Publications

Publication details [#59355]

Nevile, Maurice, Trine Heinemann, Mirka Rauniomaa and Pentti Haddington, eds. 2014. Interacting with Objects. Language, materiality, and social activity. John Benjamins. vii, 393 pp.
Publication type
Book – edited volume
Publication language
English

Annotation

Objects are essential for how, together, people create and experience social life and relate to the physical environment around them. This book presents studies which use video recordings of real-life settings to explore how objects feature in social interaction and activity. The studies consider many objects (e.g. paper documents, food, a camera, art, furniture, and even the human body), across various situations, such as shopping, visiting the doctor, interviews and meetings, surgery, and instruction in dance, craft, or cooking. Analyses reveal in precise detail how, as people interact, objects are seen, touched and handled, heard, created, transformed, planned, imagined, shared, discussed, or appreciated. With the companion collection Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond multitasking, the book advances understanding of the complex organisation and accomplishment of social interaction, especially the significance of embodiment, materiality, participation and temporality. By focussing on objects in and for actual occasions of human action, this book will interest many researchers and practitioners in language and social interaction, communication and discourse, design, and also more widely within anthropology, sociology, psychology, and related disciplines.