1
Introduction
Requests and
offers have generally been treated quite separately, as constituting
independent and distinct actions, each with its own morphosyntactic
construction, sequential and interactional environments, habitus, and
conditions as a speech act (e.g. Searle, 1969; and for a critical review of
such conditions, Drew & Couper-Kuhlen, 2014). For instance, a distinction is
often made between them in terms of benefactives, with the speaker being
regarded as the principal beneficiary of a request whilst the recipient is
considered the beneficiary of an offer (Clayman & Heritage, 2014; Couper-Kuhlen,
2014). However, our initial explorations of the claim that requests are
preferred over offers (Kendrick & Drew, 2014) have resulted in our
beginning to conceptualise these as connected symbiotically as alternative
methods for the recruitment of assistance (Kendrick & Drew, 2016).
When someone experiences difficulty, for instance in opening the lid of a jar,
they may ask for another’s assistance – they may request it verbally or may
simply pass the jar to someone standing nearby. It may happen that the person
nearby does not wait to be asked but instead verbally offers to open the lid or
perhaps simply stretches out their arm to take the jar to open the lid (i.e.
without making a verbal offer).
In some situations, someone may anticipate that another person is about to
encounter difficulty: They may be on the verge of running into trouble, so that
assistance is rendered in such a way that the difficulty is averted. The recruitment
of assistance embraces the variety of embodied forms of conduct through which assistance
may be solicited or provided, through verbal, vocal, and non-verbal conduct, to
resolve difficulties that are experienced, manifest, or anticipated, which
disrupt the progressive realisation of practical (embodied) courses of action.
It is evident that recruitment of another’s assistance requires us to broaden
our analysis to understand how a wider range of linguistic and semiotic
resources are deployed and engaged – together with gesture, bodily movement,
gaze, and so forth – in a physical setting. This requires what we have
traditionally and colloquially termed ‘requesting’ and ‘offering’ (Drew &
Couper-Kuhlen, 2014; Floyd et al., 2014; Käkkäinen & Keisanen, 2012;
Keisanen & Rauniomaa, 2012; Rossi, 2014; Mondada & Sorjonen, 2016;
Stevanovic & Monzoni, 2016).
A fuller account of the theoretical importance of recruitment as underpinning
social cooperation and cohesion – in part through shared practices for
manifesting or expressing trouble, for recognising or anticipating that another
is experiencing or is likely to experience difficulty, and for soliciting or
providing assistance to remedy those troubles – is beyond the scope of this
report. So too is a consideration of how recognition or anticipation of
another’s difficulty and the provision of assistance to resolve this difficulty
are key forms of pro-social altruism (on anticipation, see Enfield, 2014). The
central matter in this report is the conduct through which a difficulty is made
manifest or expressed in such a way that another may recognise that assistance
might be needed. Here we amplify our initial observation that embodied displays
of trouble constitute a central method for the recruitment of assistance
(Kendrick & Drew, 2016) and examine one coherent set of such embodied
displays in detail: visibly searching the environment. When one person,
Self, displays that he or she is searching for something, Other may recognise
that Self’s conduct manifests a difficulty he or she has. It happens quite
regularly in interaction that participants display, through visibly searching,
that they are having trouble finding a symbol on the computer keyboard, finding
a teapot, finding their fork (at the dinner table), locating their piece on a
game board, or finding an object in the kitchen. In some respects, this is akin
to or parallels studies of the embodied practices involved when speakers search
for words (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1986; Hayashi, 2003).
In
this report, we explore, from a conversation analytic perspective, how
participants’ conduct manifests that they are having trouble finding something,
through their visibly searching for something. Our analytic focus is on how
‘searching’ is performed in such a manner as to be understood or recognised by
others as searching and thereby as manifesting difficulty e.g. finding or
locating something.
