Social Interaction

1. Introduction

In this paper, I examine my role as a researcher doing video-based fieldwork in mainstream classrooms with deaf youths in Iquitos, Peru through the lens of participation frameworks that emerged within moments of situated interaction. My fieldwork in mainstream classrooms was part of a larger ethnographic project on the everyday lives of deaf youths who grow up without sustained access to the linguistic resources of either the language used in their community, Spanish, or the national sign language, Peruvian Sign Language. Through the analysis of moments of video recorded interaction, I discuss the negotiation of my role in the classroom by the teacher, students, and myself.

While conducting video-based fieldwork, I attempted to primarily occupy the role of a passive participant-observer in order to capture the deaf students’ everyday interactions with minimal interference from the researcher (cf. M.H. Goodwin, 2006; García-Sánchez, 2014). However, the shifting of participation roles is a natural part of participant-observation in ethnographic research (Duranti, 1997, pp. 99-102; García-Sánchez, 2014, pp. 80-81). In this paper, I consider my role in the social ecology of the classroom from a microanalytic perspective. I analyze my status in unfolding participation frameworks to gain insight into my role in the classroom social ecology.

As I will develop in the paper, it is evident that my status in the classroom participation frameworks was dynamic. While I often was not attended to in the participation framework and positioned as a ratified overhearer of the unfolding interaction, my status could quickly shift to an addressee or an unratified overhearer as the students and teacher responded to my presence (cf. Goffman, 1981). Moments when my status in the participation framework changed make visible the various roles that I occupied in the classroom, from an observer, to a confidant, to an authority figure. The extracts I present of my changing participation status illustrate the agentive role of the students in positioning me as an active member of the ongoing interaction and determining which of my roles will take precedence, even if at times I am unaware of their actions. I conclude with an extended segment, in which I am positioned in the role of an authority figure through the attempts of the students to ensure my status as a non-overhearer in the participation framework. This example demonstrates how the roles that I occupy in the classroom social ecology are a moment-by-moment co-operative achievement between members of the class and myself.

2. Participation frameworks in video-based research

Goffman (1981, p. 137) introduced the “participation framework” as the configuration of participants and their interactional status in a particular moment. Goffman’s work was crucial for critiquing the dyadic perspective on talk-in-interaction as occurring between a speaker and a hearer. In particular, Goffman identified multiple different types of hearer statuses, such as ratified and unratified participants, bystanders, and eavesdroppers. The Goodwins have extended the concept of the “participation framework” to focus on the multimodal practices through which individuals build action together in moments of situated interaction (e.g., C. Goodwin, 1981, 1984, 2003, 2007; Goodwin & Goodwin, 2004; M.H. Goodwin, 1990, 1997, 2006). Rather than creating a typology of different potential participation statuses, their formulation foregrounds the dynamic nature of participation for all individuals in the participation framework, regardless of their particular status in a given moment.

The methodological implications of participation frameworks for video-based research on interaction is two-fold. First, there is the issue of data construction. Approaching interaction not as a “ping-pong match of successive moves between hearer and speaker” but as a multimodal and multiparty “social ecology” (Erickson, 2006, p. 179), requires framing camera shots that attend to the full participation framework (to the extent possible) in its situated context. To ensure that individuals’ responses to one another are captured even as they move in space and engage with objects in their environment, researchers of social interaction have provided technical recommendations on topics such as: focal length, camera angles, stable vs. moving shots, and number of cameras (e.g., Erickson, 2006; Goodwin, 1993; Heath, 1997; Heath & Hindmarsh, 2002; Mitsuhara & Hauck, 2020; Mondada, 2006, 2013; Ochs et al., 2006). These choices have a significant subsequent impact on data analysis (Rusk et al., 2014).

The second implication is the question of the impact of the researcher on the interactions one is recording (i.e., the observer’s paradox (Labov, 1972, p. 181)). By virtue of being present, the researcher is part of the social ecology, and thus occupies a status in the participation framework they are capturing (e.g., Heath & Hindmarsh, 2002, p. 18; Pehkonen et al., 2021/this issue). Video-based researchers have chosen to address this reality in a variety of ways. Researchers across fields have found ways to try to minimize their impact on the interactions they are recording through techniques such as: leaving the camcorder at the scene (Heath et al., 2010; Jordan & Henderson, 1995), changing the way they dress (Greer, 2007), wearing headphones (C. Goodwin, 1993), or telling participants to think of them as an “invisible ghost” (García-Sánchez, 2014, p. 79). In other cases, researchers have embraced their presence in the social ecology by becoming active in the participation framework they are recording as on-screen participants (C. Goodwin, 2004, 2010; Hofstetter, 2021/this issue; Wootton, 1997) or as wearers of the camcorder (Edmonds, 2021/this issue).

