 409, 409fn, 413 Arminen, Ilkka 17, 26–27, 32, 34, 43–44, 92, 154, 167, 245–276, 278, 279, 279, 283, 284, 296, 300 Auer, Peter vii, 3fn, 186, 186fn Auvinen, Petra 17, 32, 34, 43, 154, 167, 248–249, 252, 254, 262, 267–268, 271–273 Bergmann, Jörg 20, 43–44 Bilmes, Jack 310, 328 Broth, Mathias 16, 18, 22, 23, 26–28, 31, 39, 41, 87, 91–122, 154, 249fn, 301, 410–411, 413 Brown, Barry 18, 21, 44, 66, 212, 213, 219, 234, 238–239, 251, 306, 410, 410fn, 414 Brown, Penelope 308 Büscher, Monika 23–24, 31, 34–35, 38, 43–44, 46–47, 92, 104, 154–155, 160, 371–405, 409, 410 Cekaite, Asta 180, 181fn, 309 Coulter, Jeff 119, 132fn Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 12 Crabtree, Andy 91 Cresswell, Tim 46–47, 212, 277, 409 Deppermann, Arnulf 15 De Stefani, Elwys 21–22, 25–26, 31, 41, 93, 123–151, 300–301, 413 D’hondt, Sigurd 31, 34, 246, 251 Dourish, Paul 43, 250 Duranti, Alessandro 36, 39, 126, 249 Drew, Paul 39, 254, 308 Enfield, Nick 348–349 Ervin-Tripp, Susan 180, 308 Featherstone, Mike 212, 413 Francis, David 5, 23, 29, 41, 410

Garfinkel, Harold 5, 9–10, 12, 36, 67, 92, 135fn, 211, 310, 323, 331, 382, 412 Goffman, Erving 5, 22, 37, 40, 65, 67–68, 74, 77, 85, 97, 123fn, 123–124, 132fn, 139, 147, 301, 326, 380, 382, 385–388, 413 Goodwin, Charles 4, 13–16, 18, 23, 26, 30, 36–39, 43, 67–68, 92, 110, 115, 119, 126, 144, 153, 160–161, 163, 167, 179, 180, 186, 188, 192–193, 197, 217, 245, 249–251, 254, 260, 262, 270–271, 293, 323, 346, 348–349, 357 Goodwin, Marjorie Harness 13, 14–15, 17, 30, 43, 144, 153, 180, 184, 186, 192–193, 196–197, 203–205, 249, 251, 270–271, 308, 310, 323 Haddington, Pentti 3–61, 87, 91–92, 155, 172, 174, 179–209, 211–213, 238, 246, 251, 266, 300, 302, 310, 349, 362, 410, 413 Hanks, William 20, 39, 163, 346–350, 352, 356, 358, 360, 364 Hannam, Kevin 46, 409 Heath, Christian 4, 13–14, 16–18, 20, 23, 24–26, 28, 30–31, 35, 39, 41, 43, 66–68, 71, 82, 86, 88, 92, 95, 104–105, 110fn, 118, 120, 126, 154, 155, 167, 211, 249, 251, 256, 270, 300, 346–349, 358, 363–364 Hemment, Drew 371–405 Heritage, John ix, 5, 12, 36, 115, 128, 181, 185, 234, 260–261, 285, 292 Hester, Stephen 5, 23–24, 29, 41, 285, 410 Hindmarsh, Jon 20, 24–26, 28, 39, 41, 43, 66, 68, 88, 105, 110fn, 118, 126, 211, 346–349, 358, 363–364 Houtkoop-Steenstra, Hanneke 81fn Hutchby, Ian 6, 17, 44, 253, 279

420 Ingold, Tim 47, 212, 277, 409, 413 Jefferson, Gail ix, 5–8, 13, 95, 120, 156, 181fn, 186fn, 254, 271, 337 Jensen, Ole B. 40, 413 Juhlin, Oskar 18, 211–212 Keating, Elizabeth 17, 45, 303, 305–306 Keevallik, Leelo 26–27, 31, 35, 118fn, 345–370, 412–413 Keisanen, Tiina vii, 17, 21, 23, 32, 34, 38–39, 43, 87, 92, 155, 172, 185, 193, 205, 212–213, 219, 232, 238, 246, 251, 266, 349, 362, 410 Kendon, Adam 14, 22, 38, 40, 65, 92, 97, 147, 249fn, 251, 384, 391 Koschmann, Timothy 14, 16, 18, 20, 154, 160, 174, 254 Koskela, Inka 26–27, 43, 167, 245–276, 300, 413 Lan Hing Ting, Karine 26–27, 31, 36, 371–405, 413 Laurier, Eric 18, 21, 23, 25–27, 31–32, 34–35, 38, 43–44, 65, 87, 92, 118, 155, 172, 183–184, 193, 205, 210–242, 251, 278, 306, 409, 409fn, 410–411, 413 Laury, Ritva 350, 362 Lave, Jean 125, 135 LeBaron, Curtis 4, 22 Lerner, Gene 14, 103, 144, 186fn Lee, J.R. 38, 66, 301, 382, 386–387, 393, 399 Levinson, Stephen 19, 280–281, 308, 345, 347, 349–350, 363 Licoppe, Christian 26, 28, 35, 44–45, 277–299, 306, 404, 409, 413 Linell, Per 94, 118, 120 Luff, Paul 4, 16–18, 23–26, 28, 30, 31, 35, 39, 43, 68, 71, 86, 88, 92, 154–155, 167, 211, 249, 251, 256, 270, 300 Lundström, Fredrik 26–27, 31, 39, 41, 87, 91–122, 301, 411, 413 Lynch, Michael 37, 39

