Visualizing Emergent Turn Construction: Seeing Writing While Speaking

Abstract

This study draws on multimodal conversation analysis to emically account for moments in second language (L2) English interaction in which speakers appear to be visualizing text as they talk. One way they do this is by slotting out elements of a turn‐in‐progress in the air, shifting their hand in a slotting gesture from left to right as they say each word to display to their recipient that they are visualizing certain elements of the turn. In other cases, participants use their fingers to ‘write’ elements of the turn‐in‐progress on their palms or in the air. The embodied practices of visualizing a turn component by component as it is formulated therefore make public the temporality of its in situ grammatical production. These multimodally accomplished visualizations also provide the speaker with access to a recalled text that helps them produce the spoken equivalent. The study suggests that English‐as‐a‐foreign language (EFL) learners may therefore support their spoken interaction by visualizing written grammar or lexical items, and that multimodal practices such as the precision‐timed deployment of gaze and gesture make a seemingly intrapsychological process like visualization a social matter. The data are taken from a corpus of 94 video‐recorded paired discussion tests among EFL learners whose first language (L1) was Japanese.

Combinations and Connections: Reaching Across Disciplinary Boundaries

“…Their study links with Greer and Nanbu's (2022, this issue) in that Hellermann and Thorne write of “interbodied” cooperative practices, which they characterize as synchronized or sequentially mirrored body‐to‐body practices. In this discussion, I have already stressed the importance of synchronization in complex systems and of interactional practices as the focus of the investigation.…”

“…Greer and Nanbu (2022, this issue) offer a fascinating account of gestures used by L2 speakers—not by studying iconic gestures, as is often the case, but rather by examining gestures that correspond with written forms of a turn‐in‐progress to make grammar a “shared object of visualization” (p. 70, this issue), as the authors say. I am grateful that Greer and Nanbu have gone beyond platitudes concerning multimodal interactional practices and have done the hard work of investigating them.…”

“…Hall (2022, this issue) observes that teachers’ questions are prevalent in classroom instruction, yet little is known about the social action that they elicit. In her study, more etic than emic, 4 hours of video recordings in an English‐as‐an‐L2 class were examined for questions posed by the teacher.…”

Emergent L2 Grammars in and for Social Interaction: Introduction to the Special Issue

“…Based on a corpus of video‐recorded paired discussion tests, Greer & Nanbu (2022, this issue) use multimodal CA to examine Japanese English‐as‐a‐foreign‐language learners’ use of writing gestures as they talk. They suggest that learners’ visualizing written grammar or words helps them to recall and/or produce linguistic items or structures and hence supports their social interaction with others.…”

Learning Grammar for Social Action: Implications for Research and Language Teaching

“…The study by Greer & Nanbu (2022, this issue) offers valuable insights into the grammar–body interface (Mushin & Pekarek Doehler, 2021) by examining interactional moments where L2 speakers of English whose first language is Japanese visualize text as they talk. Their data from paired discussion tests shows that the participants visualize elements of a turn‐in‐progress by embodied displays that depict these elements in the air or by writing such elements in the air or on the palms of their hands.…”