Following a brief overview of my research project with deaf youths (section 3), I take up these two methodological implications of participation frameworks on my video-based fieldwork. In section 4.1, I begin with an illustration of the recording choices I made in order to capture the social ecology in which the deaf youths were engaged. Then, in section 4.2, I consider my status in the classroom participation frameworks. Using moments taken from a segment of a classroom lesson, I provide three examples of my differing statuses: a ratified overhearer, an addressee, and an unratified overhearer. In naming my status in particular moments, my objective is not to create a list of my varying participation status. As will be seen, such analytical labels are difficult to pin down, as well as constantly in flux over the course of an unfolding interaction. Instead, changes to my status in the participation framework draw attention to more active roles that I occupied other than an observer in the classroom social of ecology. Despite stating at the beginning of the school year that I was just an observer, my role in the classroom was dynamic and a co-operative achievement.

3. The Social Lives of Deaf Youth Project

3.1 Project overview

The Social Lives of Deaf Youth Project (Goico, 2019b) examines the everyday lives of ten deaf youths in Iquitos, Peru, who were living without sustained access to the linguistic resources of either Spanish or Peruvian Sign Language (Lengua de Señas Peruana —LSP). Iquitos is the capital of the Loreto Region of Peru and home to nearly half a million people. The deaf youths in the study ranged from 6-17 years old, lived in all four municipal districts in the city, and were mainstreamed in general education classrooms (Goico, 2019a, 2020). Their hearing loss ranged from moderate to profound, and they did not use hearing assistive technology. Thus, the deaf youths had incomplete access to the linguistic resources of Spanish, the language spoken by the families in all of their homes. They also had limited to no exposure to other deaf individuals or LSP in either their neighborhoods or schools. Except for the three deaf boys discussed in this paper who were in the same mainstream classroom, none of the others in the project had met one another. As a result, the deaf youths communicated using a repertoire of semiotic resources that had developed over the course of their own lifetimes.

3.2 Methods

Ethnographic fieldwork for the project spanned from 2013-2015 and included participant observation, fieldnotes, interviews, and video recordings of everyday interactions in the homes, neighborhoods, and schools of the ten deaf youths (Goico, 2020). I am a hearing and white Latina researcher from the United States, and I conducted my research in the local languages used in Iquitos. This was facilitated by my prior knowledge of Spanish and American Sign Language. Members of the Iquitos community were integral in helping me to adapt to the colloquialisms of Iquitos Spanish and learn Peruvian Sign Language, as well as the local signs of the ten deaf youths.

My methodological approach falls within linguistic anthropology and linguistic ethnography (Hou & Kusters, 2020). In conducting my analyses, I rely on a central tenet of early Conversation Analysis to study the orderliness of social action in interaction (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973, p. 289-290). In addition, I build on Chuck Goodwin’s work on human action as “co-operative” (Goodwin, 2018), which is to say that our actions are built sequentially (e.g., building on the previous actions of others), as well as simultaneously (e.g., actions are created jointly). My coding and analyses of my video recorded data combine ethnographic insights gained over the course of my fieldwork with a microanalysis of everyday interactions. In this article, I narrow my methodological discussion to my participation role as a researcher conducting video-based fieldwork in the mainstream classrooms of deaf youths.

During the 2014 school year (March – December), I conducted weekly observations and video recording sessions of eight classrooms with deaf youths, typically filming for four to five hours at each visit. The data for this paper come from one of these classrooms: a fourth-grade classroom that had 25 hearing students and, as an exception to the rule, three deaf students, Jeremy, Luis, and José. For further discussion of this education context see Goico (2019a, b). As part of an earlier analysis of this classroom (Goico, 2019b), data coding and analysis of classroom interactions were conducted on 14 days of video recordings taken from across the school year in which all three boys were present.

4. Analyzing the role of the researcher through the lens of participation frameworks

In this section, I illustrate my attention to the social ecology of the classroom when setting up my video recordings and provide examples of my status in the participation frameworks within that social ecology. In the classroom, I chose to adopt primarily a passive participant role in order to capture the deaf students’ everyday interactions with minimal interference from the presence of the researcher (cf. M.H. Goodwin, 2006; García-Sánchez, 2014). In one of the only other ethnographic studies of deaf youth in mainstream classrooms (see also Holmström et al., 2015), Claire Ramsey (1997), who was also doing participant observation and video recording, chose to take on the role of a teacher’s aide or assistant in the classroom. However, I found that when I tried to adopt the role of a teacher’s aide during my preliminary research in Peru in 2010, teachers would then attempt to hand off the responsibility of teaching the deaf student to me. As a result, I was too involved in the teaching for my video recording to capture how the teacher worked with the deaf student in the classroom or how the deaf student navigated and organized his/her classroom day. To avoid this problem, in 2014, I explicitly told teachers that I was not in the classroom to teach but to observe. Attention to the participation frameworks in the classroom, however, indicates how my role in the classroom was negotiated between the students, teacher, and myself.

