“Mobilizing others” takes a holistic perspective on the practices that we use to get others to act with, and for, us. This introduction reviews recent conceptual developments, notably ‘recruitment’ (Section 1), and then opens up new territory by arguing for a more explicit focus on ‘activity’ in describing how mobilizing moves are accountably produced and understood. After summarizing existing research on ‘activity’ (2) we highlight how embodiment and temporality figure crucially in interactants’ use of grammatical, vocal, and embodied resources to reflexively organize larger courses of action (3). Focusing on ‘situation design’ captures the importance of the overall activity for the design, placement, and understanding of mobilizing turns, and makes visible implicit layers of organization which relevantly shape local conduct.
This chapter analyzes two Korean imperative formats, the -e/a imperative and the imperative formed with the auxiliary verb po‑ ‘see’ (referred to as the plain imperative and the pwa imperative, respectively), focusing on the requests of here-and-now actions. Pwa imperatives are selected when the nominated action is a step that advances the larger course of action in progress and anticipates a next action, although the outcome of the nominated action is only provisionally determined. Plain imperatives, on the other hand, are deployed when no further actions are suggested as part of the nominated action. The paper challenges the previous explanations based on social distance or politeness by showing that the selection of the imperatives hinges on a particular ‘situation design’, that is, whether the nominated action is connected to the larger action trajectory.
This chapter discusses three different actions speakers can employ to move between two concurrently ongoing activities, playing cards and talking. Specifically, we describe three turn formats that mobilize another participant to perform the next move in a card game: (1) turns including the discourse marker so, (2) imperatives, and (3) second-person declaratives.
So-turns and imperative forms are used to resume a game put on hold, however, imperatives are only used if speakers have already shown an orientation to game resumption. In contrast, second-person declaratives are used in situations when one player is not oriented to the game but others are. In the discussion, we show that turn formats are sensitive to the multimodal context and participation framework of the interaction.
This chapter analyzes first-person singular declarative statements and their accompanying actions in French cooking shows. These ‘what I’m doing’ action combinations (Frick 2017) include lexical verbs having to do with object seizing/manipulation and ambulatory movement in either the futur proche (the French periphrastic future) or the simple present tense. The discussion shows that these turns mobilize others. Specifically, they result in the recruitment (Kendrick and Drew 2016) of coparticipants to assist the speaker in some way. The discussion focuses on the interplay between grammatical form, embodiment, setting, and interactional achievement. It shows that ‘what I’m doing’ action combinations not only mobilize the hosts of the show, but may also mobilize non-addressable third parties such as camera operators.
Drawing on video-recorded violin lessons as data, the article describes the violin teacher’s use of Finnish second-person declarative and interrogative directives in mobilizing student compliance. The data show that the declarative directives are regularly used when (1) the student is already engaged in the task at hand and (2) the nominated actions concern the basics of violin playing. The paper argues that these directives are thus not only about mobilizing recipient action locally but also about establishing normatively-desired behavior more generally. The interrogative directives, then again, are typically used when (1) there has been a momentary shortcoming in the student’s prior behavior and (2) the nominated action is a one-time accomplishment facilitating the smooth unfolding of the instructional encounter.
This chapter targets grammar in the interactive process between a Pilates teacher and the exercising students, an activity context in which instruction and compliance can be designed to merge in time. It shows how linguistic structure, such as counts, formula, and phrases, emerges step-by-step sensitively to the others’ currently moving bodies. At the same time, the situation-designed structures direct the students through the partially known moves. In contrast to formal theories that consider grammar as a device for coherent expression of propositions, this study argues that grammatical structure emerges through recurrent use in a specific activity context. The video-recorded data is in Estonian.
This study examines interactions in French L2 university classroom discourse from a multimodal conversation analytic (CA) perspective. In these interactions, a teacher mobilizes students to respond, then evaluates and subsequently reveals their responses on digital slides as a ratification of correct responses. As the co-participants build a joint interactional history with this task, the teacher becomes increasingly more reliant on embodied orientations toward the computer displaying the slides, thereby helping to both manage and transition between sequences of interaction. The findings provide insights into how the multimodal management of pedagogical artifacts, such as digital slides, can work to mobilize, evaluate and create interactional space for students to respond in teacher-led interaction.
