Turn Continuations and Gesture: “And Then”-Prefacing in Multi-Party Conversations

Abstract

This article offers an analysis of turn-expanding practices with the connective å sen ‘and then’ in Swedish multi-party conversations in which the participants discuss and assess works of visual art. The connective is recurrently used to introduce a turn continuation, i.e. a stretch of talk that is produced after a possibly completed turn-constructional unit (TCU). We identify three types of continuations: same-speaker continuations, occurring post gap or post-other talk, and other-continuations by the next speaker. Some of the “and then” continuations are clausal, syntactically free-standing, while non-clausal continuations have more in common with TCU increments. “And then” continuations specify, restrict or redirect the unfolding contribution while at the same time orienting to a collective interactional project. In same-speaker continuations, the speaker can introduce a new aspect of the established theme or offer an account. Other-continuations can be used to achieve a shift in footing to introduce a somewhat non-aligning contribution. Both grammar and embodied resources (especially hand gestures) are activated in the management of the completion of a prior turn unit, the initiation of a turn continuation and the recompletion of the speaker’s turn. The typical multimodal trajectory is: syntactic completion of a first unit + retracted gesture; link to prior talk and upcoming talk with “and then” followed by the core of the continuation + a redeployed gesture; and finally, syntactic completion of the continuing unit + retracted gesture to a rest position.

L2 grammar‐for‐interaction: Functions of “and”‐prefaced turns in L2 students’ collaborative talk

“…Linguistic objects that occupy the beginning of a turn have been variably called discourse markers (e.g., Bolden, 2006, 2010; García García, 2021; H.R.S. Kim, 2013; Y. Kim, 2009; Pekarek Doehler, 2016), response tokens (e.g., Golato, 2018; Hayashi, 2009; Hayashi & Kushida, 2013), and connectives (Heritage & Sorjonen, 1994; Rönnqvist & Lindström, 2021) in CA research. In line with Heritage and Sorjonen (2018), we prefer the term “turn‐initial particle,” since it refers to the use of a single uninflected element of language.…”

“…Moreover, all four tasks are situated in specific activities in their spatio‐material ecologies—that is, interactants design their TCUs by drawing on the various multimodal resources at hand in the situation and coordinating their use in context‐ and activity‐specific ways, be it in L1 or L2 interactions. For instance, Rönnqvist and Lindström (2021) demonstrated how both L1 and L2 speakers of Swedish use the Swedish turn‐initial particle “å sen [and then],” recurrently together with a pointing gesture at a relevant object to mark topic continuation. “Å sen” is then especially used to specify, restrict, or redirect the topic in different ways, yet its meaning for the participants is closely tied to the pointing gesture.…”

“…“Å sen” is then especially used to specify, restrict, or redirect the topic in different ways, yet its meaning for the participants is closely tied to the pointing gesture. The authors explain that the turn‐initial particle in these uses does not itself elaborate on the previous talk but, thanks to its additive meaning, it makes the speaker change and the shift more subtle; it also makes it possible for the current speaker to produce contributions that are potentially nonaligning with the previous speakers (Rönnqvist & Lindström, 2021, p. 9). More relevantly, the “å sen” precedes the pointing gesture, thus serving mainly the linking function, while the embodied resource is employed as an interactional cue, for example, to draw participants’ attention to the next item to be talked about and to signal turn completion.…”

“…Interestingly, in Excerpt 2, the follow‐up questions related to the students’ areas of interest are prefaced with “and”—unlike in Heritage and Sorjonen's (1994) study, where the follow‐up questions seeking elaboration or clarification were produced without the particle. The use of the “and” thus seems to laminate the actions with an explicit sense of “moving on” (see also Rönnqvist & Lindström, 2021). Moreover, “and”‐prefacing is one resource among others (e.g., gaze and the material artifacts) that contributes to making these turns intersubjectively understandable as particular actions.…”

“…Such a multimodal reconceptualization is visible in a redirection of focus to what Pekarek Doehler et al. (2022) have recently termed as the “grammar–body interface,” and in the increasing analytical attention to how, for example, turn‐initial particles are deployed as part of multimodal action packages (e.g., Pekarek Doehler et al., 2021; Rönnqvist & Lindström, 2021). In the present study, we align with such a multimodal CA approach and analyze turn‐initial “and” with a view on how embodied and material interactional resources configure and fine‐tune the relatively broad meaning horizon of the particle in locally meaningful ways.…”