I illustrate my filming choices and participation status in the classroom through the analysis of short excerpts taken from the final phase of a math lesson. During the math lesson, the students had been assigned to work with their tables to solve four subtraction problems written on the board. In the final phase of the lesson, Mr. Inga called the class’ attention to the board to solve the math problems together, but one of the deaf students, Jeremy, volunteered to solve the first problem himself. Mr. Inga then called to the board the other deaf students, Luis and José, and finally a hearing student, to solve the remaining three problems. The recording took place on Monday March 31, 2014, the third week of classes and only my fourth day filming in the classroom. Thus, Mr. Inga, the students, and I were still in the early stages of navigating our relationship with one another and the classroom recording.

4.1 Capturing the interactions of deaf youths in mainstream classrooms

My technical choices of how to capture the deaf students’ classroom interactions took into consideration the social ecology of the setting. The bulk of Conversation Analysis research on sign interaction has been conducted in settings, such as deaf clubs, restaurants, or homes, where the primary focus is on conversing (e.g., Coates & Sutton-Spence, 2001; De Vos et al., 2015; Manrique, 2016; McCleary & Leite, 2013). Video recording in those contexts is focused on framing shots to capture the hands, torso, and face of the deaf individuals as they are sitting and conversing. Video recording sign interaction in the various everyday contexts where deaf individuals live and work, as seen in many ethnographic studies (e.g., Green, 2014; Hou, 2016; Kusters et al., 2016; Moriarty, 2020), raises other recording considerations. For example, how interlocutors are positioned in relation to one another and might move in the space. In the mainstream classrooms, students engaged in a variety of activities apart from talking. They regularly moved around the classroom and attended to different focal areas (e.g., student tables, the chalkboard, where the teacher was located). Thus, when framing camera shots, I was concerned with capturing the multimodal semiotic resources (Kusters et al., 2017) of the deaf students in sufficient detail, while still capturing their interlocutors and the surrounding environment.

I used three camcorders to capture this complex social ecology. I set up a GoPro in the back of the classroom behind the students (typically on the top of a cabinet or on a windowsill); the camera had a wide-angle lens to capture the entire classroom. I then positioned two camcorders (Canon Vixia HF M500¹) on tripods at different angles to focus on the deaf student and the individuals in his or her immediate environment. I placed one of the tripod camcorders so as to capture the front of the deaf student and those sitting on either side of him or her. I placed the second camera diagonally from the first and behind the deaf student, so as to capture those sitting across the table and the back of the deaf student, in case he or she turned around.

Figure 1.

Figure 1 depicts an example of the view from the three camcorders during the math lesson on March 31, 2014, just prior to Mr. Inga bringing the class’ attention to the board. As seen in Figures 1.1 and 1.2, Luis, José, and Jeremy were seated at different tables in the classroom, which presented an additional challenge, as all of the other classrooms I observed had only one deaf student. I typically used a wide-angle lens (Fig. 1.2) for one of the tripod camcorders to facilitate capturing all three deaf students in both camera views. Moreover, while it would have been ideal to place the camcorders directly in front of the deaf students, this was often not possible because of other tables or the concern with blocking students from seeing the board. Therefore, the camcorders were usually placed at an angle to the deaf students, utilising the corners of the classroom, side walls, and even on occasion the tops of tables.

In the classroom, I would seat myself against one of the classroom walls with my notebook and take field notes. As seen in Figures 1.2 and 1.3, I was seated next to one of the camcorders so that I had the ability to move at least one of the camcorders when the students moved. For instance, shortly after Figure 1, Mr. Inga initiated the final phase of the math lesson and Jeremy approached the board to volunteer to answer the first math problem (Fig. 2.1 and 2.2). I moved the camcorder next to me when Mr. Inga and Jeremy approached the board (Fig. 2.1 vs. 1.1), but I did not get up to move the second camcorder (Fig. 2.2 vs. 1.2).

Figure 2.

In Figures 2.1 and 2.2, Jeremy’s action of volunteering to solve the first subtraction problem forms a participation framework in which Jeremy and Mr. Inga are turned to the board and each other, with about half the students and me watching them. The other half of the students, including Luis, are looking down at their notebooks. In the next section, I analyze my status in the evolving participation framework as Mr. Inga calls Luis and José to the board, and the three boys solve the subtraction problems. My status in these participation frameworks became available for analysis because I was visible from one of the tripod camera angles and the GoPro (Fig. 1.2 and 1.3).

4.2 Classroom participation frameworks

In the following examples taken from the final phase of the math lesson, I illustrate three of my different statuses: a ratified overhearer, an addressee, and an unratified overhearer. In the first example, it is clear from my status as a ratified overhearer in the participation framework that there were times when I was able to occupy the role of an observer. In the next two examples, however, I illustrate how the actions of the teacher and students, whether I was aware of them or not, could shift my status in the participation framework. Moments when I leave the status of a ratified overhearer, draw attention to additional roles I occupied in the classroom social ecology, including as a companion and an authority figure. The examples illustrate the students’ agentive role in determining my participation in the classroom social ecology.

