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Article published In: Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 9:2 (2018) ► pp.274–296

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Breathing life into social presence

The case of texting between friends

 | University of Southern Denmark
 | University of Southern Denmark
Published online: 28 June 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.15067.fes
Abstract
Whilst many studies focus on human-to-media interactions, this paper turns to how a multimodal medium contributes to human-to-human interaction. By bringing together both radical embodied cognitive science (Chemero, Anthony. 2009. Radical embodied cognitive science. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and dialogism (Linell, Per. 2009. Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically: Interactional and contextual theories of human sense-making. Charlotte, N. C.: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), the paper develops an anti-representationalist approach to the concept of social presence. We use an exploratory study of close friendships that maintain their interaction through the use of the mobile instant messaging service WhatsApp. In so doing, we describe texting as language-activity where people engage with each other by using resources from body, environment, and brain. Our work represents a major departure from previous studies of mobile interaction in adopting an embodied view of language and cognition. By so doing, we show how parties create anticipatory routines that enable them to ‘hear’ and ‘see’ their interlocutor. The paper’s main contribution is to draw attention to this kind of heightened social presence that we choose to call “co-imagining”.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Reaching out for social presence
    • 2.2Language in a socially embodied interworld
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Participants
    • 3.3Measures
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Texting in a shared environment
    • 4.2Bringing forth a Pre-pivot
    • 4.3Texting and the living other
    • 4.4Hearing voices
  • 5.Social-embodied interworld – past to presence
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
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