Non-convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interaction

Veronica Gonzalez Temer; Richard Ogden

doi:10.1515/opli-2020-0170

Non-convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interaction

Veronica Gonzalez Temer, Richard Ogden

Language and Linguistic Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Without units, there are no boundaries; and without boundaries there are no units. Traditional linguistics takes units such as sentences and intonation phrases for granted, and treats them as static. Interactional Linguistics has reconfigured many of these units, treating them as emergent, focusing on their evolution in time, and how they implement social actions. One of the productive lines of research of interactional linguistics has been this tension between conventional linguistic units, and units of (and for) interaction (Szczepek Reed and Raymond 2013; Ogden and Walker 2013). The cesura approach (Barth-Weingarten 2016) focuses on the constitution of phonetic-prosodic discontinuities which give rise to boundaries, ‘cesuras’,
which it treats as a continuum from ‘no cesura’ through ‘candidate cesuras’ of various
strengths, to ‘full cesuras’. However, there are also elements of spoken interaction whose unit-hood is not obvious at all levels of description; and it is a subset of these that forms the focus of this paper. We illustrate with extracts of multimodal talk where two interactants taste and then move to assess unfamiliar food, and produce the token ‘mm’. We show how the alignment (and non-alignment) of boundaries of sequential, prosodic, gestural, lexical, and syntactic units can be a semiotic resource. Data is from Chilean Spanish.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	685-706
Number of pages	1
Journal	Open Linguistics
Volume	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2020-0170
Publication status	Published - 3 Dec 2021

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10.1515/opli-2020-0170Licence: CC BY

10.1515_opli-2020-0170
©2021, The Author(s).
Final published version, 7.21 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{9b020de7c9794db4b6ba229b6943b807,

title = "Non-convergent boundaries and action ascription in multimodal interaction",

abstract = "Without units, there are no boundaries; and without boundaries there are no units. Traditional linguistics takes units such as sentences and intonation phrases for granted, and treats them as static. Interactional Linguistics has reconfigured many of these units, treating them as emergent, focusing on their evolution in time, and how they implement social actions. One of the productive lines of research of interactional linguistics has been this tension between conventional linguistic units, and units of (and for) interaction (Szczepek Reed and Raymond 2013; Ogden and Walker 2013). The cesura approach (Barth-Weingarten 2016) focuses on the constitution of phonetic-prosodic discontinuities which give rise to boundaries, {\textquoteleft}cesuras{\textquoteright},which it treats as a continuum from {\textquoteleft}no cesura{\textquoteright} through {\textquoteleft}candidate cesuras{\textquoteright} of variousstrengths, to {\textquoteleft}full cesuras{\textquoteright}. However, there are also elements of spoken interaction whose unit-hood is not obvious at all levels of description; and it is a subset of these that forms the focus of this paper. We illustrate with extracts of multimodal talk where two interactants taste and then move to assess unfamiliar food, and produce the token {\textquoteleft}mm{\textquoteright}. We show how the alignment (and non-alignment) of boundaries of sequential, prosodic, gestural, lexical, and syntactic units can be a semiotic resource. Data is from Chilean Spanish.",

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AB - Without units, there are no boundaries; and without boundaries there are no units. Traditional linguistics takes units such as sentences and intonation phrases for granted, and treats them as static. Interactional Linguistics has reconfigured many of these units, treating them as emergent, focusing on their evolution in time, and how they implement social actions. One of the productive lines of research of interactional linguistics has been this tension between conventional linguistic units, and units of (and for) interaction (Szczepek Reed and Raymond 2013; Ogden and Walker 2013). The cesura approach (Barth-Weingarten 2016) focuses on the constitution of phonetic-prosodic discontinuities which give rise to boundaries, ‘cesuras’,which it treats as a continuum from ‘no cesura’ through ‘candidate cesuras’ of variousstrengths, to ‘full cesuras’. However, there are also elements of spoken interaction whose unit-hood is not obvious at all levels of description; and it is a subset of these that forms the focus of this paper. We illustrate with extracts of multimodal talk where two interactants taste and then move to assess unfamiliar food, and produce the token ‘mm’. We show how the alignment (and non-alignment) of boundaries of sequential, prosodic, gestural, lexical, and syntactic units can be a semiotic resource. Data is from Chilean Spanish.

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