Cover not available
Part of
Interacting with Objects: Language, materiality, and social activity
Edited by Maurice Nevile, Pentti Haddington, Trine Heinemann and Mirka Rauniomaa
[Not in series 186] 2014
► pp. 101–124

Objects as tools for talk

 | University of Southern Denmark
 | University of Southern Denmark
This paper deals with the touching, grasping, moving and handling of relatively small physical objects within spates of talk-in-interaction. We are interested in the organisation of such actions and the distribution of the objects amongst interactants in their unfolding activities, specifically in relation to how nteractants, analogously, organise and distribute their turns at talk. Unlike previous work, we attend less to objects as referred-to objects or as components of topic development. Instead, our focus is on objects as transactional in the ways in which they support fundamental infrastructure of interaction, namely that turns at talk and objects are taken or possessed in some sense and this is signalled and collaboratively organised by participants.
Published online: 12 September 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.186.05day
References (33)
Garfinkel, H. (2002). Ethnomethodology’s program: Working out Durkheim’s aphorism. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. (1981). Conversational organization: Interaction between speakers and hearers. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
. (1994). Professional vision. American Anthropologist, 96, 606–633. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1489–1522. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2003). The body in action. In J. Coupland, & R. Gwyn (Eds.), Discourse, the body and identity (pp. 19–42). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Heath, C., & Hindmarsh, J. (2000). Configuring action in objects: From mutual space to media space. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7, 81–104. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heath, C., & Luff, P. (2000). Technology in action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hindmarsh, J., & Heath, C. (2000a). Embodied reference: A study of deixis in workplace interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1855–1878. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2000b). Sharing the tools of the trade: The interactional constitution of workplace objects. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 29, 523–562. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1984a). Notes on some orderliness of overlap onset. In V. D’Urso, & P. Leonardi (Eds.), Discourse analysis and natural rhetoric (pp. 11–38). Padua, Italy: Cleup Editore.Google Scholar
. (1984b). Notes on a systematic deployment of the acknowledgment tokens ‘Yeah’ and ‘Mm hm’. Papers in Linguistics, 17(2), 197–216. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (1986). Notes on latency in overlap onset. Human Studies, 9, 153–183. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G. Lerner (Ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp. 13–31). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keisanen, T., & Rauniomaa, M. (2012). The organization of participation and contingency in prebeginnings of request sequences. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45, 323–351. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Landgrebe, J., & Wagner, J. (submitted). Props in a planning and design activity.
Local, J., & Walker, G. (2004). Abrupt-joins as a resource for the production of multi-unit, multi-action turns. Journal of Pragmatics, 36, 1375–1403. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mondada, L. (2006). Participants’ online analysis and multi-modal practices: Projecting the end of the turn and the closing of the sequence. Discourse Studies, 8, 117–129. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2007). Multimodal resources for turn-taking: Pointing and the emergence of possible next speakers. Discourse Studies, 9, 194–225. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mortensen, K. (2009). Establishing recipiency in pre-beginning position in the second language classroom. Discourse Processes, 46, 491–515. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nevile, M. (2004a). Beyond the black box: Talk-in-interaction in the airline cockpit. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
. (2004b). Integrity in the airline cockpit: Embodying claims about progress for the conduct of an approach briefing. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 37, 447–480. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2009). “You are well clear of friendlies”: Diagnostic error and cooperative work in an Iraq War friendly fire incident. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 18, 147–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Olsher, D. (2004). Talk and gesture: The embodied completion of sequential actions in spoken interaction. In R. Gardner, & J. Wagner (Eds.), Second language conversations (pp. 221–245). London/New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Psathas, G. (1990). The organization of talk, gaze and activity in a medical interview. In G. Psathas (Ed.), Interaction competence (pp. 205–30). Lanham, MD: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Rossano, F., Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (2009). Gaze, questioning and culture. In J. Sidnell (Ed.), Conversation analysis: Comparative perspectives (pp. 187–249). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E.A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 696–735. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E.A. (1996). Turn organization: One intersection of grammar and interaction. In E. Ochs, E.A. Schegloff, & S. Thompson (Eds.), Interaction and grammar (pp. 52–133). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Streeck, J. (1996). How to do things with things: Objets trouvés and symbolization. Human Studies, 19, 365–384. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2009). Gesturecraft: The manu-facture of meaning. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2011). The changing meaning of things: Found objects and inscriptions in social interaction. In J. Streeck, C. Goodwin, & C. LeBaron (Eds.), Embodied interaction: Language and body in the material world (pp. 67–78). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Streeck, J., & Hartge, U. (1992). Gestures at the transition place. In P. Auer, & A. di Luzio (Eds.), The contextualization of language (pp. 135–157). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Suchman, L. (1987). Plans and situated actions: The problem of human-machine communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cited by (7)

Cited by seven other publications

Badder, Anastasia
2024. Knowing which Way to Turn: Orienting Congregational Jewish Education in Europe. Journal of Jewish Education 90:4 ► pp. 283 ff. DOI logo
Cooper, Christina Melanie & Jacob Buur
2024. Exploring bike-commuter habits through data physicalisation engagement. Behaviour & Information Technology 43:14 ► pp. 3340 ff. DOI logo
Asplund, Stig-Börje, Nina Kilbrink & Hamid Asghari
2022. Teaching and learning how to handle tools and machines in vocational educational workshop sessions. Journal of Curriculum Studies 54:6 ► pp. 809 ff. DOI logo
Fukuda, Chie & Matthew Burdelski
2019. Multimodal Demonstrations of Understanding of Visible, Imagined, and Tactile Objects in Guided Tours. Research on Language and Social Interaction 52:1 ► pp. 20 ff. DOI logo
Mondada, Lorenza
2019. Rethinking Bodies and Objects in Social Interaction: A Multimodal and Multisensorial Approach to Tasting. In Discussing New Materialism, ► pp. 109 ff. DOI logo
Yrjönsuuri, Varpu, Kaiju Kangas & Pirita Seitamaa-Hakkarainen
2019. Proceedings of the FabLearn Europe 2019 Conference, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Ivarsson, Jonas & Christian Greiffenhagen
2015. The Organization of Turn-Taking in Pool Skate Sessions. Research on Language and Social Interaction 48:4 ► pp. 406 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 december 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.