Guided tours are a perspicuous setting for the study of mobile formations. Guided visits are characterized by mobile phases in which the group moves forward, alternating with moments in which participants adopt a more stationary, object-focused positioning. In this article, we pay attention to specific ways of walking from one point to another as a mobile formation: We focus on mobile reorientations of the group changing the initially projected trajectory. This particular movement allows us to observe key features of mobile formations: how they are initiated, by whom, with which resources. We sketch a systematic study of multimodal practices through which various kinds of participants initiate a reorientation of the group, with a particular focus on the category of the participants initiating the reorientation (the "guide" vs. the "guided"), on the action they achieve at the beginning of a sequence in order to do so (questions, noticings, comments), and on the multimodal resources they use.
This article examines a recurrent format that speakers use for defining ordinary expressions or technical terms. Drawing on data from four different languages-Flemish, French, German, and Italian-it focuses on definitions in which a definiendum is first followed by a negative definitional component ('definiendum is not X'), and then by a positive definitional component ('definiendum is Y'). The analysis shows that by employing this format, speakers display sensitivity towards a potential meaning of the definiendum that recipients could have taken to be valid. By negating this meaning, speakers discard this possible, yet unintended understanding. The format serves three distinct interactional purposes: (a) it is used for argumentation, e.g. in discussions and political debates, (b) it works as a resource for imparting knowledge, e.g. in expert talk and instructions, and (c) it is employed, in ordinary conversation, for securing the addressee's correct understanding of a possibly problematic expression. The findings contribute to our understanding of how epistemic claims and displays relate to the turn-constructional and sequential organization of talk. They also show that the much quoted 'problem of meaning' is, first and foremost, a participant's problem.
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