4.2.1 A ratified overhearer

In the first example, I illustrate a moment when my status in the participation framework aligned with the role I intended to take as an observer. The transcript in Extract 1.1 picks up just after Mr. Inga hands Jeremy the chalk (see Fig. 2.1 and 2.2). After Jeremy begins working, in line 1, Mr. Inga calls for Luis’s attention and hands him a piece of chalk (Fig. 3). Next, Mr. Inga looks and points to José (line 3, Fig. 4) and directs him to the board (Fig. 5). José responds in a despondent manner, dropping his hands and pursing his lips (line 4). As Luis walks past José, Luis shrugs with his hands in the air (line 5, Fig. 6), and then approaches the board (line 6, Fig. 7.1). The transcripts are displayed as a series of screenshots. Each figure is labelled. Signs are identified in all caps, with additional information provided directly after the sign (the form of the sign in parentheses and the referent after the period). Actions that were not signed are indicated within parentheses. A forward slash is used to identify actions that were produced simultaneously, a dash indicates that a sign was cut off, and a square bracket indicates overlap. Interpretive translations are in bold underneath the sign gloss. Figure numbers are identified in the transcript text for clarity.

Extract 1.1.

During the approximately 30 seconds from when Jeremy first volunteers himself to the end of line 6, the interactional evidence suggests that I am occupying the participation status of a ratified overhearer. As seen in Figure 7.2, I am watching the unfolding actions through the viewfinder on the camcorder next to me. I can find no evidence of anyone in the classroom gazing at me during the 30-second stretch. Jeremy did not look at me when he volunteered to solve the subtraction problem, nor did Mr. Inga, when he called the boys to the board. Moreover, neither Jeremy nor Mr. Inga look at me during the entire five-minute segment of the students working at the board. Similarly, neither Luis nor José look at me directly following being called to the board. Finally, none of the hearing students look at me while the three boys are called to the board.

Although there are many stretches in the classroom in which I am not attended to, it is worth noting that interactional evidence may not always be the only indicator of my status in the participation framework. My ethnographic findings suggest that Mr. Inga may have seen me not just as an overhearer but also as an addressee. On seven of the 14 days of video recordings that I coded from across the school year, Mr. Inga called hearing students (not always the same ones) to the board as part of a lesson. On all seven of those occasions (7/7), Mr. Inga also called Luis and Jeremy to the board. In contrast, José was only called to the board on two of these seven occasions (2/7). The two cases were the math lesson described here, which was the first time I was present for the activity of calling students to the board, and a language arts lesson on a day when I had visitors with me to observe the deaf students. In both cases, Mr. Inga provided no interactional evidence that calling José to the board was a result of the classroom observers (i.e., he did not look at me or the other visitors). Nevertheless, the discrepancy between the treatment of José and the other two deaf boys, coupled with the presence of observers suggests that it was not routine practice for Mr. Inga to call José to the board. Instead, it may have occurred because Mr. Inga sought to display the performance of the deaf students to observers (in the first case to me and in the second case to the visitors). This finding coincides with longitudinal interactional and interview evidence that Mr. Inga treated José differently from both his deaf and hearing classmates (Goico, 2019b, p. 136-140).

In this section, I have illustrated that there are moments where my status in the participation framework indicates that I am able to fade into the background of the interaction and be a classroom observer. As seen in Extract 1.1, even in a moment when the deaf students became the focus of the classroom lesson, the interactional evidence reveals that the class did not attend to me. My ethnographic findings, however, complicate the picture regarding José, suggesting that my presence may have influenced Mr. Inga’s choice to call José to the board. In which case, Mr. Inga’s actions may have been indirectly addressed to me, even as they were directly addressed to José. These findings point to the difficulty in analytically assigning labels to participants in multiparty interactions (Haviland, 1986, p. 255). In spite of this difficulty, the ethnographic findings reinforce that Mr. Inga treated me as an observer in the classroom social ecology and highlight his awareness that I was there specifically to capture the educational experiences of the deaf boys. In the next examples, I look at moments in which the students shift me into a more central status in the participation framework.

4.2.2 An addressee

In this section, I explore moments when students position me as an addressee in the participation framework and, thus, take me out of an observer role. In Extract 1.2 and Extract 2, I examine two moments when students attempted to initiate an interaction with me. In the first, no mutually acknowledged framework emerged with the student, while in the second, I respond to the student’s initiation.

José is the only deaf student who attempts to engage with me after being called to the board. He does so by displaying his displeasure. After Luis walks past José and shrugs, José turns in his chair and looks at me (line 7, Fig. 8), attempting to open a participation framework between the two of us. Then, José displays his sentiment toward being called to the board by sticking out his tongue (Fig. 9) and laying his head on his desk (Fig. 10). Despite José’s gaze indicating that I am the recipient of his assessment, I display no response (Fig. 10). I am looking through the viewfinder of my camcorder at Jeremy and Luis, who are at the board solving their math problems.

