Multimodally aligning with projected continuation in Peninsular Spanish

Sbertoli-Nielsen, Paul

doi:10.1075/il.24017.sbe

Article published In: Interactional Linguistics: Online-First Articles

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Multimodally aligning with projected continuation in Peninsular Spanish

Paul Sbertoli-Nielsen | University of Oslo

Published online: 23 May 2025

https://doi.org/10.1075/il.24017.sbe

Abstract

This article explores resources for multimodally aligning with projected continuation in data from Peninsular Spanish, engaging with method-ological-theoretical frameworks from Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. The article presents a pattern largely representative of a collection of fifteen storytellings: When tellers project continuation (pragmatically, semantically, prosodically, syntactically, gesturally), recipients are silent and embodiedly still, steadily gazing at teller, rarely producing vocal continuers. The Aforementioned recipient behavior appears throughout the data as structurally aligning with the turn-taking system being adjusted to one speaker doing a lengthy turn-at-talk. As pertaining to vocal continuers, the pattern is also representative of a pool of >364 big packages from which the storytellings are collected. One of the rare occasions when vocal continuers are employed in the data from Peninsular Spanish, is in a multimodally restricted participation framework. This study thus invites a multimodal reinterrogation of the roles and frequencies of vocal continuers in the interactional achievement of multi-unit-turns. Alongside work on other languages, however, it also suggests that structural alignment, as a likely universal relational principle, can be language-/culture-specifically routinized.

Keywords: alignment, projected continuation, continuers, gaze, Spanish

Article outline

1.Introduction
2.Resources for aligning with projected continuation in a first exemplar
3.Data overview and methodological-theoretical framework
4.Multimodal alignment with projected continuation in PS
5.Summary and implications
Notes
Symbols used in transcripts
References

References (110)

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