Person index McIlvenny, Paul vii, 22–23, 28, 40, 47, 87, 91, 236, 409–417 McNeill, David 14 Merriman, Pete 212, 409 Mondada, Lorenza vii, 3–61, 91–93, 103, 116–117, 118fn, 123fn, 124–125, 143, 147fn, 154, 174, 179, 180, 185, 186fn, 193, 206, 212, 218, 220, 227, 235, 246, 249fn, 251, 300–341, 347–348, 360, 362, 386, 390, 396, 403, 409, 411, 413 Morel, Julien 26, 28, 35, 44, 277–299, 409, 413 Nevile, Maurice vii, 3–61, 92, 132fn, 152–176, 179, 184–187, 197fn, 200, 205–206, 211, 213, 218, 231–232, 238, 248, 251–252, 254, 271, 300, 310, 349, 353fn, 362, 410, 413 Nishizaka, Aug 16, 132fn, 154 Noy, Chaim 410fn Ogden, Richard 325 Palukka, Hannele 17, 26–27, 32, 34, 43,154,167, 245–276, 300 Peräkylä, Anssi 235 Piirainen-Marsh, Arja 306 Potter, Jonathan 180, 198, 205, 308, 310, 314 Psathas, George 21, 23–25, 29–30, 33, 35, 37, 47, 163, 212, 250 Raudaskoski, Sanna 254 Rauniomaa, Mirka 3fn, 17, 32, 44, 206 Relieu, Marc 29–30, 39, 41, 44, 91–92, 117, 278, 301, 386, 396 Ruusuvuori, Johanna 235 Ryave, Alan 29, 40, 66, 68, 92, 123, 167, 211, 301, 313, 373, 380, 382, 395, 399, 410 Sacks, Harvey 5–8, 11–13, 19, 36, 67, 87, 91, 97, 103, 126fn, 130, 135fn, 148, 179, 185, 186fn, 195, 234, 254, 254fn, 271, 278, 287, 293, 373, 374, 382, 412 Sahlström, Fritjof 17, 30, 261

421

Person index Schegloff, Emanuel A. 4–8, 11–14, 18–19, 23, 39, 44, 87, 91, 103, 148, 179, 183, 185–186, 186fn, 190, 195, 202, 212, 250, 254, 271, 278, 280–281, 285, 287–288, 290, 293, 305, 308, 310 Schenkein, James 29, 40, 66, 68, 92, 123, 167, 211, 301, 313, 373, 380, 382, 395, 399, 410 Schmitt, Reinhold 14–15, 38, 41 Seamon, David 47 Searle, John 308 Sharrock, Wes 132fn Sheller, Mimi 46, 277, 409 Stivers, Tanya 4, 14 Streeck, Jürgen 4, 13–14, 22, 179, 186, 367 Suchman, Lucy 16–17, 39, 42, 43, 119, 245, 248–249, 254, 270–271, 305, 323, 329, 331, 404 Sudnow, David 41, 212, 216, 323, 412

ten Have, Paul 6–7, 68, 156, 253 Thrift, Nigel 46–47, 193, 212, 413 Tomasello, Michael 353 Urry, John 3, 24, 29, 46–47, 212, 277, 387, 409, 413 vom Lehn, Dirk 25–26, 41, 65–90, 103, 105, 118fn, 120, 126, 251, 413 Watson, Rod 23, 30, 38, 66, 115, 213, 235, 292, 301, 382, 386–387, 393, 399, 404, 410–411 Weilenmann, Alexandra 17–18, 43, 92, 210fn, 250, 252, 270, 278–279, 283–284, 296 West, Candace 180, 183, 308 Wooffit, Robin 6, 253 Zemel, Alan 18, 20, 254

422

Subject index

Subject index

accelerate 29, 198, 204, 226, 313, 314, 380 acceptance 70–72, 74–75, 81fn, 85–86, 88, 97, 103, 107–108, 169–171, 183, 192, 196–197, 201, 203, 259, 260, 267–269 accident 13, 171, 186–187, 211, 213, 248, 252, 255 accountability 10, 12, 31–33, 38, 41, 92, 107, 123fn, 127, 148, 153, 155, 161, 170, 172, 174, 183, 193, 201, 206, 237, 262, 323, 328–329, 331, 373, 395, 396, 399 adjacency pair 12, 141, 143, 146, 180, 310, 323 aesthetics 66, 68, 85, 374, 378–379, 401, 403 affordance 37, 41, 187, 188, 195, 279, 288, 296, 345–346, 350 agreement 104, 137, 144–145, 183, 190–191, 219, 234–235, 267, 282, 285, 293 aircraft, airplane 21, 26, 29, 30, 32, 33, 43, 152–176, 245–276, 345 alignment 31, 74, 77, 79, 82, 85, 87, 97, 120, 263, 267, 290, 306, 376 answer – answering a phone 44, 285–286, 289 – answering a question 83, 190, 195, 220, 234, 281, 286, 291 – a candidate answer 182, 282, 286, 290 anticipation 185–188, 192, 201, 205, 253, 266, 282, 287, 302, 307, 326, 394–395, 397 arrangement – socio-technical arrangements 246, 277 – (see also ›body arrangement‹ and ›formation‹) arrival, arriving 34–35, 42, 73, 81–83, 99, 108, 114, 183, 191, 200, 215, 232,

