Chapter published in:
Imperative Turns at Talk: The design of directives in action
Edited by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 30] 2017
► pp. 65–101

Chapter 3
Precision timing and timed embeddedness of imperatives in embodied courses of action

Examples from French

Drawing on video recorded data in French, this chapter studies the use of imperatives in situations in which participants involved together in an activity get one another to do something immediately, within that activity. More specifically, this chapter focuses on activities characterized by fast progression and by a sense of urgency, risk, or speed – in which the immediacy of a participant’s response is particularly relevant. These characteristics highlight temporality in a specific and exemplary way. The chapter offers a systematic analysis of sequential environments that contain imperatives directing someone to perform an immediate action. The linguistic and embodied characteristics of these actions are reviewed, as well as their responses and possible third closing turns. The analysis will demonstrate how both directives and their responses are multimodally assembled and carefully fine-tuned, and how they orient to the precise timing of the ongoing activity. Beyond the basic organization of the sequence, the chapter studies the specific formats of repeated imperatives, orienting to temporal features such as the imminence, urgency, time precision, and duration of the directed action.

Keywords: social interaction, multimodality, imperative, directive, indexicality, temporality, praxeological context, French
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The phenomenon and data set
  • 3.Sequence organization
    • 3.1The basic organization of the sequence
    • 3.2Formats of 1st actions: Imperatives and other multimodal resources
      • 3.2.1Linguistic features
      • 3.2.2Multimodal features: Gestures co-occurring with the imperative
      • 3.2.3Suspension of the current turn and action
    • 3.3Second position: Responses
    • 3.4Third position: Assessments and repairs
  • 4.Indexicality and praxeological context
    • 4.1How to make sense of the indexicality of directives
    • 4.2Embeddedness in the praxeological context
      • 4.2.1Directives and the ongoing activity
      • 4.2.2Series of imperatives within larger sequences
  • 5.Temporal trajectories of repeated imperatives: Urgency versus duration
    • 5.1Repetition until proper compliance is achieved: A sense of urgency
    • 5.2Online calibration: Managing duration
  • 6.Normativity: Negative imperatives
    • 6.1Anticipating possible problematic actions
    • 6.2Orientation to an actual inadequate action
    • 6.3From positive to negative imperatives
    • 6.4Blaming
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Conventions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 18 August 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.30.03mon
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