Navigating the complex social ecology of screen-based activity in video-mediated interaction

Abstract

Task-oriented video-mediated interaction takes place within a complex digital-social ecology which presents, to participants, a practical problem of social coordination: How to navigate, in mutually accountable ways, between interacting with the remote co-participants and scrutinizing one’s own screen –which suspends interaction–, for instance when searching for information on a search engine. Using conversation analysis for the examination of screen-recorded dyadic interactions, this study identifies a range of practices participants draw on to alert co-participants to incipient suspensions of talk. By accounting for such suspensions as being task-related through verbal alerts, typically in the form let me/let’s X, participants successfully ‘buy time’, which allows them to fully concentrate on their screen activity and thereby ensure the progression of task accomplishment. We discuss how these findings contribute to our understanding of the complex ecologies of technology-mediated interactions.

Different interlocutors, different EFL interactional strategies: A case study of intercultural telecollaborative projects in secondary classrooms

“…Numerous studies have also documented the complexities and challenges in the organization and implementation of such educational telecollaborative projects (Balaman & Doehler, 2021;Hauck & Youngs, 2008;Helm, 2015;O'Dowd, 2006O'Dowd, , 2013O'Dowd & Ritter, 2006). In a recent study, Nishio and Nakatsugawa (2020) analyzed tensions that emerged during a six-week telecollaborative project between American learners of Japanese and Japanese learners of English through their understandings of successful participation.…”

“…This study demonstrated the value of integrating telecollaboration into L2 learning and teaching, as it gave learners an opportunity to explore the intersection of language and culture. In another study, Balaman and Doehler (2021) examined an L2 adult speaker over the course of four years and showed that learners adjusted their grammar for interaction while adapting to new situations, languages, or media. However, research in secondary school settings, the focus of our study, is less prolific.…”

Multimodal Resolution of Overlapping Talk in Video-Mediated L2 Instruction

“…As pointed out by González-Lloret (2015), micro-analytical studies on video-mediated L2 learning can be categorized into two major strands: descriptive studies (e.g., Uskokovic and Talehgani-Nikazm 2022;Wigham 2017;Hampel and Stickler 2012;Rusk and Pörn 2019;Dooly and Davitova 2018;Jakonen and Jauni 2021;Balaman 2019) and developmental studies (e.g., Balaman and Doehler 2022;Doehler and Balaman 2021;Sert 2017;Balaman 2018). Descriptive studies seek to unveil the generic structures of VMI, that is, how participants manage sequential organization, turn-taking, repair, etc., in such settings.…”

“…Dooly and Davitova (2018), for example, document how the practices of showing smartphone screens and typing are used by a group of teenage learners to maintain progressivity in the face of communication barriers. Balaman and Doehler (2022) and Doehler and Balaman (2021) describe the development and routinization of grammatical formats (e.g., let me and let's x) used to transition into screen-based activities. Finally, in their study of Swedish-Finnish Tandem interactions, Rusk and Pörn (2019) show the local emergence of several strategies to deal with lags, such as an explicit orientation by the L1 speaker towards the L2 speaker's incoming turn.…”

The spatial organization of hybrid Scrum meetings: A multimodal conversation analysis study

“…Since participants do not share a co-present material space in video mediated presence, they are removed from interactional cues that communication and collaboration rely upon in co-located work environments (Hindmarsh et al, 1998). For example, with limited and asymmetric access to each other’s immediate environment, participants cannot monitor each other’s conduct (Balaman and Pakarek Doehler, 2022; Heath and Luff, 1993; Mlynář et al, 2018) which is a crucial resource for mutual intelligibility and coordination of collaborative wok (Heath and Luff, 2000).…”