234, 238, 290–291, 353, 353fn, 357, 365–366, 381, 384, 388–389, 393, 396–397 artefact 15, 18, 21, 36, 249–250, 253, 262, 263fn, 272, 412–413 assessment 14, 137, 139, 144, 224, 233–235, 263, 267, 301, 305, 313–314, 323–328 asymmetry 217, 336, 347 attention 14, 15, 22, 32, 79, 100–101, 110fn, 114–115, 118, 126–127, 130, 135, 137, 139, 142, 147, 173–174, 190, 193, 195, 200, 203, 206, 218, 220, 224–225, 227, 231, 249fn, 260, 301, 305, 350, 355, 367, 388, 391, 392, 397, 399–400, 403, 412 automobility 46, 211–212, 239, 413 aviation 25, 43, 167, 152–176, 245–276 awareness 17–18, 43, 82, 87, 91, 123, 164, 186, 225, 232, 253fn beginning 31, 33, 92, 100, 116, 118, 129, 148, 214, 219, 302, 303, 311, 384, 388, 393, 402, 412 – (see also »pre-beginning«) body – body arrangement 21–22, 36, 40, 45, 79, 80, 81, 85–86, 159, 236, 249, 316, 384, 386, 391 – body movement 13–14, 359, 364, 366, 368 – body torque 103, 305, 412 – body configuration 217, 345, 350, 354–359, 361, 364, 366 car 4, 13, 17, 21, 23, 26–27, 29–32, 34, 38, 42–43, 44, 87, 154–155, 159, 172, 179–209, 210–242, 251, 300, 310 category, categories, categorisation 19, 41, 46, 91, 123, 132, 134–135, 135fn, 137, 143, 147, 148fn, 226, 285–286, 296, 374, 376, 387, 390–391, 395–396, 399, 402, 404

Subject index centre of coordination 30, 42, 45, 245–276, 305 change-of-state 128, 129fn, 261, 268, 320, 322, 326 circling 22, 30, 210, 212, 214, 221, 226–229, 231, 235, 238 civil inattention 41, 123, 123fn, 373, 388, 399 closing 18, 31, 100, 103–105, 109–111, 115–117, 136–137, 139, 293, 323, 325–326, 401 cognition, cognitive 14, 21, 47, 85, 119, 186, 308 collaboration 14, 17, 30–31, 33, 42–43, 47–48, 66, 105, 117–118, 123, 125–128, 134–135, 147–148, 152–153, 155, 167–168, 172–174, 187, 205, 254, 270, 280, 281, 289–291, 294–295, 306, 315, 320, 330, 334, 374, 382–383, 392, 395, 413 – collaborative work 16, 18, 155, 171–172, 251 – collaborative task 157, 205, 300 collision, colliding 40, 123, 167, 169, 186, 230, 255, 269, 313, 373, 382, 394–400 command 180, 182, 203, 205, 302, 307, 309, 314, 323, 335, 392 common ground 190, 206, 279, 280 complaint 218, 224–225, 313–316, 318, 320, 322, 325, 327, 333, 336 compliance 180–181, 183–184, 195, 197, 200–201, 205, 259, 307, 310, 315, 317, 319–321, 326, 328, 331 computers 16–17, 42, 45, 302–303, 305, 307, 322, 326, 334–335 conditional relevance 202–203, 250, 278, 310, 376, 392 context – sequential context 11–12, 20, 104, 179, 352 – spatial context 37, 193, 213 contextual configuration 15, 39, 119, 179, 245, 249, 251, 272, 336–337 contingent, contingency 6–7, 10,

423 17–18, 23, 27, 32, 43, 91–92, 106, 111, 116, 119, 126, 129, 180fn, 183, 213, 218, 245, 246fn, 248, 253, 256, 262, 270–272, 284, 295, 300–301, 322, 331, 335–336, 376, 394–395, 400 control centre, control room 16, 18, 42–43, 246, 254, 262 coordination 3, 5–7, 10, 12, 13–17, 20–22, 25–26, 29–34, 39–43, 45, 67, 87, 110, 123, 127, 155, 161, 167, 179, 183, 185, 193, 197fn, 201, 206, 218, 245–256, 259, 261–263, 268–273, 279, 290–293, 296, 300–303, 305–310, 313, 315, 322, 326, 330, 333, 335–337, 345, 367–368, 374–375, 377, 379–380, 384, 387, 393, 400 coordination centre – (see »centre of coordination«) – mobile context 39–40, 180, 183, 193, 195, 250–251, 300–301, 306, 310, 320, 322, 335 co-mobility 412 co-presence 40–41, 123, 287, 379, 384 correction, corrective 182, 187–188, 205, 245, 248, 254–256, 259–263, 267–268, 270–272, 345–346, 348, 350, 363–364, 366–368 cycling 25, 29, 40–41, 236, 414 dancing 4, 29, 30, 31, 40, 47, 118fn, 345–370, 400, 412, 414 decelerate 214, 226 – (see also »slowing«) decision-making 38, 128, 148, 186 decline 76–77, 88 deictics 280, 291, 345, 348, 356, 367 deictic reference 19, 20, 38, 91, 110, 118, 345–347, 355–356, 362, 368 deixis 20, 38, 345, 346–350, 352, 358, 360, 367–368 delay 35, 39, 76–77, 79, 82, 84, 111, 118fn, 139, 211, 267, 314–315, 317, 319–320, 322, 334, 353fn, 362, 401 departure, departing 43, 68–77, 79–88, 103, 111, 115–116, 118fn, 168, 234, 257, 259–262, 263fn, 283, 349, 382, 399