2
Looking vs. searching
Gaze direction
is a fundamental resource for action in interaction (see Rossano, 2013). To
begin with, for our purposes, it is worth distinguishing between, on the one
hand, someone’s look across a space (a look followed by another look towards
its possible or likely object) and, on the other hand, Self’s conduct, which is
understood as looking for something, as searching for something that
Self is having difficulty finding (for a different though related treatment of
the relevance of gaze and the affordances for recruitment of sight lines in an
environment, see Backhouse & Drew, 1992). In other words, among the various
gazing actions that participants perform (see e.g. Kidwell, 2005 on ‘mere look’
vs. ‘the look’), there is a difference between looking and visibly searching. Whereas
looking does not seem to indicate or manifest trouble, the embodied conduct
associated with searching exposes to public view that Self is having trouble
locating something.
For
instance, in this first example in which three women are sitting together, the woman
in the middle – Self (Marie) – looks across and downwards to her right. She
does so in a slightly delayed response to having been asked by her friend on the
right, Rachel, do you have to leave soo:n (.) for a cla:ss? The friend
sitting on the left, Lex, then follows Self’s gaze down towards an object on
the floor close to her (i.e. to Lex), which turns out to be a cell phone. Lex
checks the time then displays or passes the phone to Self in such a way that
she can see the time for herself. The recruitment of assistance resulted from Lex
having followed the direction of Self’s gaze and discerned what Self was looking
at even though that look did not indicate any particular trouble or difficulty
on Self’s part. Lex simply anticipated Self’s need to know the time, in order
perhaps to be able to answer Rachel’s question about when she has to leave.
Extract 1.
[GB07_76]
It should be
noted with respect to Self’s glance having occasioned a recruitment that,
whilst the look did not signal or express trouble, there are nonetheless
intimations of something akin to a difficulty in Self’s conduct. First, as
noted above, Self does not respond immediately to Rachel’s question. At the
first possible completion of the question, Self averts her gaze (line 2), which
projects a dispreferred response and occasions an increment by Rachel (cf. Kendrick
& Holler, 2017). Self then utters a click (Ogden, 2013) and says “u::hm” (line
6), both of which are further indications of trouble in responding (Kendrick &
Torreira, 2015), as she turns her head to gaze towards the ground to her right.
Note also that Self looks across at something she knows or anticipates will be
in that location; the certitude embodied in her look contributes to the
recruitment of assistance from Lex.
In
other cases though, Self does much more than look. In Extract 2, Self (Anne)
visibly searches for an object, through first peering over her computer, in
what is evidently a search for something she cannot see or find.
Extract 2.
[RCE14
00:00]
Whilst Self’s
searching is embodied primarily in her head movements and associated gaze,
these are accompanied by her enquiry about the tea stewing (line 4), which
follows a first full scan of her immediate environment, presumably to find the
teapot. During the focal phase of her action, Other looks to his right, away
from Self. Self asks ‘s the tea been stewing long enough?,
then reaches for her mug. So whilst her enquiry does not directly indicate that
the teapot is not visible to her, it nonetheless serves to account for her
visible bodily action, specifying ‘teapot’ as the object of her search.
It is
evident that Self does more than glance or look; she embodies and thereby enacts
looking. Through her head movements, she displays that she is searching for
something. This is also evident in the next example, in which Self (Kelsey),
the one right of centre with her back to the camera, displays that she is
searching for something on the dinner table.
Extract 3
[LSIA
Never 52:26]
In contrast to
the previous example, Self’s visible search alone effectively recruits Other to
offer assistance (what’d you need at line 18). A visible search of the
environment thus creates a systematic opportunity for Other(s) to give or offer
assistance even though it does not guarantee this outcome. We continue our
analysis of this example in the next section.
