Cover not available

Article published In: Australian Review of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 33:1 (2010) ► pp.3.1–3.21

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF

Looking for action

Talk and gaze home position in the airline cockpit

Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 1 January 2010
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.2104/aral1003
This paper considers the embodied nature of discourse for a professional work setting. It examines language in interaction in the airline cockpit, and specifically how shifts in pilots’ eye gaze direction can indicate the action of talk, that is, what talk is doing and its relative contribution to work-in-progress. Looking towards the other pilot’s face treats talk as occurring outside the predictable and scripted sequential flow of interaction for work. The talk might be casual conversation unrelated to work tasks, or involve negotiation of work arising from locally contingent circumstances. Pilots treat particular sites for looking, cockpit instrument panels and windows, as a home position for gaze for planned and predictable work activity. Looking away from this home position, as either speaker or recipient, treats talk as doing something else. The paper draws on insights and methods of conversation analysis, and uses naturally occurring data, video recordings of pilots at work on actual scheduled passenger flights.
References (30)
Arminen, Ilkka. (2005). Institutional interaction: Studies of talk at work. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brumfit, Christopher. (2004). Applied linguistics in 2004. Unity in diversity? AILA Review, 171: 133–136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coupland, Justine. (Ed.) (2000). Small talk. Edinburgh Gate, UK: Pearson Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, A.; Elder, C. (Eds) (2004). The handbook of applied linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Faith, Nicholas. (1998). Black box (2nd ed.). London: Boxtree.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gardner, Rod. (2004). Conversation analysis. In A. Davies & C. Elder, (Eds.), The handbook of applied linguistics (pp. 262–284). Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles. (1981). Conversational organization: interaction between speakers and hearers. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1994). Professional vision, American Anthropologist, 96(3): 606–633. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2003). The body in action. In J. Coupland & R. Gwyn, (Eds.), Discourse, the body, and identity (pp. 19–42). Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haddington, Pentti. (2006). The organization of gaze and assessments as resources for stance taking. Text and Talk 26(3): 281–328. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (in press). Turn-taking for turntaking: mobility, time and action in the sequential organization of junction-negotiations in cars. Research on Language and Social Interaction.
Haddington, Pentti; Keisanen, Tiina. (2009). Location, mobility and the body as resources in selecting a route [Special issue]. Journal of Pragmatics, 411: 1938–1961. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kidwell, Mardi. (2006). “Calm down!”: the role of gaze in the interactional management of hysteria by the police. Discourse Studies, 81: 745–770. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kidwell, Mardi; Zimmerman, Don. (2007). Joint attention as action. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(3): 592–611. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laurier, Eric. (2005). Searching for a parking space. Intellectica 41-42 (2-3): 101–116.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lerner, Gene. (2003). Selecting next speaker: the context-sensitive operation of a context-free organization. Language in Society. 32(2): 177–201. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nevile, Maurice. (2004a). Beyond the Black Box: Talk-in-Interaction in the Airline Cockpit. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2004b). Integrity in the airline cockpit: embodying claims about progress for the conduct of an approach briefing. Research on Language and Social Interaction 37(4): 447–480. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2007). Seeing the point: attention and participation in the airline cockpit. In L. Mondada & V. Markaki, (Eds.), Interacting bodies. Online proceedings of the 2nd international conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies. Lyon: ENS LSH & ICAR Research Lab. Available at [URL].
Nevile, Maurice; Rendle-Short, Johanna. (2007). Language as action. [Special issue]. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 30(3):30.1–30.13. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rendle-Short, Johanna. (2003). So what does that show us? analysis of the discourse marker “so” in monologic talk. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 26(2): 46–62. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Robinson, Jeffrey. (1998). Getting down to business: talk, gaze, and body orientation during openings of doctor-patient consultations. Human Communication Research, 25(1): 97–123. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Robinson, Jeffrey D; Stivers, Tanya. (2001). Achieving activity transitions in physician-patient encounters: from history taking to physical examination. Human Communication Research, 27(2): 253–298.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey; Schegloff, Emanuel A. (2002). Home position. Gesture, 2(2): 133–146. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1998). Body torque. Social Research, 65(3): 535–596.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A.; Koshik, Irene; Jacoby, Sally; Olsher, David. (2002). Conversation analysis and applied linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 221: 3–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya; Heritage, John. (2001). Breaking the sequential mold: answering “more than the question” during comprehensive history taking. Text, 21(1/2): 151–185.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Suchman, Lucy. (1996). Constituting shared workspaces. In Y. Engström & D. Middleton, (Eds.), Cognition and Communication at Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
ten Have, Paul. (2007). Doing conversation analysis: a practical guide (2nd Ed.). London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trappes-Lomax, Hugh. (2004). Discourse analysis. In A. Davies & C. Elder, (Eds.), The handbook of applied linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

Argaman, Einav
2023. Neither speaker nor recipient: The middle-distance look of unaddressed participants. Discourse Studies 25:5 ► pp. 573 ff. DOI logo
Magangxa, Pretty N. & Deidre C. Geduld
2023. Student teachers’ reflections on semiotics in Grade 3 isiXhosa literacy lessons. South African Journal of Childhood Education 13:1 DOI logo
Oliveira, Leandro
2023. Recursos educacionais e multimodalidade na construção de significados em aulas de Estereoquímica do Ensino Superior. Revista Docência do Ensino Superior 13 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Moro, Luciana, Eduardo F. Mortimer & Andrée Tiberghien
2020. The use of social semiotic multimodality and joint action theory to describe teaching practices: two cases studies with experienced teachers. Classroom Discourse 11:3 ► pp. 229 ff. DOI logo
Sellberg, Charlott
2018. From briefing, through scenario, to debriefing: the maritime instructor’s work during simulator-based training. Cognition, Technology & Work 20:1 ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo
Levin, Lena, Jakob Cromdal, Mathias Broth, Anne-Danièle Gazin, Pentti Haddington, Paul McIlvenny, Helen Melander & Mirka Rauniomaa
2017. Unpacking corrections in mobile instruction: Error-occasioned learning opportunities in driving, cycling and aviation training. Linguistics and Education 38 ► pp. 11 ff. DOI logo
Theobald, Maryanne, Susan Danby, Christina Davidson, Sandy Houen, Brooke Scriven & Karen Thorpe
2016. How Talk and Interaction Unfold in a Digitally Enabled Preschool Classroom. Australian Journal of Linguistics 36:2 ► pp. 189 ff. DOI logo
Nishizaka, Aug
2014. Sustained orientation to one activity in multiactivity during prenatal ultrasound examinations. In Multiactivity in Social Interaction, ► pp. 79 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 6 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue