Article published In: Pragmatics & Cognition
Vol. 26:2/3 (2019) ► pp.167–196
The intercorporeality of closing a curtain
Sharing similar past experiences in interaction
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: 12 February 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.19030.kat
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.19030.kat
Abstract
Jointly coordinated affective activities are fundamental for social relationships. This study investigates a naturally
occurring interaction between two women who produced reciprocal emotional stances towards similar past experiences. Adopting a microanalytic
approach, we describe how the participants re-enact their past experiences through different but aligning synchronized gestures. This
embodied dialogue evolves into affective flooding, in which participants co-produce their body memories of pulling down window blinds to
block out sunshine. We show how the participants live this moment intercorporeally and how multiple timescales are tied together in gesture,
which is both an incarnation of body history and a novel expression of it. Thus, collaborative gesturing is a resource for experiencing
together emotions re-enacted from body memories. Contributing to our understanding of the intercorporeality of human action, we provide an
empirical investigation into how emotions and multiple timescales are nested in cooperative gestures. Data are in Finnish with English
translations.
Keywords: intercorporeality, microanalysis, gesture, affective peak, synchronous action
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: Intercorporeality and interaffectivity in interaction
- 2.Intercorporeal and ecological approaches to gesture
- 3.Sharing emotion and affect in interaction
- 4.Method
- 4.1Data and setting
- 4.2Methodological approach
- 5.Findings
- 5.1Merging into an extended We-relationship
- 5.1.1Affective peak experienced through co-gesturing
- 5.1.2Celebrating the similarity of past experiences and emotional stances
- 5.1.3Experiencing togetherness through a shared re-enactment of past experiences
- 5.2Empathetic co-participation as a basis for emotional alliance
- 5.3Recycling gestures with transformation enables the emergence of a similar but individual emotional stance
- 5.1Merging into an extended We-relationship
- 6.Discussion
- 7.Conclusions
- Note
References
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