3
Recognisability of searching
We have
described searching as embodying and thereby enacting and displaying ‘looking
for something’ that Self has trouble locating. The embodied conduct through
which Self implements a search is precisely what enables Other to recognise
that Self is having trouble, in response to which Other may be recruited to help
resolve the trouble, that of locating whatever it is for which Self is
searching. What, then, are the physical properties of Self’s conduct that
enable it to be recognised or understood as ‘doing searching’? In this section,
we document a set of practices that Self employs in visibly searching. We have
arranged these bodily practices in terms of those involving the head + neck, those in which the arms + hands (manual search) are the
primary ‘perceptors’, and those involving the body
+ torso (adjusting body position) as well as whole body movements such
as walking. Although we focus on each of these embodied ‘zones’ of conduct
separately, we often or even generally find that more than one zone is involved
in any given example. That is, whilst we may focus on head movements in one
example, hand gestures (second zone) may also contribute to the enactment of
searching. Actual cases thus involve complex multimodal gestalts (Mondada, 2014a)
in which multiple articulators across a range of embodied zones are combined in
displays of searching for what Self is having trouble finding. The various embodied
practices that enact visibly searching do not constitute different types of searches
per se but instead reflect local contingencies of the physical
environment in which the search takes place, Self’s position within that
environment, and the nature of the object being sought (e.g. its size or
visibility). The examples given below have been selected to foreground
particular practices of embodied action associated with particular zones of the
body that contribute to the recognisability of searching.
3.1 Searching through head and neck
movements
3.1.1 Visual sweep
Returning to Extract
3, we can see that Self begins her search when she extends her right arm,
seeming to reach for something. She then raises her arm so that her hand
remains stationary for an instant. The suspension of an embodied action, which
halts its progressive realisation, can itself indicate trouble (Lerner &
Raymond, in press). Self glances briefly to her right, then over to her left, retracts
her hand/arm, then whilst rubbing her hands together turns her head more
distinctly from (her) left to right – thereby performing a visual sweep across
a portion of the table in front of her. She reaches with her left hand to
slightly lift a packet that is just in front of her. As she lifts the packet,
she leans to her left in such a way that her head is positioned so as to enable
her to peer under the packet.
The trouble
she is evidently having in finding whatever she is looking for, as manifest in
her sweep and peering, is recognised by Other (facing camera, wearing a stripy
top), who asks what do you need?, which is the first step in the
recruitment of Other’s assistance, which resolves Self’s difficulty.
This
visual sweep in Extract 3, also evident in Extracts 6 and 7 below, is common in
our data and is sometimes accompanied by a ‘thinking face’ (see Kendrick &
Drew, 2016: 12, Goodwin & Goodwin, 1986). However, the visual sweep is only
one aspect of Self’s conduct that results in recruitment of Other’s assistance;
another aspect of Self’s conduct is that she leans forward and to her left,
thereby (literally) closing in on – or ‘zooming’ in on – whatever she might be
looking for. We explore zooming in the next section.
3.1.2 Zoom
In some of our
cases, Self zooms in on a quite restricted search domain, a specific
domain of scrutiny (Goodwin, 1994), thereby reducing the distance between the
sense organ (eyes) and the objects in the environment. This occurs in the next
example.
Extract 4.
[RCE22b
10:28]
The woman in
the back left of the frame, Self (Megan), is using a laptop belonging to her
Canadian friend, the woman sitting next to her. Self is evidently looking for
but cannot find the British pound sign (£) on the keyboard. Before she verbally
articulates her difficulty finding this symbol, she leans in slightly towards
the computer, then does the slightest (her) right-left visual sweep, following
which she leans forward and extends her head even closer and downwards to peer
at the keyboard, saying as she does so ooh where’s the pound si:gn?,
in so doing specifying the source of her difficulty. The relevant visual domain
is restricted to the keyboard, for which the zoom – produced by the forward
extension of the head together with the lean – is the most effective visual
means of displaying Self’s difficulty, though that difficulty is also expressed
by her “uhm:” in line 9 and the suspension of her turn. This difficulty is
resolved when Other, to whom the laptop belongs, explains that it does not have
a pound sign (because it is a North American laptop).
3.2 Searching through arm and hand
movements
3.2.1 Searching gestures
The next
bodily ‘zone’ employed in search displays or enactments is the hands and thus
necessarily also the arms. We saw in Extract 3 that Self reached out across the
table at the beginning of her search, then at a later stage stretched out her
other arm, using her hand to lift the packet sufficiently for her to peer under
it. Stretching out an arm and displaying ‘searching’ through the use of the
hand/digits is particularly visible in this next example. In this excerpt, the participants
are playing a board game (Monopoly), and Self (Nick), the man to the left of
the screen, has just thrown the dice. Self searches for his piece so that he
can move it a certain number of spaces forwards along the board.
