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Intersubjectivity in Action: Studies in language and social interaction
Edited by Jan Lindström, Ritva Laury, Anssi Peräkylä and Marja-Leena Sorjonen
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 326] 2021
► pp. 279–

Achieving the intersubjectivity of sensorial practices

Body, language, and the senses in tasting activities

| University of Helsinki | University of Basel

Intersubjectivity is a crucial issue not only for how participants in social interaction communicate and coordinate shared projects, but also for how they engage in sensing the material world around them while they are jointly acting in that world. This paper offers an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic study of sensoriality that provides for a multimodal interactional analysis of sensory practices. On the basis of a video-recorded beer tasting session, I show how, far from being limited to individual and neuro-physiological processes, situated activities of sensing are a collective accomplishment here and now, emerging within joint activities of searching, finding, and sharing relevant features of taste, building agreements, and overcoming divergent views.

Keywords: conversation analysis, ethnomethodology, multimodality, social interaction, sensoriality, body, language, sensing, tasting, intersubjectivity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.From individual experiences to public evidences of sensorial qualities: Sharing sensations
    • 2.1The evidence of ‘smoke’ (Group 1)
    • 2.2The evidence of ‘smoky’ (Group 2)
  • 3.Searching for what it tastes: Building intersubjectivity
    • 3.1Searching for taste: From the glass to the aroma wheel
    • 3.2Finding taste descriptors: Overhearing from one table to another
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Transcription conventions
  • References
Published online: 17 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.326.13mon
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