Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 32:2 (2022) ► pp.299–327

Material and embodied resources in the accomplishment of closings in technology-mediated business meetings

ORCID logo | University of Oulu

This study uses conversation analysis (CA) and video-recorded data from an international company to investigate closings in technology-mediated (i.e. distant) meetings. The focus is on the situated affordances and multimodal resources that the chair and participants deploy to transition from meeting talk to a coordinated exit. Due to restricted access to bodily-visual leave-taking behaviours, other mutually recognized practices need to be implemented to initiate and advance closings: (1) when closing is made relevant as the next step, (2) when opportunity spaces to move out of the closing emerge, and (3) when departure from the meeting needs to be negotiated. This progression requires the close coordination of co-participants’ vocal and embodied conduct in the physical setting and rendering actions publicly intelligible via the screen at specific moments. The analysis portrays closings as emergent, collaborative accomplishments, in which the import of multimodal turn constructions and (dis)aligning behaviours must be negotiated in situ.

Keywords: distant meetings, closings, embodied resources, conversation analysis, multimodality
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Closings
  • 3.Closings in technology-mediated environments
  • 4.Data and methods
  • 5.Accomplishing closings via vocal, material and embodied resources
    • 5.1Initiating the closing of meeting proper
    • 5.2Managing opportunity spaces
    • 5.3Negotiating departure from the meeting
  • 6.Conclusions and further considerations
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 5 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.19045.oit
References
Arminen, Ilkka, Christian Licoppe, and Anna Spagnolli
2016 ”Respecifying Mediated Interaction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 49 (4): 290–309. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Asmuß, Birte, and Jan Svennevig
2009 “Meeting Talk: An Introduction.” Journal of Business Communication 45 (4): 408–429.Google Scholar
Boden, Deirdre
1994 The Business of Talk: Organizations in Action. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Broth, Mathias, and Lorenza Mondada
2012 “Walking Away: The Embodied Achievement of Activity Closings in Mobile Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 471: 41–58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Button, Graham
1991 “Conversation-in-a-Series.” In Talk & Social Structure. Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, ed. by Deirdre Boden, and Don Zimmermann, 251–277. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
1987 “Moving out of Closings.” In Talk and Social Organization, ed. by Graham Button, and John R. E. Lee, 101–151. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Deppermann, Arnold, Reinhold Schmitt, and Lorenza Mondada
2010 “Agenda and Emergence: Contingent and Planned Activities in a Meeting.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (6): 1700–1718. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DiDomenico, Stephen M., and Jeffrey Boase
2013 “Bringing Mobiles into the Conversation. Applying a Conversational Analytic Approach to the Study of Mobiles in Co-Present Interaction.” In Discourse 2.0 Language and New Media, ed. by Deborah Tannen, and Anna M. Trester, 119–132. Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Due, Brian, and Christian Licoppe
2020 “Video-Mediated Interaction (VMI): Introduction to a Special Issue on the Multimodal Accomplishment of VMI Institutional Activities.” Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality 3 (3). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ford, Cecilia, and Trini Stickle
2012 “Securing Recipiency in Workplace Meetings: Multimodal Practices.” Discourse Studies 14 (1): 11–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greiffenhagen, Christian, and Rob Watson
2009 “Visual Repairables: Analyzing the Work of Repair in Human-Computer Interaction.” Visual Communication 8 (1): 65–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haddington, Pentti
2019 “Leave-Taking as Multiactivity: Coordinating Conversational Closings with Driving in Cars.” Language & Communication 651: 58–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hazel, Spencer, and Kristian Mortensen
2014 “Embodying the Institution – Object Manipulation in Developing Interaction in Study Counselling Meetings.” Journal of Pragmatics 651: 10–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hazel, Spencer, Kristian Mortensen, and Gitte Rasmussen
2014 “Introduction: A Body of Resources – CA Studies of Social Conduct.” Journal of Pragmatics 65 (1): 1–9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heath, Christian, and Paul Luff
2000 Technology in Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hjulstad, Johan
2016 “Practices of Organizing Built Space in Videoconference-Mediated Interactions.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 49 (4): 491–498. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hutchby, Ian
2001 Conversation and Technology: From the Telephone to the Internet. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
2014 “Communicative Affordances and Participation Frameworks in Mediated Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 721: 86–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, Gail