Extract 5.
[GB07-2]
Self stretches
his arm out diagonally to the right, as though to alight on his piece, which
evidently is not at the location to which his hand moves. Instead his hand
hovers over the area on the far right of the board, and he wiggles his fingers
in a gesture of ‘searching’. The gesture indicates that a search is in progress
and thereby accounts for the disruption in the progressive realisation of his
course of action.
When
reaching for an object, one has that object in view (either in direct sight
line or metaphorically ‘in view’, such as when one reaches behind to take
something out of a bag, without looking where one is reaching). Here, however,
Self does not have the object in view when he reaches and thus encounters
trouble. His finger wiggling, accompanied by his visual search, render his
conduct visible as ‘searching for’ his piece in this restricted search domain,
i.e. the game board. It might be noted parenthetically that both of the Others
are recruited to assist, each by pointing at the ‘missing’ piece, though the
point from one Other, on the right, is a kind of ‘post recruitment’ (i.e.
recruitment of assistance after resolution of the trouble) since Self is
already holding his piece and has begun moving it by the time this Other
points.
3.2.2 Tactile sweep
In a final
example to illustrate how conduct involving arm/hand movement visibly enacts
searching, an Italian family is sitting down to dinner when the boy on the
right, Self, discovers that he does not have a fork with which to eat his food,
a difficulty that he announces in no uncertain terms. However, immediately
before he verbalises the trouble, the missing fork, he begins a visual sweep,
moving his head from left to right. As he does so, he holds his knife in his
right hand, whilst concurrently with the trouble report hei ma io non ce l’ho la forchetta ‘hey but I
don’t have the fork’ (line 3), he sweeps his right hand around and just under
the rim of his shallow dish, in a tactile search to determine whether the fork
might be hidden under/behind his bowl (line 4). As his hand sweeps around the
bowl, his gaze follows his hand movement.
Extract 6.
[9OAW_IT_10]
Self’s visual,
verbal, and embodied (manual) displays of searching for a fork that he cannot
find (the trouble) promptly occasion the recruitment of his mother sitting to
his right, who picks up a fork that was to the (right) side of her dish and
passes it to him (line 6).
3.3 Searching through torso and leg
movements
3.3.1 Leaning
In most of the
previous examples, it is evident that alongside visual sweeps and zooms, manual
sweeps and verbal reports of the trouble, Self quite regularly makes
adjustments to her/his corporeal deportment or body position. Generally, such
body movements bring Self closer to the presumed location or zone of the
sought-after object. For instance, compare the body position of the boy in the
previous example as he begins to say hei ‘hey’ with his position a
little over a second later as he passes his right hand around and under the rim
of his dish (figure 1).
Figure 1:
The boy leans forward as he begins his search in Extract 6.
In the second
still, he is clearly leaning forward, in contrast to his upright posture in the
first still. Similarly, in Extract 2, Self leans forward and to her right in
her recognisable search for the teapot.
Figure 2:
Anne leans forward as she searches for the teapot in Extract 2.
In Extract 3,
Self leans forward and to her left as she reaches out to move and look under the
packet on the table in her search for whatever she is looking for.
Figure 3:
Kelsey (third from left) leans forward and to her left as she searches the
table in Extract 3.
In each of
these and other examples, the participants are sitting down, to dinner, to play
a board game, at a table, or at desks discussing a presentation. Their body
movements are thereby restricted to leaning forwards or sideways as well as possible
body torques from the waist. They are, though, pretty much rooted to their
chairs or to whatever they are sitting on.
3.3.2 Exploring
Participants
in a natural environment, however, readily move around that environment. They
get up out of their seats to fetch something, they move around a kitchen whilst
cooking, they stand, walk about, and so on. Such body movements constitute
conduct providing some of the most vivid embodied displays of searching,
through participants exploring their environment in search of something
missing (searching for the trouble). Extract 7 illustrates the combined forms
of conduct through which someone may visually sweep and explore a space in such
a way as to be visibly, recognisably searching for something.