Extract 1.2.

Although I cannot specifically remember whether I did or did not see José’s utterance, I most likely did not see him. While I told the class that I was an observer, I typically allowed the students to initiate interactions with me. It was only when conversations became disruptive to the students’ work that I would cut off an interaction. As Duranti (1997, pp. 102) notes, “The underlying rationale for finding the blind spot and trying to be as unintrusive as possible is not to pretend that one is not there, but to get as close as possible to what it is like to be a marginal participant.” My approach of engaging with students when they initiated interactions with me can be seen on a number of occasions during the five minutes that Jeremy, Luis, and José are at the board. For example, there was another instance when José directed an utterance to me, to which I did respond (not discussed here, but occurred at minute 18:15). Additionally, the hearing boy next to me initiated interactions with me seven times during the five minutes of board work; one example of which is displayed in Extract 2.

Extract 2.

Extract 2 takes place about four minutes after Extract 1. It is not possible to hear what the student and I say to one another because the audio for the camera was hooked up to a wireless microphone that José was wearing. However, even without audio, it is possible to see how the boy initiates an interaction with me, thus, taking me out of my status as a ratified overhearer of what is occurring at the board and making me the addressee of his utterance. While I am watching José and Jeremy at the board (Fig. 11.1 and 11.2), the hearing student reaches out to tap me but does not make contact with my arm (line 1, Fig. 11.2). The boy restarts the summons (line 2, Fig. 12), and this time, I turn toward him (line 3, Fig. 13). The student and I talk about and point to things on the pages of the health textbook (lines 5-6, Fig. 14-15), alternating our status as speaker and addressee, until he closes the book. I then turn back to watch the activity at the board (not depicted in the transcript).

As seen in Extract 1.1 and Extract 2, both students address me to comment on the happenings in the classroom. José chose to express his feelings about Mr. Inga’s actions to me. The hearing boy shared some of the pages from the health textbook he had been flipping through. This was not a work assignment, as the students were in a math lesson and were in the final phase of the lesson after having already completed their assignments. The students’ choices to position me as an addressee in order to share their feelings and thoughts on classroom life, illustrate one of the roles in which the students positioned me in the classroom: as a companion. Students, especially the girls, often wanted to spend time with me during recess and would ask me questions about my life and tell me stories. They particularly liked to play with my hair, which stood out in Iquitos because it is blonde and curly.

Since I preferred not to shut down student initiations, I responded to students’ interest in engaging with me by trying to situate myself in the classroom in such a way that would invite fewer opportunities for interaction. After the first month of filming, I decided to change where I sat in the classroom to help maintain my role as an observer. I chose to no longer sit next to the camcorder because the best camera angle for the camcorder often required me to sit close to the students’ desks (as in Extract 2). Instead, I decided to seat myself at the back of the classroom and leave the camcorders unattended, positioned around the room in the best locations to capture Luis, José, and Jeremy on that particular day of filming. I found sitting against the back wall allowed me to spend more time as a ratified overhearer, and, therefore used this seating arrangement for the rest of the school year. An example of this configuration can be seen in Figure 16, taken from a class day in September. One camcorder is in the front corner of the classroom and the other is in the back of the classroom by the teacher’s desk, while I am seated against the back wall.

Figure16.

4.2.3 An unratified overhearer

As an adult in the classroom, I not only occupied the role of a companion but also of an authority figure. Students would approach me to check their work or to ask questions about assignments. In Extract 3 and the extended segment of interaction in Extract 4 (section 5), I examine two moments when my status as an authority figure raises to prominence. In this first case, I discuss a moment when a student went against Mr. Inga’s rules, and then after the fact, looked toward me. I interpret his action as an indication that I was an unratified overhearer to the action.

During the math lesson, hearing students helped Luis and José solve the subtraction problems by feeding them the answers, even though Mr. Inga had explicitly told the class not to help when Jeremy first approached the board. Some of the students involved in this activity attempted to hide their actions from not only Mr. Inga, but also from me. Their behavior suggests that they were treating me as a classroom authority figure, who might choose to chastise them for not doing the board work individually. Extract 3 depicts one such moment involving José, who is hidden behind Mr. Inga in Figures 17-19, and his hearing classmate, Kerry. The extract takes place about one minute after Extract 1.

Extract 3.

