Cover not available
Part of
Bonding through Context: Language and interactional alignment in Japanese situated discourse
Edited by Risako Ide and Kaori Hata
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 314] 2020
► pp. 147–172

Chapter 7
Familial bonding

The establishment of co-presence in webcam-mediated interactions

| Independent Researcher
In this chapter, I discuss how the sense of familial bonding emerges in webcam-mediated interactions between Japanese families in Japan and the United States. I argue that a close relationship between participants who rarely meet in person is an interactional achievement. My analytical foci are twofold. First, I analyze how participants repeat each other’s utterances and bodily movements such as hand gestures and facial expressions. Through what I call ‘mediated repetitions’, participants share understanding and encourage the virtual participants’ involvement in locally unfolding interaction frames. Second, I investigate how the organization of talk becomes relevant as participants maneuver webcams. I argue that the interactional efforts of coordinating repetitions and converting webcam capabilities into new interactional modalities contribute to the creation of a sense of bonding across geographical boundaries.
Keywords: webcam-mediated interaction, family interactions, involvement, mediated repetition, modality
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous studies and theoretical background
    • 2.1Ethnographic studies about mediated interactions
    • 2.2Webcam maneuvers as multimodal resources
  • 3.Data and background
  • 4.Mediated repetition as a bonding strategy
    • 4.1The relationship between webcam movement and repetition
    • 4.2Locally embedded webcam: Sharing a meal
    • 4.3Parenting across space
    • 4.4Performed bonding through repetition
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 3 December 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.314.07sun
References (39)
References
Arnold, Lynnette. 2012. “Dialogic Embodied Action: Using Gesture to Organize Sequence and Participation in Instructional Interaction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45(3): 269–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cairncross, Framces. 2001. The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Is Changing Our Lives. London: Harvard Business Review Press.Google Scholar
Cook, Susan E. 2004. “New Technologies and Language Change: Toward an Anthropology of Linguistic Frontiers.” Annual Review of Anthropology 33: 103–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deppermann, Arnulf. 2013. “Multimodal Interaction from a Conversation Analytic Perspective.” Journal of Pragmatics 46: 1–7. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 2014. “Towards a Dialogic Syntax.” Cognitive Linguistics 25: 359–410. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro, and Steven P. Black. 2014. “Language Socialization and Verbal Improvisation.” In The Handbook of Language Socialization, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, Elinor Ochs, and Bambi B. Schieffelin, 443–63. West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Enfield, N. J. 2005. “The Body as a Cognitive Artifact in Kinship Representations: Hand Gesture Diagrams by Speakers of Lao.” Current Anthropology 46(1): 51–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006. “Social Consequences of Common Ground.” In Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition and Interaction, ed. by N. J. Enfield, and Stephen C. Levinson, 399–430. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1963. Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles, and Alessandro Duranti. 1992. “Rethinking Context: An Introduction.” In Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, and Charles Goodwin, 1–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness. 1980. “Processes of Mutual Monitoring Implicated in the Production of Description Sequences.” Sociological Inquiry 50: 303–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1990. He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness, Charles Goodwin, and Malcah Yaeger-Dror. 2002. “Multi-modality in Girl’s Game Disputes.” Pragmatics 34: 1621–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Cynthia. 2003. “Aligning as a Team: Forms of Conjoined Participation in (Stepfamily) Interaction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 36(4): 395–431. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heath, Christian, and Paul Luff. 1992. “Media Space and Communicative Asymmetries: Preliminary Observations of Video-mediated Interaction.” Human-Computer Interaction 7(3): 315–46.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ito, Mizuko, and Daisuke Okabe. 2005. “Technosocial Situations: Emergent Structurings of Mobile E-mail Use.” In Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, ed. by Mizuko Ito, Misa Matsuda, and Daisuke Okabe, 257–76. