Dissertation Information for Leslie Jarmon NAME: - Leslie Jarmon
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Communication
SCHOOL:
- University of Texas, Austin (USA) (1996)
ADVISORS: - None COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - None
MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected
Title: An ecology of embodied interaction: Turn-taking and interactional syntax in face-to-face encounters
Abstract: This dissertation presents micro-analyses of how embodied actions exhibit orderliness and function as elemental and recurrent components of participants' turns in face-to-face interaction. That embodied actions recurrently constitute turns and turn-components in interaction merits that they be specified within an expanding description of the turn-taking system.
The occurrence of embodied actions as turns interestingly problematizes the fundamental concepts of turn-constructional unit, projectability, turn completion, and turn overlap. Furthermore, how embodied actions actually work in face-to-face interaction invites a closer examination of the performing body as a shared communicative resource. Co-presence entails that, like voices for speaking, bodies for acting are immediately perceptually available to interactants in service to on-going lines of activity as well as to the construction of a turn.
The methodology of conversation analysis has been used to examine videotaped instances of naturally-occurring interaction. Data is collected, closely transcribed, repeatedly observed, and analyzed for patterns oriented to by participants themselves. Collections of instances exhibiting similar phenomena are developed and research findings are shared with other scholars of human interaction. Formulated from empirical observation and analyses of recurrent patterns of behavior in actual instances, three propositions are presented in this study:
Proposition one. Embodied actions constitute a fifth domain of turn-construction unit types within the turn-taking system. Embodied action-turns thrive in an interactional ecology that includes both visual-spatial and vocal-aural domains. Actual occurrences from the data show their use as construction units in turns in adjacency-pair, assessment, and repair sequences, and demonstrate co-participants' unremarkable and recurrent use of embodied action-units as turns.
Proposition two. In addition to speech, at least three additional shared communicative resources, with recognizable underlying order, form, and structure, are available to co-present interactants and can contribute to the projectability of embodied action-turns: the body metric; the order exhibited in the configuring of a turn over time; and recognizable embodied practices from everyday life.
Proposition three. The recurrence of embodied action-turns provides additional evidence for a syntax-for-interaction, extending quasi-linguistic analysis beyond vocalics and centering analysis on communicative actions embedded within situated activities. A syntax-for-interaction takes into account the practices of human communication and the multiple resources, sequential structures, and organizing systems co-present participants have at hand for constituting and managing their lines of activity in interaction.
The dissertation is available only on CD-ROM; the phenomenon under investigation--nonvocalized embodied actions in co-present human interaction--lend themselves to examination through the use of multimedia technology because of their visual, sequential, and dynamic character. Only through a medium capable of presenting these essential features are we able to share such data and the findings resulting from its research; form and content are interwoven. New features include a collection of instances from the videotaped data in the form of interactive digital movies.* ftn*Dissertation is available in CD-ROM format only. This CD-ROM dissertation has been formatted to run on Macintosh and IBM PC computers and on computers compatible with both.
| |
MPACT Scores for Leslie Jarmon A = 0
C = 1
A+C = 1
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2010-09-28 00:36:36
Advisors and Advisees Graph
generating graph, please reload |