Extract 3 begins with the hearing classmate, Kerry, taking special consideration of the embodied nature of the participation framework when interceding to help José. Mr. Inga is facing with his gaze and torso toward the board, erasing the number that Luis has just written on the board (line 1, Fig. 17). Kerry goes behind Mr. Inga’s back and taps on José, who is standing to the left of Mr. Inga and obstructed from view (Fig. 17). After calling for José’s attention, Kerry then feeds José the answer (line 2). Kerry initially puts up three fingers (Fig. 18), but then corrects himself, lifting a fourth finger (Fig. 19). In response, José draws a number in the air (line 3). José’s arm is partially obscured by Mr. Inga’s body, and the GoPro camera does not provide high enough resolution to see the tracing clearly, but it appears that José draws a “4” in the air. From the video, I can make out José drawing two straight vertical lines, one longer and one shorter. In response, Kerry holds up four fingers again (line 4, Fig. 20). José turns back to the board to work, with Kerry looking on (not depicted in the transcript). After a short gap, Kerry quickly turns around and looks at me (line 6, Fig. 21.1). I am looking at the board (Fig. 21.2) and do not respond. After staring at me for approximately one second, Kerry turns back to look at the board (Fig. 22).

The fact that Kerry conceals his action of feeding José the answer from Mr. Inga and then (seemingly as an afterthought) looks at me, suggests that I was an unratified overhearer in the participation framework and he is checking to see how I might respond to his actions. While I was not a classroom teacher, I was an adult, who might discipline the students for engaging in behavior that they were told not to do. In this case, I maintained my position as an observer of the actions at the board. However, similar to Extract 2, it is unclear (and I cannot recall) whether I witnessed Kerry’s actions or not. These examples illustrate how I did not need to be aware of the actions of other individuals for my status to change in the unfolding participation framework.

In this section, I provided three examples of how my status in the participation framework could be organized in Luis, José, and Jeremy’s classroom. The examples draw attention to how my attempt to occupy the role of an observer is only partially borne out in the analysis of the classroom participation frameworks. It is through the embodied actions of various individuals in the classroom (e.g., how they organize their bodies, who they attend to as having a particular status, how they respond to the actions of others) that the participation framework unfolds. It was not only my own actions, but the actions of Mr. Inga and the students that determined my status in the participation framework at any given moment. At times, I was positioned as an unaddressed, ratified overhearer. In other moments, the students positioned me as an active member of the participation framework, even without my knowledge. In this way, the examples illustrate the agentive role of the students in determining my role in the classroom.

In the final analysis section, I use an extended interactional analysis to display how my role, in this case as an authority figure, is a moment-by-moment co-operative accomplishment between the students and myself that requires their close monitoring of the embodied participation framework.

5. The co-operative accomplishment of my role in the classroom

In the extended example in Extract 4, I analyze a moment when one of the deaf students, Luis, attempts to ensure that I am not an overhearer (or better yet, oversee-er) in the participation framework. Luis pays close attention to my actions, as he tries to convince Jeremy to move the camcorder next to their table. During the extract I am unaware that Luis has positioned me as an active member of the participation framework. Nevertheless, as I demonstrate in the example, the actions of myself, Jeremy, and other classmates play a crucial role in Luis’s attempts to ensure my status as a non-oversee-er. Thus, the example highlights the moment-by-moment interactional work and visual orientation of the students as they navigated my status in the participation framework, as well as the truly co-operative nature of determining my participation role in the classroom (see also Chen, 2021/this issue).

The segment takes place at the very start of the day on which the math lesson above occurred. It is unclear what motivated Luis to try to convince Jeremy to move the camcorder (e.g., it could have been an attempt to test my role in the classroom, to push back on being filmed, to pick on Jeremy, who was the new deaf kid in the classroom). Nevertheless, these actions fit into a common type of social work that Luis undertakes in the classroom: asserting his social authority over others (Goico, 2019b, p. 96-97). Luis was actively involved in maintaining and constructing the classroom social hierarchy through his everyday interactions. Examples include deciding who could sit or even look at his table, assigning work to other students during group assignments, commenting on the physical appearance of others, and sending other students to do tasks for him (Goico 2019b, p. 97, 156; Goodwin & Goico 2020). In Extract 4, Luis never makes an attempt to move the camcorders himself and makes a concerted effort not to let me see him give the directive to Jeremy to move the camcorders. Thus, if caught, only Jeremy would be liable for not complying with Mr. Inga and my directions for the students not to touch the cameras.

Extract 4 is split into five parts. Extract 4.1 is a series of figures with descriptions, not a line-by-line transcript. It depicts Luis, Jeremy, and my activities during the one minute and fifty seconds prior to line 1 in Extract 4.2. The actions depicted set up the participation framework as Luis launches into convincing Jeremy to move the camcorder. Two hearing students, Elisa and Carla, who appear in Extract 4, are labelled on the figures.

Extract 4.1.