424 destination 20, 33, 91, 94, 105–106, 108–109, 111, 115, 117–118, 189–190, 195, 199–201, 234, 246fn, 250 direction 17, 20, 25, 31, 33, 40, 45, 75, 87, 97, 99, 110, 119, 123, 129, 134, 145, 152, 154–155, 157, 159–160, 162–164, 167, 172–173, 182, 190, 195, 212, 214–215, 219, 230, 268, 309, 311–313, 316, 322, 376–377, 379, 386, 393–396, 398–400, 403, 413, direction-giving 19–21, 29, 33, 212, 348 directive 179–209, 300–341 disagreement 144, 183, 234, 334 disengagement 126, 135 displacement 29, 47, 277, 379, 396 distance 3, 42–45, 68, 104, 113, 130, 132, 147, 159, 167, 173, 213–214, 218, 245, 248–249, 255, 260, 277, 296, 337, 349–350, 380, 393–394 distraction 32, 155 distributed activity 245, 248 distributed work 187, 201 driver 23, 31–32, 34, 44, 154, 159, 179–239, 246, 251, 300, 362 driving 4, 25, 29–32, 36, 38, 41, 43–44, 154–155, 160, 179–239, 251, 345, 349, 362, 411 driving research 185 ecology 21–22, 29, 36–40, 43–44, 269, 348, 386 embodiment, embodied ix, xi, 3–7, 9, 11–17, 23, 25–26, 28, 30–35, 37, 40, 44, 47–48, 91, 93–94, 98, 108, 110–111, 114–116, 118, 132, 134, 146, 148, 153–154, 172, 179–182, 185–186, 193, 200–201, 212, 236, 250–251, 253, 260, 272, 301–303, 307, 309, 310, 317, 318, 323, 335, 337, 345, 349, 352, 358, 361, 368, 373, 379, 382, 392, 403, 412 embodied actions, activities 5, 15, 32, 154, 179, 180, 182, 186 emergency 16, 20, 34, 38, 43, 154

Subject index encounter 13, 22, 24, 31, 37–39, 45, 68, 93–94, 117–118, 123–125, 138, 141, 277–299, 379, 385–387, 394, 403, 411–412 engagement 15, 22, 32, 68, 123–124, 126, 128, 132, 134–135, 140, 148, 225, 228, 248, 281, 285, 307, 334, 374, 385, 387–389, 399 entering 30, 36, 40, 81, 100, 104, 124, 183, 210, 214, 216, 220–221, 223, 225–227, 231, 238, 247, 259, 380, 386 environment 4, 6, 14–16, 20, 23, 36–37, 39–43, 45–46, 85, 91–92, 94, 116–119, 126, 130–132, 132fn, 137fn, 141–143, 153, 155, 160–164, 172–173, 181, 186, 189, 206, 210, 212–213, 214, 231, 245–246, 249–252, 254, 263, 272, 288, 294–296, 300, 305, 312, 317, 349, 358, 375, 382, 384, 386, 393, 394, 403, 411 – interactional 67, 279, 283, 295 – material 86, 91, 118 – mediated 288, 300–301, 305 – mobile 10, 301, 411 – multimodal 15 – phenomenal 91, 94, 111, 115–117 – physical 65, 92–94, 132, 159, 253 – semiotic 16, 123–124, 135, 187 – sequential 19, 245 – social 65 – spatial 37, 140, 147 error 156, 171, 181, 220, 254, 254fn, 255, 262–263, 268–269, 271–272 – (see also ›mistake‹) ethics 26, 66, 411 ethnography 25, 87, 125fn, 253–254, 306, 371, 378, 393, 409, 410fn, 411, 414 ethnomethodology 5, 9–10, 12, 18–21, 23, 25, 29, 36, 39–40, 42, 46–48, 67, 87, 153, 211, 253, 278, 306, 411–412, 414fn exiting 31, 34, 36, 183, 194–199, 212–215, 218–219, 224, 229, 231, 233–235, 238, 251

425

Subject index F-formation 22, 92, 147, 249fn, 391 facial expressions 12–14 flow 31–32, 210–211, 220, 223, 245, 247, 256, 263, 270–271, 277–278, 300, 351, 354, 359, 373, 377, 381, 386, 394, 400, 402, 411 flying 4, 16, 29–30, 38, 41, 43, 152, 155–156, 158, 164–165, 267, 268fn, 362 focal event 126, 130 focused interaction 123fn, 124, 147, 217, 387 formation – circle 38, 386 – face-to-back 236 – face-to-face 24, 38, 222, 237, 249, 278, 305, 386, 389, 393, 396, 399 – front-to-back 222 – mobile 40, 44 – one-behind-the-other 124, 127, 236 – side-by-side 68, 71, 74–75, 80, 85–86, 97, 124, 249, 256, 305, 380, 397 – vis-à-vis 384 football 38, 300–304, 307, 317, 322, 325, 328, 335–337 freeze 31, 104, 117, 354, 363, 371–384, 388, 391–395, 399–403 gathering 22, 124, 372–373, 385 gaze 12, 14, 22, 25, 91, 103–105, 108, 110, 114–115, 117–118, 129, 131–132, 136–137, 145, 160, 217, 227, 229, 235, 237, 250, 267, 347–348, 352–354, 363, 367, 387, 393, 399, 403 – mutual gaze 14, 144, 236, 304–305 – gaze direction 14, 103, 118, 131, 134, 136–137, 144, 154, 186, 352, 389, 393–394 – gaze shift 4, 105, 190, 199, 229, 268, 389 gesture 6–7, 11–15, 19, 22, 32, 34, 37, 47, 65, 91, 109, 117–118, 154, 186–187, 190, 203, 260, 330, 338, 347, 354, 367, 371, 388, 393, 414fn – environmentally coupled 37 – pointing (see »pointing gesture«)

