In:From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance: Essays in honor of Adam Kendon
Edited by Mandana Seyfeddinipur and Marianne Gullberg
[Not in series 188] 2014
► pp. 95–124
Pointing, talk, and the bodies
Reference and joint attention as embodied interactional achievements
Published online: 6 August 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.188.06mon
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.188.06mon
Pointing has been extensively studied in the Gesture Studies literature. This chapter treats pointing, together with other gestures mobilizing the entire body, as multimodal resources deployed by speakers in referring actions that orient to and are responded to by the co-participants. Using conversation analysis, the paper examines the organization of actions in which a speaker initiates a new sequence and, by pointing, establishes the joint attention of the co-participants towards an object. These actions show the complexity of pointing as an interactional phenomenon concerning the organization of turns and sequences. The data consist of video-recorded naturally occurring social interactions and, more specifically, guided visits, which are perspicuous settings for the study of pointing and achieving joint attention.
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