Extract 4.1 picks up just as I begin filming for the day. I turn on and adjust the camcorder with the wide-angle lens directed at Luis and Jeremy’s table. I then walk around the table, past Luis (Fig. 23), and over to the camcorder directed at José’s table to turn it on. Luis does not look directly at me as I walk past but is looking in my direction as he talks with the student across from him. About one minute later, Jeremy stands up and makes a face at the camera while on his way to the board (Fig. 24). Once again, Luis is looking in the direction of the action, even if he does not look directly at Jeremy. After gazing at the board and then writing in his notebook, Luis looks to either side of him (Fig. 25-26). Finally, a small grin appears on Luis’s face as he watches Jeremy walk back to his seat (Fig. 27). This grin is a good indication that Luis is about to do something mischievous (Goico, 2019b, p. 98).

Extract 4.2 displays Luis’s first attempt to direct Jeremy to move the camcorder.

Extract 4.2.

Although Luis is smiling and gazing at Jeremy as he returns to his seat, Jeremy is focused on his schoolwork. As seen in Figures 28-31, Jeremy returns to his seat with his gaze directed at his notebook and appears to begin writing even before he has completely taken a seat (Fig. 29). Thus, Jeremy’s actions do not open up a participation framework for socializing with his tablemates. This was common for Jeremy, who regularly prioritized his schoolwork over the social side of classroom life (Goico, 2019b, p. 184). As a result, Luis’s attempt to instruct Jeremy to move the camcorder begins with Luis trying to open up an active participation framework with Jeremy, while not attracting my attention as an oversee-er of their conversation.

At the start of Extract 4.2, Luis has seen me walk behind him but cannot see where I am looking. Luis uses a number of techniques to dissimulate his attempts to get Jeremy’s attention. First, Luis utilizes his tablemate Carla, who is sitting next to Jeremy and has looked up because the girl in front of her, Elisa, reached over to grab her eraser (seen in Fig. 27 of Extract 4.1). Capitalizing on Carla’s gaze direction, Luis locks eyes with her (Fig. 28) and then requests that she get Jeremy’s attention by pointing toward Jeremy (line 1, Fig. 29). Luis noticeably produces his request in an inconspicuous manner —fast, small, and in front of his body. He also relies on multiple semiotic resources to produce the point toward Jeremy, none of which are the common, but also potentially noticeable, index finger point. Luis shifts his eyes toward Jeremy to use the indexical function of gaze (Goodwin, Goodwin, & Olsher, 2002), points with his nose using a face squinch, and surreptitiously points by lifting his hand to his mouth with the pen slightly angled toward Jeremy.

This request appears to be too subtle for Carla, who stares at Luis with no response (Fig. 30). It takes Luis three request attempts (lines 1, 3, and 9) for Carla to finally get Jeremy’s attention. With each subsequent attempt, Luis produces a more defined hand point (Figs. 29, 31, 33). Nevertheless, Luis maintains the inconspicuous nature —in front of the body, small, and fast —with which he produces the three requests. On the third attempt, Carla finally taps Jeremy on the shoulder (line 13, Fig. 35) and points toward Luis (Fig. 36 —obstructed from view but can be seen from the other camera angle).

As Luis is attempting to get Jeremy’s attention, I start to move away from the camcorder directed at José. I head toward Mr. Inga’s desk, where I retrieve a lens cleaner from my camera bag. In Figures 28-30, I walk away from the camcorder. In Figures 31-33 (lines 4, 8), I stop to pick up and give a piece of paper to a student. Then in Figure 34, I continue walking toward the teacher’s desk, passing Luis in Figure 35 (line 14). As I pass by, Luis glances in my direction without turning his head to look at me (line 15, Fig. 35). Having seen that I am facing away from his table, Luis finally waves for Jeremy’s attention (Fig. 36), which he had chosen not to do up to this point.

By Figure 36, Luis has an active participation framework with Jeremy and has seen that I am facing away from his table. In Extract 4.3, Luis will initiate the first request for Jeremy to move the camcorder (lines 16-17).

Extract 4.3.

Capitalizing on a participation framework where I cannot oversee what Luis signs, Luis tells Jeremy to move the camcorder (lines 16-17, Figs. 37-40). Luis does not sign as inconspicuously as when he was initially attempting to get Jeremy’s attention, but he does produce the request quickly, completing the utterance in 1.5 seconds. Although Luis attempts to produce his request quickly, Jeremy does not follow along, initially not responding to Luis at all (line 19). When Jeremy finally responds, it is with confusion. Jeremy abruptly moves his shoulders up and lowers his eyebrows (line 20, Fig. 41). Jeremy misses Luis’s response (a lip point to the camcorder), however, because he turns to look at me (lines 20-21, Fig. 42). When Jeremy looks back at Luis, Luis repeats the lip point to the camcorder (line 23, Fig. 43).

In Extract 4.4, I turn back toward Luis and Jeremy’s table, which Luis responds to by once again dissimulating the conversation with Jeremy.

Extract 4.4.