– iconic 115 – indexical 201 – studies 14, 186 grammar 8, 19, 34, 35, 171, 186fn, 195–196, 199, 204, 357 greeting 95, 130, 281, 285, 289 guiding, guided 31, 39, 42, 44, 66–67, 92, 94, 126, 161–163, 173, 247, 263, 267–268 hearing 37, 237, 254, 271, 290, 357 identity 5, 118, 159–161, 167–168, 170, 172–173, 285, 333–334 immobility, immobile 29–32, 35, 43, 45, 104, 246, 296, 305–307, 350, 355, 373, 382, 383, 386, 388, 391, 410 – (see also »stillness«, »non-mobility«) indexicality 10, 345, 347 indicator 182–183, 189–193, 193fn, 195, 197, 200, 204, 217, 228 insert sequence 166, 183–184, 190 institutional 6, 10, 161, 163, 249–250, 252, 262–263, 268 instruction 12, 24, 30, 33, 35, 37, 43, 45, 91–122, 167, 180, 205, 247, 255, 260, 270, 300–301, 306–307, 309–310, 312–314, 316–328, 330–331, 335–337, 345–370, 374, 378, 382, 392, 400 interactional mobility studies 409, 411, 414 interactional space 19, 22, 36, 41, 92, 103, 116fn, 124, 147, 301, 305, 348 intersubjectivity 12, 183, 185, 245, 252–253, 271 intonation ix–x, 8, 100, 316–317 invitation 81, 81fn, 100, 278–281, 287, 295 involvement 27, 65, 69, 71, 73–75, 77, 79, 81, 83–87, 200, 228, 232–233, 290, 309, 348 landmark 20, 37, 39, 147fn, 162–163, 173, 285, 305 language 3, 6, 9, 15, 17, 22, 33, 35, 48, 180, 186–187, 225, 345–346, 348–349, 367–368

426 learning 233, 239, 414 localisation 19, 279, 282–286, 288–292, 294, 296 location 4, 19–20, 26, 32–35, 42, 44, 93–94, 101, 108–109, 118, 157, 160–161, 163–170, 172–173, 181, 187, 198–199, 246, 250–251, 277–278, 281–290, 292–297, 306, 322, 349, 377, 379–380 material – material artefacts 15, 18, 21 – material circumstances 4, 30 – material configuration 42 – material contingencies 92, 111, 119 – material constraints 41 – material context 36 – material environment 16, 39, 65, 86, 91, 118, 245, 250 – material features 15, 36, 179, 183, 206 – material landscape 251 – material orientation 3, 48 – material resources 6, 11, 16, 23, 38, 256 – material setting 37 – material space 22 – material surround 6, 33, 38, 91–92, 103, 106, 117–119 – materiality 39, 155, 413 – materials 46, 186, 249–250, 263 mediated mobility 44 membership categorisation 19, 285 – (see also ›category‹) micro-mobilities 47, 409–410 military 23, 153, 155, 157, 161, 167, 170, 171–173 mistake 159, 172–173, 206, 218–220, 223, 227, 360 mobile – action 10, 23–26, 28–29, 34, 36–39, 42–45, 132, 181fn, 193, 196, 199–200, 204, 206, 246, 251, 300–301, 310, 315–317, 322, 330, 332, 334–335, 337, 410, 412, 414fn – activity 20–21, 23, 28, 33, 41, 119, 260, 266, 345 – actor 30, 41, 43, 245–246, 248–252 – collaboration 152, 155, 172, 330

Subject index – communication 46, 277–278, 280 – configuration 100, 252, 300, 302, 336–337, 355 – context 39–40, 180, 183, 193, 195, 250–251, 300–301, 306, 310, 320, 322, 335 – contextual configuration 252–253, 261, 263, 270, 272, 296 – coordination 43, 302, 307, 310 – formation 40, 44 – interaction 28, 91, 93 – landscape 312 – order 336, 413 – phone 16–17, 28, 32, 44, 277–299, 372, 385, 403, 413 – practice 29–30, 42, 47, 210–211, 409–410, 410fn – response 301 – setting 17, 24–26 – space 179, 185, 187, 190, 193, 195, 206 – ›with‹ 41, 413–414 mobility – research 20, 185, 205, 296, 296 – studies 6, 24, 32, 46–47, 212, 277, 409, 409fn, 410–411, 413–414 – system 42, 245–246, 248, 250, 252, 269–271, 273 motion 3, 154, 195, 226, 277, 357, 411 movement 4, 7, 13–14, 20, 23, 27, 29, 31–33, 37–40, 45–47, 68–76, 79, 82–87, 95, 97–98, 100, 103, 113, 117, 119, 134, 142, 147, 152, 154, 157–162, 164, 167–170, 173, 190, 194–197, 197fn, 211–212, 218–220, 227, 237, 245, 248, 251, 253, 260–261, 270, 272, 277, 300–302, 305–307, 309, 311, 313, 316, 318, 322, 324, 337, 345–350, 354–356, 358–361, 363–364, 366–368, 371–372, 378, 381, 389, 391, 393, 399, 403, 409, 411, 414, 414fn multimodal – action 92, 138, 309 – environment 15 – practice 132 – resource 11–15, 20, 39, 92, 126, 137, 147