Getting another person to engage with you is, for most people, most of the time, a merely trivial challenge. Of course, there are times when our attempts are awkward, or misfire; nevertheless, usually we bring them off smoothly and successfully. But it is far from easy if you have an intellectual impairment; and, a fortiori, dauntingly challenging if the impairment is profound. For someone with severe cognitive and communicative incapacity, the attempt to get others to do things is highly, perhaps entirely, dependent on the others’ doubtful construction of just what it is that they are supposed to do. This chapter is about those attempts: how they succeed, and how (as they often do) they fail.
This study examines the activity of requesting help in emergency calls, using 911 Costa Rica as a case study. Focusing on the notions of contingency-entitlement, benefactors and beneficiaries, and the urgency of the incident, the findings show that the design of the request for non-life-threatening incidents can encode the caller’s low entitlement to the request via the phrase para ver si ‘to see if.’ When using this phrase in conjunction with other linguistic forms (such as modal periphrasis), the caller’s entitlement to the request is further downgraded. Regardless of the type of incident and the linguistic forms used in the request for help, call-takers’ next relevant action is asking the location of the incident or verifying the caller’s information.
In informal interaction, speakers rarely thank a person who has complied with a request. Examining data from British English, German, Italian, Polish, and Telugu, we ask when speakers do thank after compliance. The results show that thanking treats the other’s assistance as going beyond what could be taken for granted in the circumstances. Coupled with the rareness of thanking after requests, this suggests that cooperation is to a great extent governed by expectations of helpfulness, which can be long-standing, or built over the course of a particular interaction. The higher frequency of thanking in some languages (such as English or Italian) suggests that cultures differ in the importance they place on recognizing the other’s agency in doing as requested.
“Mobilizing others” takes a holistic perspective on the practices that we use to get others to act with, and for, us. This introduction reviews recent conceptual developments, notably ‘recruitment’ (Section 1), and then opens up new territory by arguing for a more explicit focus on ‘activity’ in describing how mobilizing moves are accountably produced and understood. After summarizing existing research on ‘activity’ (2) we highlight how embodiment and temporality figure crucially in interactants’ use of grammatical, vocal, and embodied resources to reflexively organize larger courses of action (3). Focusing on ‘situation design’ captures the importance of the overall activity for the design, placement, and understanding of mobilizing turns, and makes visible implicit layers of organization which relevantly shape local conduct.
This chapter analyzes two Korean imperative formats, the -e/a imperative and the imperative formed with the auxiliary verb po‑ ‘see’ (referred to as the plain imperative and the pwa imperative, respectively), focusing on the requests of here-and-now actions. Pwa imperatives are selected when the nominated action is a step that advances the larger course of action in progress and anticipates a next action, although the outcome of the nominated action is only provisionally determined. Plain imperatives, on the other hand, are deployed when no further actions are suggested as part of the nominated action. The paper challenges the previous explanations based on social distance or politeness by showing that the selection of the imperatives hinges on a particular ‘situation design’, that is, whether the nominated action is connected to the larger action trajectory.
This chapter discusses three different actions speakers can employ to move between two concurrently ongoing activities, playing cards and talking. Specifically, we describe three turn formats that mobilize another participant to perform the next move in a card game: (1) turns including the discourse marker so, (2) imperatives, and (3) second-person declaratives.
So-turns and imperative forms are used to resume a game put on hold, however, imperatives are only used if speakers have already shown an orientation to game resumption. In contrast, second-person declaratives are used in situations when one player is not oriented to the game but others are. In the discussion, we show that turn formats are sensitive to the multimodal context and participation framework of the interaction.