Luis’s lip point prompts Jeremy to look at the camcorder (line 24, Fig. 44). While Jeremy is doing so, Luis looks at me out of the corner of his eye and sees that I have turned around toward their table (line 25) with the lens cleaner in my hand. As Jeremy turns around and asks, “Huh?” (line 26), Luis uses an inconspicuous cheek point towards me (line 27, Fig. 45). Jeremy does not respond to the discreet nature of Luis’s point and, instead, looks directly at me (line 28, Fig. 46).

At the same time, however, José waves to me from his seat. Both boys catch my attention, and I look over at Jeremy first (line 29, Fig. 47). When Jeremy looks away from me and towards the camcorder (Fig. 47), I begin to turn my head toward José, who is still waving to me (Fig. 47). Jeremy then continues to respond to Luis conspicuously, making no attempt to hide his signing. Jeremy first points to me (line 32, Fig. 48), signs CONNECT (Fig. 49), and then points to the camcorder (Fig. 50), while staring at Luis. Although not visible in the camera angle used in Figure 48, by the time Jeremy points to me, I am already looking at José and have started walking in José’s direction (line 31).

In Extract 4.5, Luis continues to try to dissimulate the conversation with Jeremy, until I walk behind Luis and my gaze is no longer directed toward his table.

Extract 4.5.

In response to Jeremy’s signed question, Luis makes a concerted effort to stop the conversation with Jeremy while I am looking in their direction. Luis looks forward while shaking his head (line 33, Fig. 51) and then down at his notebook while producing a slight pen waggle to Jeremy (Fig. 52). Then, as I walk past, Luis looks directly up at me (line 36, Fig. 53). Unaware of Luis’s gaze or the conversation, I continue walking past without looking at Luis (Fig. 53-55). Meanwhile, Jeremy, having not received a response from Luis, returns to his own work (Fig. 54).

As soon as I walk past, however, Luis immediately calls for Jeremy’s attention again (line 37, Fig. 54). With my gaze directed away, Luis reaches his body across the table as he waves for Jeremy’s attention (Fig. 55). When Jeremy looks at him, Luis re-signs the request (lines 38-39, Figs. 56-58). This time, Jeremy appears to correctly interpret Luis’s utterance. Jeremy stands up and approaches the camcorder (line 40, Fig. 59), but then switches directions and looks at the board instead (Fig. 60). Although on this first attempt Jeremy does not comply with Luis’s request, a little while later, Luis is successful in convincing Jeremy to do so. When Jeremy ultimately does move the camcorder, I catch him doing it and tell Jeremy to sit back down (Figure 61). Luis, however, as the instigator, does not get in trouble. Notice Luis laughing as I reprimand Jeremy in Figure 61.

Figure 61.

Through the analysis of Extract 4, I have illustrated the co-operative interactional work that went into positioning me as an authority figure in the classroom. This relied crucially on Luis’s visual orientation and management of the embodied participation framework. Although I was unaware of how Luis was positioning me, my actions of moving around the classroom were critical to the unfolding interaction. Luis responded to my actions, and the changing embodied participation framework they created, to ensure my status as a non-oversee-er. Meanwhile, Luis navigated the responses of the students around him (hearing and deaf), who were having difficulty interpreting his subtle signing. Luis adapted the location, timing, speed, and size of the semiotic resources he used in response to the actions of the other students and me.

5. Conclusion

In this paper, I have considered my participation role as a researcher through the lens of the participation frameworks that emerged in moments of situated interaction. While there are discussions on the role and impact of the researcher in ethnographic fieldwork and video-based studies of interaction, rarely do researchers turn the analytic lens on themselves to conduct a microanalysis of their participation in their research. Such a microanalysis has illustrated how my participation role is a co-operative achievement between myself and the members of the classroom. In particular, I have drawn attention to the agency of the students to shift me from an observer role into a more active role in the social ecology.

In drawing attention to the co-operative nature of my role in the classroom, I have demonstrated the way in which the students, the teacher, and I are locally managing my status in the classroom. The students’ ability to shift me out of the role of an observer can be seen by attending to moments when students positioned my status as other than that of a ratified overhearer in a classroom participation framework. Students brought out my role as both a companion and an authority figure by directly addressing me to share their feelings on happenings in the classroom, as well as to ask me work-related questions. In addition, I illustrated that students could position me as an authority figure through attending to me as an unratified overhearer and ensuring that I was a non-oversee-er. A number of the examples I discussed demonstrated that I did not have to be aware of the actions of students for my status in the participation framework to shift. Despite being unaware of Luis directing Jeremy to move the camcorder, my actions became central to Luis’s management of the embodied participation framework. This discussion has highlighted the dynamic process of sustaining my role as an observer in the classroom.

Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. BCS-1357221, a Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA) Fellowship, and a F.G. Bailey Fellowship from UCSD. I am grateful to Julia Katila, Yumei Gan, Marjorie Harness Goodwin, José Goico, Jr., and the reviewers for their helpful comments on drafts of this article.

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