Subject index multiactivity 128, 140, 148, 218, 245–246, 251 museum 4, 25, 31, 65–66, 68, 74, 79, 81, 83, 85–88, 126 mutual monitoring 5, 86, 387 navigation 23–24, 37, 40–41, 45, 67, 85, 87, 154, 198, 212, 239, 263fn, 382, 384, 387, 393, 394–395, 397–398, 400, 402 nodding 4, 14, 104, 115, 217, 227, 229, 347 non-mobility 44, 379, 383, 388 non-verbal 138, 346 noticing 75, 86, 130, 148, 159, 182, 198–199, 205, 218, 224, 231–233, 235, 238, 279, 376, 386, 398 object 4, 6–7, 9, 11, 13, 14–15, 19–20, 22, 24, 30, 32, 34, 39, 41–43, 45–46, 65, 74–75, 85, 118, 125–126, 128–130, 134–135, 135fn, 136–138, 140–142, 144, 147–148, 154–155, 158, 163, 172, 224, 246, 249, 253, 261, 272–273, 306, 348, 353, 358, 362, 388, 391, 400, 403 offer 80, 97, 107–109, 111, 159–160, 170, 180, 182, 268, 269, 280–281, 287 orientation 3–4, 7–8, 14–15, 22–26, 35, 37, 39, 41, 43, 48, 69–76, 79, 83, 85–87, 92, 97, 109, 118, 125–126, 128–129, 131–133, 135–140, 142, 147, 148fn, 148fn, 164, 188, 196, 198, 211, 212, 216–217, 231, 234, 236, 238, 249, 249fn, 250, 253, 263, 266, 266fn, 267–268, 270, 272, 277, 282–283, 286, 288, 292–293, 295, 305–306, 313, 316, 318–319, 322, 336, 348, 353, 374, 376, 379, 383–385, 387–388, 391–394, 397, 399, 402–403, 411 pace 40–41, 83, 106, 128, 131, 223, 313, 315–317, 322, 325–326, 373, 379–380, 383, 393–395, 402 participation 3, 5, 15–16, 18, 45, 66, 97, 130, 132, 135, 147, 153, 232, 236–237, 249fn, 251, 263, 368, 391, 403

427 – participation framework 38, 188, 222, 305, 385, 391, 404 – participation unit 123, 142 passenger 23, 31–32, 34, 44, 154, 179–209, 211, 213, 210–242, 270, 300, 414 passer-by 373–374, 377, 379, 381–384, 386, 392–396, 399–400, 402–403 path 36, 41, 92, 102, 123, 261, 267, 280, 288, 290–292, 294–296, 395, 397–398 performance – artistic 4, 31, 34, 348, 353, 356, 362–364, 366, 368, 371–405, 413 – of action 153, 168, 183, 307, 331, 334, 345–346, 352, 356 phone call 32, 34, 117, 212, 279 place 35–36, 38–39, 42–44, 47, 87, 91–122, 124–125, 140, 160, 195, 212–213, 251, 277, 285–286, 290–291, 347, 349, 358, 361–362, 372–373, 376–377, 379–381, 386–387–388, 391, 394, 398–400 – parking place 31, 155 – place formulation 18–20, 91, 279, 290, 292–294, 374–375 – public place 65–68, 87, 372, 374–375, 387–388, 391, 402–403, 413 pointing gesture 105, 110, 182–183, 189–190, 192, 199–201, 203, 354, 392, 401 pre– announcement 138, 141–142, 289 – beginning 117 – closing 103, 118, 293 – cognitive 193 – request 308 – sequence 97, 278–281, 283, 287, 293, 308 practice 5–6, 9–12, 16–19, 29–30, 32–33, 38, 41, 44, 47–48, 67, 85, 92, 117, 125, 125fn, 148, 153–154, 171–172, 187, 204, 210, 212, 245, 250, 251–255, 270–271, 301, 306, 335, 348, 350, 357, 367, 371, 373–374, 399, 402, 410–414 – embodied (bodily) 44, 95, 193, 301, 367

428 – interactional 3, 9–12, 19, 25, 28–30, 35, 124, 172, 185, 187, 206 – mobile 28–29, 29–30, 42, 47, 92, 210–211, 296, 345, 375, 379, 394, 409–410, 410fn, 413–414 – multimodal 132 – referential 39, 345, 364 – work 23, 186 preference 97, 141, 268, 281, 287, 302, 308, 314–315, 325, 397 professional vision 262, 357 progression, progressivity 34, 73, 81, 87, 154, 168, 245, 250, 254, 267, 289, 312, 380, 383–385, 388, 394–396, 402 projection 11–12, 20–21, 27, 33, 98–99, 101–105, 108, 110–111, 113, 115–119, 123, 139, 169, 177, 179–209, 212, 214–215, 218, 221, 251, 256, 259, 260, 267, 270, 272, 279, 283–284, 287–288, 292–293, 295, 301–302, 307, 310, 312–314, 325–326, 328, 334, 336–337, 360–361, 366, 374, 382, 387, 395, 397–398 proposal, proposition 68, 70–88, 103, 116, 131, 168, 183–184, 192, 205–206, 260, 282, 287, 295, 315 prosody 11–12, 315, 317, 322, 325, 347, 363, 367 proximity 41, 45, 123, 173, 277–299, 412 question x, 11, 21, 44, 83, 107, 110, 146, 180, 182–183, 190, 195, 202–203, 205, 217, 220, 231–232, 234, 235, 237, 278, 281, 285–286, 288–291, 392 queue 38, 65, 218, 221–223, 371 recipient, recipiency 8, 14, 21, 44, 92, 105, 110, 110fn, 118, 129, 131, 144, 160, 180, 193fn, 195, 198, 203, 205, 228, 236–237, 260, 278, 280–283, 285–286, 289–295, 312, 317, 322–323, 325, 327, 331, 363, 376 reference 20, 39, 91, 108, 128–129, 134, 142, 146, 148, 163–164, 168, 173, 195, 259, 320, 334, 345–370, 376

