Embodied Negotiation Prompts Joint Solution

This section explores how both speaker and recipient synchronise their talk and hand gestures in parallel to negotiate for meaning of an item that they are searching for in the ongoing talk. The embodied practices used in the negotiation of meaning in these examples are what I will term as ‘embodied negotiation.’ The next example will

examine the embodied negotiation in the search sequences featuring the use of talk and embodied actions deployed by the speaker and the addressed recipient. The embodied negotiation demonstrated by the speaker and the addressed recipient become available resources for the third person who is the non-speaking participant to produce a joint solution. Excerpt 12 is a conversation between Mus, Lea and Ann, in which Lea talks about her brother’s college experience living in a room with five other students. Before this excerpt, Ann has expressed surprise that the room that Lea’s brother lives in can accommodate five people.

Excerpt 12: Double decker

(Ann: Vietnam; Mus: Malaysia; Lea: Kazakhstan)

1 ANN: I think semi- I think they give=

((Ann gazes at Mus.))

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3 ANN: │=single:: the::(0.4)°>kind of known as<°

│ ((Ann looks at Lea’s hands movement upwards & downwards. Ann makes similar hand movement downwards & upwards. [Fig. 6.33]))

4 │semi:: ↑

│((Ann shifts her gaze to Mus and moves hands upwards & downwards. [Fig. 6.34]))

Figure 6.33 Figure 6.34

5 (0.7)

6 MUS: mm::

7 (0.2)

8 ANN: be:d >I don't know< how to say it like-

((Ann gazes at Mus.))

9 LEA: be:ds

((Lea moves her hands upwards & downwards. Both Ann & Lea gaze at each other))

10 (0.4)

11 ANN: yah [like- like-]

12 LEA: [ yah yah ]

13 (0.2)

14 LEA: they have [two=

15 ANN: [like-

16 LEA: │=like [two levels

│((Lea gazes at Ann and moves her fingers apart. [Fig. 6.35]))

17 ANN: │[two (.) levels

│((Ann gazes at Mus and moves her right hand away from her left hand. [Fig. 6.35]))

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18 MUS: _↑mm::

((Mus nods and gazes at Ann.))

19 (0.3)

20 MUS: oka:y

21 ANN: _{│what is it ca:ll↑ si- call semi:: ↑ °be:d°}

│((Both Ann and Mus gaze at each other.))

22 MUS: er:: (.) dou[ble decke:r?

23 ANN: [forgo:t

24 (0.2)

25 ANN: a double decke:r maybe↑

26 MUS: _maybe↑

27 LEA: °don't know°

28 MUS: [°haha°]

29 ANN: [maybe ] I think it's double decker

30 MUS: ↑mm ↓hm

The segment in Excerpt 12 begins with Ann making an attempt to describe the types of bed that are provided in the room. However, Ann shows trouble in her turn, through repetition, a cut-off word, and recycling parts of her word, and also displays an elongation vowel sound in her incomplete utterance, which show the launches of her word search (line 1 – line 4). As Lea recognises Ann’s trouble in talk in line 1, Lea brings her gaze towards Ann and begins her utterance in line 2. It is observed that Lea makes an attempt to assist Ann when she takes the turn in line 2. As Lea self-selects herself to take the next turn (line 2), she abruptly self-interrupts through the cut-off word “like-”, and she completes her turn through displaying embodied completion (Olsher, 2004), which overlaps with Ann’s utterance in line 4.

When Lea demonstrates an embodied completion, she moves her right hand by placing her right palm forward with closed fingers facing down and moves her hand gestures in an upward and downward movement as she visually describes the bed. The entry timing of hand gestures movement begins simultaneously with Ann’s utterance in line 3. Moreover, Ann’s turn in line 3 latches with Lea’s cut-off word in line 2, and as

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she makes a continuation she produces similar hand movements to Lea’s hand gestures, as illustrated in Figure 6.33.

Furthermore, at the onset of Ann’s word search activity (line 3), Ann gazes at Lea’s hands and also puts her right hand up to align it with Lea’s hand position (Figure 6.33). Then, Ann moves her right hand downwards and upwards in harmony with Lea’s hand movement. Ann’s hand gestures are quite interesting here in a way that she is visually echoing to Lea’s hand gestures. Following this, Ann turns to direct her gaze to Mus, and Ann repeats similar hand gestures by moving her right hand downwards and upwards as she utters “semi:: ↑” (line 4) in an upward pitch, as shown in Figure 6.34.

It is noteworthy that Ann’s rising intonation, gestures and gaze directions towards Mus demonstrate that she is seeking Mus’ assistance in her word search (line 4). What follows is a 0.7 second silence (line 5), after which Mus provides a token response “mm::” (line 6) as a continuer, possibly showing her listenership to Ann (Gardner, 2013). Recognising Mus’ response in line 6, a short gap follows (line 7). Ann maintains her gaze on Mus and makes a continuation as she explicitly displays her trouble in searching for the word by using a formulaic expression (Brouwer, 2003; Jung, 2004) as she says “be:d >I don't know< how to say it like-” (line 8).