This chapter analyzes first-person singular declarative statements and their accompanying actions in French cooking shows. These ‘what I’m doing’ action combinations (Frick 2017) include lexical verbs having to do with object seizing/manipulation and ambulatory movement in either the futur proche (the French periphrastic future) or the simple present tense. The discussion shows that these turns mobilize others. Specifically, they result in the recruitment (Kendrick and Drew 2016) of coparticipants to assist the speaker in some way. The discussion focuses on the interplay between grammatical form, embodiment, setting, and interactional achievement. It shows that ‘what I’m doing’ action combinations not only mobilize the hosts of the show, but may also mobilize non-addressable third parties such as camera operators.
Drawing on video-recorded violin lessons as data, the article describes the violin teacher’s use of Finnish second-person declarative and interrogative directives in mobilizing student compliance. The data show that the declarative directives are regularly used when (1) the student is already engaged in the task at hand and (2) the nominated actions concern the basics of violin playing. The paper argues that these directives are thus not only about mobilizing recipient action locally but also about establishing normatively-desired behavior more generally. The interrogative directives, then again, are typically used when (1) there has been a momentary shortcoming in the student’s prior behavior and (2) the nominated action is a one-time accomplishment facilitating the smooth unfolding of the instructional encounter.
This chapter targets grammar in the interactive process between a Pilates teacher and the exercising students, an activity context in which instruction and compliance can be designed to merge in time. It shows how linguistic structure, such as counts, formula, and phrases, emerges step-by-step sensitively to the others’ currently moving bodies. At the same time, the situation-designed structures direct the students through the partially known moves. In contrast to formal theories that consider grammar as a device for coherent expression of propositions, this study argues that grammatical structure emerges through recurrent use in a specific activity context. The video-recorded data is in Estonian.
This study examines interactions in French L2 university classroom discourse from a multimodal conversation analytic (CA) perspective. In these interactions, a teacher mobilizes students to respond, then evaluates and subsequently reveals their responses on digital slides as a ratification of correct responses. As the co-participants build a joint interactional history with this task, the teacher becomes increasingly more reliant on embodied orientations toward the computer displaying the slides, thereby helping to both manage and transition between sequences of interaction. The findings provide insights into how the multimodal management of pedagogical artifacts, such as digital slides, can work to mobilize, evaluate and create interactional space for students to respond in teacher-led interaction.
Getting another person to engage with you is, for most people, most of the time, a merely trivial challenge. Of course, there are times when our attempts are awkward, or misfire; nevertheless, usually we bring them off smoothly and successfully. But it is far from easy if you have an intellectual impairment; and, a fortiori, dauntingly challenging if the impairment is profound. For someone with severe cognitive and communicative incapacity, the attempt to get others to do things is highly, perhaps entirely, dependent on the others’ doubtful construction of just what it is that they are supposed to do. This chapter is about those attempts: how they succeed, and how (as they often do) they fail.
This study examines the activity of requesting help in emergency calls, using 911 Costa Rica as a case study. Focusing on the notions of contingency-entitlement, benefactors and beneficiaries, and the urgency of the incident, the findings show that the design of the request for non-life-threatening incidents can encode the caller’s low entitlement to the request via the phrase para ver si ‘to see if.’ When using this phrase in conjunction with other linguistic forms (such as modal periphrasis), the caller’s entitlement to the request is further downgraded. Regardless of the type of incident and the linguistic forms used in the request for help, call-takers’ next relevant action is asking the location of the incident or verifying the caller’s information.
In informal interaction, speakers rarely thank a person who has complied with a request. Examining data from British English, German, Italian, Polish, and Telugu, we ask when speakers do thank after compliance. The results show that thanking treats the other’s assistance as going beyond what could be taken for granted in the circumstances. Coupled with the rareness of thanking after requests, this suggests that cooperation is to a great extent governed by expectations of helpfulness, which can be long-standing, or built over the course of a particular interaction. The higher frequency of thanking in some languages (such as English or Italian) suggests that cultures differ in the importance they place on recognizing the other’s agency in doing as requested.