Language and the Moving Body: Directive Actions With the Finnish kato “look” in Nature-Related Activities

Abstract

The article explores how social interaction is accomplished through intertwined verbal and bodily conduct, focusing on directive actions that include a second-person imperative form of the Finnish verb katsoa “to look,” typically kato. The study draws on video recordings of various outdoor activities in nature, mostly from family interaction with small children, and employs interactional linguistics and conversation analysis as its analytic framework. The directive kato actions in focus are produced (1) as noticings, to initiate a new course of action by directing the recipient to look at and possibly talk about a target that the speaker treats as newsworthy; (2) as showings, to initiate an evaluative course of action by directing the recipient to look at and align with the speaker’s stance toward the target; or (3) as prompts, to contribute to an ongoing course of action by directing the recipient to do something relevant to or with the target. Apart from the use of kato, the actions differ in their design. In noticings, the target is typically named verbally and pointed at through embodied means, but the participants remain at some distance from it (e.g., kato muurahaispesä tuossa “look an anthill there”). In showings, the participant producing the action typically approaches the recipient with the target in hand, so that the naming of the target is not necessary but, by evaluating the target themselves, the shower explicates how the target should be seen (e.g., kato kuinka jättejä “look how giant {ones}”). In prompts, neither the target nor the intended action is named, but the target is typically indicated by embodied means, for example, by the participants’ approaching and pointing at it, and the intended action is inferable from the participants’ prior conduct (e.g., kato tuossa “look there” and pointing at a berry in the participants’ vicinity when berry picking has been established as relevant). By examining these three grammar-body assemblages, the article uncovers regularities in the co-occurrence of multiple modalities and contributes to new understandings of language use in its natural ecology – in co-present social interaction.

Experiences in Collecting 360° Video Data and Collaborating Remotely in Virtual Reality

“…However, mounting an additional action camera on an individual participant's chest makes it possible to capture, closeup, their manual activities. In analysing such activities as foraging, this setup provides the possibility, for example, to examine the coordinated use of language, participant's gestures and other embodied actions in how they direct others to look at a target or to do something with or to it (Siitonen, Rauniomaa and Keisanen 2021). Altogether, the use of 360° cameras and additional 2D cameras increases the reliability of data collection and the analysis of interactions in mobile settings.…”

Invoking Rules in Everyday Family Interactions: A Method for Appealing to Practical Reason

“…Verbally, she produces what Potter and Hepburn (2020) have called a "shaming interrogative" kuulikko ('did you hear? '), which serves to foreground the child's moral accountability for defying her mother's prior prohibitive, followed by an attention-directing kato ('look') (Hakulinen & Seppänen, 1992;Siitonen et al, 2021) and a warning that the milk will flow over if she continues to blow (line 05), which construes Viola as not being fully aware of the possible consequences of her actions. Meanwhile, Mom supports her intervention in an embodied way by moving the glass further away from Viola, preventing her physically from blowing further (see Fig.…”