Body Talk: Moving beyond speech when analysing literature discussions

Abstract

The intent of this article is to promote a methodological approach to the analysis of literature discussions by adopting a conversational analytic approach that views embodied actions (including talk) as multimodal. It is argued that this analytic approach moves beyond previous studies that focus on talk only, when analysing literature discussions, and further, that such an approach contributes to an increase in our understanding of the complex meaning-making processes that are set into play when students interact on literary texts in school.

Under the teacher’s radar: Literacy practices in task-related smartphone use in the connected classroom

“…In the analysis we use conversation analysis (CA), which means that we view social interaction as constituted in face-toface interactions, possible to investigate turn-by-turn in the sequential ordering of human cooperation in naturally occurring encounters between people (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008;Schegloff, 2007;Sidnell & Stivers, 2013). In our analysis, we understand both verbal and non-verbal language as resources that people use to produce and reproduce social reality; thus not only talk but also other semiotic resources are seen as constitutive of the activity being analysed in this article (Asplund, 2016;Goodwin, 2000). CA allows for in-depth exploration of how discursive literacy practices are made relevant from the participants' perspective, and how literacy practices evolve as social practices in people's everyday encounters (Davidson, 2012;Freebody, 2013;Tanner, 2017).…”

“This angle that we talked about”: learning how to weld in interaction

“…In the methodical organisation of turn-taking and sequences, not only talk but also other semiotic resources such as gazes, gestures, body movements and physical objects are seen as constitutive of and integral to the ongoing interaction. Thus, in this article the relationship between talk and embodied practices is viewed as processes that mutually contextualise one another, providing public resources for the teacher and the student to organise relevant actions which, in concert with each other, contribute to the ongoing situated activity of welding (Asplund 2016;Asplund and Kilbrink 2018;Goodwin 2000Goodwin , 2006Streeck, Goodwin and LeBaron 2011). The use of detailed representations of the interaction that has been developed within CA is in this article presented in the form of detailed transcriptions of spoken data (see transcript notations in Table 1 below for transcription conventions), as well as still images of visual phenomena in the interaction between the teacher and the student.…”