Subject index – deictic 19–20, 38, 91, 110, 118, 345, 347, 356, 362 – embodied 110fn, 118 – spatial 19, 21, 367 reflexivity 35–39, 92–93, 148, 187, 212, 245–248, 253, 263, 270, 272, 278, 295, 300, 302, 306–307, 310, 316, 322, 329, 336, 371, 374, 383, 391, 393–394, 399, 402–403 reject, rejection 108, 168, 203, 280–281, 308, 314–315, 322, 333–335 repair 14, 129, 131, 133–134, 164, 201, 219, 237, 252, 254, 263, 265, 267–269, 271–272, 283, 283, 286, 292–293, 311, 330, 391 reported speech 328 request 11, 44, 135, 180, 182–183, 195, 202–203, 205, 212, 232, 259, 261, 266–269, 280, 283, 287, 308 resource 6, 11–13, 15–16, 18–20, 22–23, 31–33, 35, 44, 67, 71, 87, 118–119, 129fn, 135, 138, 141, 154, 164, 167, 173, 179, 186–187, 205–206, 210, 237, 245, 250, 251, 253–254, 256, 261, 263, 267–269, 271–272, 278–280, 288–289, 294–296, 306–307, 326, 332, 387, 401–403, 411 – embodied 9, 12–14, 21, 34, 38, 91, 118fn, 144, 203, 352, 358 – mobile 23, 25, 153, 162, 172–173, 187 – multimodal 11–15, 20, 39, 92, 126, 137, 147 – semiotic 8, 11, 15, 163, 167, 173, 252–253, 256, 263, 269, 296 – verbal 19, 138–139 response 21, 65, 75, 79, 83, 105, 161, 167, 169, 171, 173, 179–188, 191, 193, 195–197, 199–206, 217, 222, 225, 227–228, 232–235, 237, 261–262, 268, 287, 292, 307–308, 310, 314–315, 317, 320, 322–323, 325, 330, 335 – embodied response 201, 217 – mobile response 202, 204, 301, 374 – response tokens 8, 115 – response cry 326, 328

Subject index resume, resumption 103, 105, 107, 118, 142–143, 193, 197, 198, 206, 226, 237–238, 254, 385, 393, 400–401 riding 3, 29–30, 414 road 36, 38, 158, 161–162, 169, 179, 182, 184, 194, 210–215, 217–218, 220–222, 224, 226–228, 231–232, 234–235, 245, 414 roundabout 210–242 route 32–34, 65, 71, 155, 188, 191, 195, 213, 219, 233–235, 246fn, 250–251, 262–263, 263fn, 267, 384, 386 running 29, 38, 87, 190, 221, 228–229, 235, 300–305, 307, 310–316, 318–322, 324–334, 337, 347, 364, 388 safety 184, 238, 245–246, 248, 252, 255, 260–261, 269–271 sailing 3 seeing 107, 132, 135, 152–154, 157–159, 161, 166–167, 169–170, 172–173, 186, 192, 200–201, 218, 223, 226, 239, 251, 357, 411, 414 sequence 6–7, 9, 11–12, 14–15, 17, 19–21, 25, 33–34, 36, 39, 48, 67, 70, 72–74, 83, 91–92, 95, 97, 103–104, 107, 111, 115–117, 120, 123fn, 127, 134, 138, 147, 166, 169, 171, 179–185, 187, 190, 193, 195, 197, 199, 201–202, 204–206, 214, 220, 245–247, 254, 267, 271, 278, 279–287, 289, 293–297, 301, 303, 306–310, 316–318, 322–323, 325–329, 332–333, 335–336, 346, 351, 352, 353, 353fn, 355, 357–358, 363–364, 366, 368, 410, 412 – sequence organisation 7–9, 14, 16, 35, 66, 85, 87–88, 117, 181, 247, 250, 253, 279, 307, 310 – sequential implicativeness 183, 185 semiotic 11, 15, 179, 348 – environment 16, 123–124, 126, 135, 187 – field 15, 39, 179, 246, 250, 252, 268 – resources 8, 11, 15, 23, 163, 173, 252–253, 256, 263, 269, 296, 352, 411

