Audible gestures: Single claps as a resource for managing interaction

Eric Hauser
University of Electro-Communications | University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Abstract

This study focuses on one type of audible gesture, designedly single claps (DSCs), as used by different people at an educational institution. The institution is designed to provide second language English users with opportunities to use English in various situations. Through the use of Multimodal Conversation Analysis, the analysis first focuses on the shape of DSCs and what makes them visible as not projecting further claps. Next, the analysis focuses on how DSCs are used within their sequential context. DSCs can take a variety of shapes, in that there are different ways not to project further claps; they can be used to attract attention of multiple recipients, and thus as one resource to manage interaction; and they are used as such a resource by representatives of the educational institution, who take on teacher roles within the interaction, with responsibility and deontic authority to manage shifts in activity and participation framework.

Keywords:
Publication history

Date received: 10 September 2021

Date accepted: 23 January 2023

Published online: 30 May 2023

Table of contents

Clapping can be considered the prototypical member of a subset of gestures that are distinctive because they involve the production of sound, what I will call audible gestures. One use of audible gestures, which is based on the fact that they are audible, is to attract the attention of others. For example, in one of the two examples of repairing an unsuccessful attempt to achieve joint attention in an exhibition gallery of an art museum, Christidou (2018) shows how the sound of snapping fingers can be used to attract attention. Audible gestures can also be used to call attention to particular things, such as co-occurring talk. Kern (2018), for example, shows how clapping can be used (by a teacher) to call attention to word syllabification and (by children) to publicly display learning of this. However, Kern also shows that what the children learn is how to synchronize their embodied conduct with the teacher, rather than syllabification, so what the clapping is calling attention to would actually seem to be the teacher’s embodied conduct, including the clapping itself.

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