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Graham M., and Bambi B. Schieffelin. 2009. “Enquoting Voices, Accomplishing Talk: Uses of be + like in Instant Messaging.” Language and Communication 29(1): 77–113. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, Rodney. 2004. “The Problem of Context in Computer-Mediated Communication.” In Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis, ed. by Ron Scollon, and Phillip LeVine, 184–95. Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Keating, Elizabeth. 2005. “Homo Prosthticus: Problematizing the Notions of Activity and Computer-Mediated Interaction.” Discourse Studies 7(4–5): 527–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keating, Elizabeth, Terra Edwards, and Gene Mirus. 2008. “Cybersign and New Proximities: Impacts of New Communication Technologies on Space and Language.” Pragmatics 40: 1067–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keating, Elizabeth, and Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa. 2016. Words Matter: Communicating Effectively in the New Global Office. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keating, Elizabeth, and Chiho Sunakawa. 2011. “‘A Full Inspiration Tray:’ Multimodality across Real and Virtual Spaces.” In Embodied Interaction: Language and Body in the Material World, ed. by Juergen Streeck, Charles Goodwin, and Curtis D. LeBaron, 194–206. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keevallik, Leelo. 2010. “Bodily Quoting in Dance Correction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 43(4): 401–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kendon, Adam. 1990. Conducting Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lebaron, Curtis D., and Jürgen Streeck. 1997. “Built Space and the Interactional Framing of Experience during a Murder Interrogation.” Human Studies 20: 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lucas, Ceil, Gene Mirus, Jeffrey Levi Palmer, Nicholas James Roessler, and Adam Frost. 2013. “The Effect of New Technologies on Sign Language Research.” Sign Language Studies 13(4): 541–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Luff, Paul, and Christian Heath. 2002. “Broadcast Talk: Initiating Calls through a Computer-Mediated Technology.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 35(3): 337–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Luff, Paul, Christian Heath, Hideaki Kuzuoka, Jon Hindmarsh, Keiichi Yamazaki, and Shinya Oyama. 2003. “Fractured Ecologies: Creating Environments for Collaboration.” Human-Computer Interaction, no. 18: 51–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Luff, Paul, Christian Heath, Naomi Yamashita, Hideaki Kuzuoka, and Marina Jirotka. 2016. “Embedded Reference: Translocating Gestures in Video-mediated Interaction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 49(4): 342–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Majlesi, Ali Reza. 2015. “Matching Gesture: Teahcers’ Repetitions of Students’ Gestures in Second Language Learning Classrooms.” Journal of Pragmatics 76: 30–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Murphy, Keith M. 2005. “Collaborative Imagining: The Interactive Use of Gestures, Talk, and Graphic Representation in Architectural Practice.” Semiotica 2005: 113–45.Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor, and Lisa Capps. 2002. Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling. Cambridge: Harverd University Press.Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, and Jack Sidnell. 2005. “Introduction : Multimodal Interaction” Semiotica 2005: 1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sunakawa, Chiho. 2014. “Virtual Ie: A Three-Generational Household Mediated by Webcam Interactions.” Journal of Pragmatics 69: 63–81.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018. “Bodily Shadowing: Learning to be a Conductor.” In Time in Embodied Interaction: Synchronicity and Sequentiality of Multimodal Resources, ed. by Arnulf Depperman, and Jürgen Streeck, 203–230. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1989. Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wasson, Christina. 2006. “Being in Two Spaces at Once: Virtual Meetings and Their Representation.” Linguistic Anthropology 16(1): 103–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Samuel M., and Leighton C. Peterson. 2002. “The Anthropology of Online Communities.” Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 449–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yasui, Eiko. 2013. “Collaborative Idea Constructon: Repetition of Gestures and Talk in Joint Brainstorming.” Journal of Pragmatics 46: 157–172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Xie, Chaoqun & Ying Tong
2021. Chapter 7. Inviting a purchase. In Approaches to Internet Pragmatics [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 318], ► pp. 207 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.