Extract 7.
[RCE09
13:34]
In this example,
Self (Ben), the man in a white shirt, who begins in the middle of this kitchen
scene, begins by walking across to a cupboard. He opens the cupboard door (line
4), looks inside, and evidently does not find whatever he might have been
looking for (i.e. he closes the door without having retrieved anything from the
cupboard at line 8). He then turns as though to move to his right but turns
again to his left, then back to his right, all whilst in a relatively stable
(standing) position. He then takes two steps forward, in the direction of the
sink, and as he finishes his second step asks, loudly, where’s the (.) glove
(0.3) where’s the oven mitt. (0.8) give me the oven mitt
(lines 15-19) – thereby nominating and requesting the object for which he is
searching. He moves to his left, and with knees slightly bent and a forwards-leaning
posture, opens a drawer from which he takes an oven mitt (line 24). The
recruitment is completed after Self has explored his environment (i.e. part of
the kitchen) in evident search for the oven mitts. Through his conduct (his
body movements and gaze, including looking into a cupboard), he enacts
searching for something.
4
Discussion
We have distinguished
between two kinds of gaze, looking and searching. When someone gazes
at something or in a certain direction, another person may understand that
person as looking at something. The Other may furthermore infer that
Self (the one gazing) is looking at something he or she needs for a course of
action to progress. A look in a certain direction conveys knowing that
something or someone is to be found in the direction of the gaze. By contrast,
when a participant visibly searches for something, they may be
recognised as having trouble knowing where something is, having trouble
finding something. On occasion, this trouble may be verbalised by Other in
response to Self’s glance, as in Extract 3 when Other asks what’do you need?.
Alternatively, the trouble may be verbalised by Self, as Ben does in Extract 7
when he accompanies his searching conduct with the request where’s the oven
mitt? Across the collection it is generally the embodied display of
trouble that precedes such verbalisations (cf. Kendrick & Drew, 2016). Recognising
Self’s difficulty, Other may assist in some way to resolve the difficulty, in
which case they are recruited to assist, and the course of action in which Self
is involved can move forward. At the heart of what we have investigated here is
that searching enacts having trouble finding what one is looking for and
thereby manifests trouble in an embodied display.
In
some respects, searching might be considered an exaggerated way of looking for
something (cf. Kendrick & Drew, 2016: 16). We have preferred instead to
describe this as enacting having trouble finding what one is looking for or as
a version of ‘doing looking for’ in which one is accountably, recognisably, or
visibly having difficulty finding something. In this study, we have identified
the practices in participants’ (Self’s) embodied conduct through which they
enact or display trouble. Through such conduct as visual sweeps, zooming,
tactile displays of searching, adjusting one’s body position to bring one
closer and hence reduce the search domain, and exploring the environment both
visually and through movement, Self manifests their difficulty in finding what
they are looking for. In this way searching is one of the key practices in the recruitment
of assistance.
Acknowledgments
We would like
to thank Galina Bolden, Renata Galatolo, and Erika Vassallo for their permission
to use specific examples in this report. We are also grateful to Leah Wingard
for the Language and Social Interaction Archive (2014), from which data have
been drawn for this research.
Conventions for
multimodal transcription
Embodied
actions are transcribed according to the following conventions, developed by
Mondada (2014b).
|
* *
+ +
|
Gestures and descriptions of embodied
actions are delimited between ++ two identical symbols (one symbol per
participant) and are synchronized with correspondent stretches of talk.
|
|
*--->
--->*
|
The action described continues across
subsequent lines until the same symbol is reached.
|
|
>>
|
The action described begins before
the excerpt’s beginning.
|
|
--->>
|
The action described continues after
the excerpt’s end.
|
|
.....
|
Action’s preparation.
|
|
,,,,,
|
Action’s retraction.
|
|
ali
|
Participant doing the embodied action
is identified when (s)he is not the speaker.
|
|
fig
#
|
The exact moment at which a screen
shot has been taken is indicated with a specific sign showing its position
within turn at talk.
|
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