2004 “Glossary of Transcript Symbols with an Introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, ed. by Gene H. Lerner, 13–31. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
LeBaron, Curtis E., and Stanley E. Jones
2002 “Closing Up Closings: Showing the Relevance of the Social and Material Surround to the Completion of Interaction.” Journal of Communication 52 (3): 542–565. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Licoppe, Christian, and Laurence Dumoulin
2010 “The ‘Curious Case’ of an Unspoken Opening Speech Act: A Video-Ethnography of the Use of Video Communication in Courtroom Activities.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 43 (3), 211–231. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Licoppe, Christian, and Julien Morel
2012 “Video-in-Interaction: ‘Talking Heads’ and the Multimodal Organization of Mobile and Skype Video Calls.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45 (4): 399–429. 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): 342–361. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Markman, Kris M.
2009 ““So What Shall We Talk About.” Openings and Closings in Chat-Based Virtual Meetings.” Journal of Business Communication 46 (1): 150–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mlynář, Jakub, Esther González-Martínez, and Denis Lalanne
2018 “Situated Organization of Video-Mediated Interaction: A Review of Ethnomethodological and Conversation Analytic Studies.” Interacting with Computers 30 (2): 73–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mondada, Lorenza
2001 “Conventions for Multimodal Transcription.“ [URL]
2006 “Participants’ Online Analysis and Multimodal Practices: Projecting the End of the Turn and the Closing of the Sequence.” Discourse Studies 8 (1): 117–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 “Interactional Space and the Study of Embodied Talk-in-Interaction.” In Space in Language and Linguistics: Geographical, Interactional, and Cognitive Perspectives, ed. by Peter Auer, Martin Hilpert, Anja Stukenbrock, and Benedikt Szmrecsanyi, 247–275. Boston: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
2013 “Embodied and Spatial Resources for Turn-Taking in Institutional Multi-Party Interactions: Participatory Democracy Debates.” Journal of Pragmatics 46 (1): 39–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, Arantxa S.
2016 “Attending Multi-Party Videoconference Meetings: The Initial Problem.” Language@Internet 131.Google Scholar
Nevile, Maurice, Pentti Haddington, Trine Heinemann, and Mirka Rauniomaa
2014 Interacting with Objects: Language, Materiality, and Social Activity. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nielsen, Mie F.
2012 “Using Artifacts in Brainstorming Sessions to Secure Participation and Decouple Sequentiality.” Discourse Studies 14 (1): 87–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 “ ‘Stepping Stones’ in Opening and Closing Department Meetings.” Journal of Business Communication 50 (1): 34–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oittinen, Tuire
2018 “Multimodal Accomplishment of Alignment and Affiliation in the Local Space of Distant Meetings.” Culture and Organization 24 (1): 35–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2020 Coordinating Actions in and across Interactional Spaces in Technology-Mediated Business Meetings (Doctoral dissertation, University of Jyväskylä, Finland). Retrieved from [URL]
Oittinen, Tuire, and Arja Piirainen-Marsh
2015 “Openings in Technology-Mediated Business Meetings.” Journal of Pragmatics 85 (8): 47–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Olbertz-Siitonen, Margarethe
2015 “Transmission Delay in Technology-Mediated Interaction at Work.” PsychNology Journal 13 (2–3): 203–234.Google Scholar
Raclaw, Joshua, Jessica S. Robles, and Stephen M. DiDomenico
2016 “Providing Epistemic Support for Assessments for Mobile-Supported Sharing Activities.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 49 (4): 362–379. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey, and Don H. Zimmerman
2016 “Closing Matters: Alignment and Misalignment in Sequence and Call Closings in Institutional Interaction.” Discourse Studies 18 (6): 716–736. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rintel, Sean
2013 “Tech-Tied or Tongue-Tied? Technological versus Social Trouble in Relational Video Calling.” 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 3343–3352. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruhleder, Karen, and Brigitte Jordan
2001 “Managing Complex, Distributed Environments: Remote Meeting Technologies at the ‘Chaotic Fringe’.” First Monday 61, [URL] [2/11/2019]. DOI logo
Schegloff, Emanuel A.
2007 Sequence Organization in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A, and Harvey Sacks
1973 “Opening up Closings.” Semiotica 8 (4): 289–327. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Streeck, Jürgen, Charles Goodwin, and Curtis E. LeBaron
2011 Embodied Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ticca, Anna C.
2012 “Reconfiguring the Interactional Space: Organising the Closing of Encounters in an Italian Travel Agency.” Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée 961: 91–116.Google Scholar
Wasson, Christina
2006 “Being in Two Spaces at Once: Virtual Meetings and Their Representation.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 16 (1): 103–130. DOI logoGoogle Scholar