429 shopping 4, 25, 31, 41, 123–151 slowing 29–30, 35–36, 39, 41, 65, 87, 99–100, 107–109, 111, 113, 116, 118, 128, 131, 143, 193fn, 202, 204, 206, 215, 221, 226, 317, 322, 367, 379, 382, 386, 388, 393, 395, 397–398 space 8, 11, 18–22, 23, 25, 27, 36–39, 43, 45, 47, 65, 67–68, 85, 103, 125–126, 132, 135, 147, 147fn, 154, 164, 167–168, 185, 190, 193, 198, 211, 222, 234, 246, 248, 250–251, 253, 255, 261, 271–272, 277, 290, 293, 301, 305–306, 312, 320–321, 323, 345–350, 352–355, 359–362, 366, 368, 371, 373–379, 383, 385–387, 396, 399, 403, 413 – airspace 153, 167, 246–248, 250, 253, 255–257, 259, 262–263, 266, 268 – interactional 19, 22, 36, 41, 92, 103, 116fn, 124, 147, 179, 185, 193, 206, 301, 305, 348 – mobile 179, 185, 187, 190, 193, 195, 206 – public 36, 38, 65, 87, 123, 123fn, 371–375, 379, 381, 383–384, 387–388, 393–395, 399–400, 402–403 – semi-public 124, 126 spatial, spatiality 3–4, 6, 16–18, 20, 23, 27–28, 31, 33, 36–37, 39, 41, 48, 101, 103, 124, 126–127, 130–132, 139–140, 142, 147, 193, 195, 206, 246, 249, 249fn, 251, 280, 295, 300, 312, 327–328, 345, 348–350, 352–354, 356, 361, 364, 366–368, 371, 386–387 – arrangement 40, 80, 249 – configuration 36, 42, 102, 193, 250, 349–350, 355–356, 367–368 – organisation 300 – reference 19, 21, 91, 367 standstill 127, 129, 132, 135, 147 – (see also ›immobility‹ and ›stillness‹) statement 203, 330, 353fn stillness 29, 30–33, 35, 371–405

430 stop, stopping 4, 25, 27, 29–32, 34–36, 39, 41–42, 80–81, 87, 91, 94–95, 97–98, 100–102, 105–108, 111–118, 124, 127, 130, 132, 145, 147, 153, 159–160, 172, 183, 193fn, 202, 204, 206, 226, 251, 292, 304–305, 311, 316–317, 329–331, 350–351, 353–357, 364, 366–368, 371–374, 379, 381–383, 385–386, 389, 391–393, 395–397, 399–400, 403, 412 summons 266–267 task 17–20, 24, 32–33, 42, 93–94, 103, 128, 130, 132, 154, 157–158, 161, 166–168, 172, 180, 184, 186–187, 191–192, 195, 201, 203, 205–206, 210, 249, 251, 255–256, 261–263, 270–272, 300–302, 306–309, 330, 333, 363, 366 technology 7, 16–18, 42, 44, 212, 410, 410fn, 411 – technologically mediated 17, 24, 29, 41, 300–301, 305, 310, 337 temporality 34, 277, 302, 310, 313, 315–317, 322, 327, 335, 358, 395 time 16, 32–33, 35–36, 94, 124–125, 152, 155, 164–166, 170, 173, 187, 198, 206, 213, 219, 221, 224, 226–227, 233–234, 238–239, 248, 250, 261, 271–272, 279–281, 290–291, 293–295, 300–341, 345–370, 371, 380, 391, 403 traffic 16–17, 31–32, 34, 38, 40, 43, 46, 132fn, 167, 180, 186–187, 192, 195, 210–211, 213–215, 218, 220–221, 223–224, 227–228, 235, 239, 245–250, 252–256, 259, 259fn, 260–263, 266, 268–272, 386 – traffic lights 211, 213, 221, 223, 371 trajectory 16, 31, 71–72, 74, 77, 79, 86–87, 123, 171, 214, 216, 251, 260, 301, 311, 312–319, 325–326, 328, 333, 336–337, 360–361, 363, 383, 387, 393–398 transcription ix, 5, 7–8, 26, 28, 68, 120, 156, 164, 171, 181fn, 191, 196, 253, 411

Subject index transition 18, 98, 113, 123fn, 124, 126, 134–147, 306, 395, 413 transport, transportation 3, 17, 31–32, 34–35, 43, 46, 154, 167, 179, 210–211, 245–246, 270, 277, 280, 372, 379–380, 413 travel 3, 46, 158, 164, 179, 213, 220–221, 232–235, 238, 251, 277, 293 turn beginning 148, 219 turning 29–30, 32, 42, 71, 84, 105, 109, 128, 173, 187, 204, 358, 379, 380, 386, 388–389, 401 turn-taking 12, 18, 87, 198, 210, 216 unfocused interaction 124 upgrade 76–77, 79, 86, 135, 166, 234, 266 vehicle 4, 12, 26, 31, 34, 152–166, 168–173, 186, 195, 210, 212–217, 221–223, 225–226, 233, 237–238, 251, 255, 300, 411 vehicular unit 40, 97, 139, 301, 380 vèlomobility 414 video games 4, 30, 38, 42, 45, 300–341, 413 visual 13, 31, 67, 70, 72–75, 87, 114–115, 125–126, 128–129, 129fn, 133, 141–142, 145, 148, 154, 159–160, 162, 167–168, 186–187, 222, 226, 252–253, 260, 267, 352, 358, 363, 367, 378–380, 387, 391, 394–395, 399–401, 411, 414 walking 3–4, 24–25, 27, 29–30, 36, 38–44, 47, 65, 74, 86–87, 91–122, 123–151, 167, 290, 301, 313, 337, 345, 371–405 wayfinding 45 with 40–41, 74, 82, 86, 123–124, 123fn withdraw, withdrawal 30, 65–90, 95, 105, 142, 145, 200, 412 workload 170, 263 workplace studies 15–16, 18, 39, 42, 309