It can be understood that as Ann explicitly displays her trouble in her word search and directs her gaze at Mus, this entails an invitation for Mus to help her in her word search (Kurhila, 2006). However, Lea self-selects herself and produces and gesturally repeats a similar hand movement when she produces the embodied

completion (Olsher, 2004; Olsher, 2008), moving her hands upward and downward and repeating the word “be:ds” with emphasis (line 9). At this point, both Ann and Lea

maintain their gaze at each other as they continue to show further negotiation in line 10 to line 17. Although they use short phrases in their utterance, both Lea and Ann display further hand movements in line 16 to line 17, visually forming negotiation for the lexical item “bed” and the demonstration of their hand movements are used as embodied negotiation (Figure 6.35)

What is significant in the embodied negotiation stage between Lea and Ann is that both produce resemblance gestures in their overlap utterances in line 15 and line 16. A close analysis of the resemblance gestures shows that in line 15 Lea extends her hands

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forward and moves her two fingers slightly apart as she gazes at Ann. At the same moment, too, Ann looks at Mus and extends both her hands slightly apart in front of her body posture by placing her left hand below and her right hand above. Ann then moves her right hand upwards as she says “two level” (line 16). Although both Ann and Lea do not direct their gaze at each other, both show a resemblance of hand gestures that move in synchronisation to present a similar context of their talk, as presented in Figure 6.35.

Analysing Mus as the non-speaking participant it is noticed that during the

embodied negotiation phase she keeps her gaze towards Ann and Lea to show that she is observing both their both embodied actions. Following the talk and embodied practices demonstrated by Lea and Ann, Mus produces a token response “↑mm::” with head nods as she gazes at Ann in line 18, and then produces another token response “oka:y” with a falling intonation, which could be considered acknowledgement of her understanding. Following Mus’ token response, Ann looks at Mus and displays an explicit marker in her word search sequence when she says “what is it ca:ll↑ si- call

semi::↑ °be:d” (line 20), inviting Mus to co-participate in her search activity. Mus returns her gaze to Ann and recognises the gaze directed at her as an opportunity for her co-participation. Thus, in line 21, Mus proposes a candidate

solution “double decke:r?”, which ends in a rising intonation. The rising intonation

in Mus’ collaborative word solution demonstrates that she is ‘try-marking’ it (Sacks and Schegloff, 1979), and the rising intonation also shows that she is seeking confirmation from Ann (Koshik and Seo, 2012). Following the candidate solution proposed by Mus, Ann gives her a partial clarification by repeating the candidate solution produced and using an ‘uncertainty’ modulation markers such as “maybe” and “I think” (Schegloff et

al., 1977). However, Ann then shows acceptance for the candidate solution produced,

and Mus shows agreement through displaying a minimal token response (line 29 – line 30).

This section shows the ‘embodied negotiation’ of participants working together to accomplish a collaborative solution in the word search sequence. In so doing, the participants creatively use spoken language and embodied actions as resources to negotiate meaning in the word search sequences to accomplish joint participation in

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resolving collaborative word search sequence and thus achieve understanding. The analysis further shows that recurring hand gestures and talk not only support the speaker’s word search process but also form embodied negotiation for participants to align their understanding in the conversation.

6.4 Summary

Section 6.2 of this chapter has shown how the co-participant recognised the current speaker's talk and embodied actions in the search activity as an opportunity to make an entry for a collaborative solution in the word search sequence. Significantly, the addressed participant and the non-speaking participant constitute the role of co- participation in the collaborative word search sequence. Notably, multimodal resources such as vocals, gaze direction and hand gestures of the current speakers became a valuable resource that creates the opportunity to achieve a collaborative solution in the ongoing search.

Section 6.3 examined how both speaker and recipients demonstrate similar hand gestures occurring simultaneously to refer to the searched-for word in the on-going talk. The form of ‘embodied negotiation’ by the participants prompts the third person, acting as a listener in the conversation, to offer a candidate solution for the word search

sequence. Additionally, participants creatively use embodied actions as forms of embodied negotiation to create meaning for the searched-for word. Therefore, the organisation of talk and embodied action by the participants became useful resources to accomplish joint participation in resolving the collaborative word search sequence. The analysis has also uncovered how non-speaking participants display their attentiveness as active participants in the ongoing talk and work towards accomplishing intersubjectivity in word search sequence.

The study next moves to the final analysis chapter, which focuses on how participants make use of talk and embodied actions as resources for collaboration in meaning-making and resolve the word search even though the actual word is not acquired.

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