Kamunen2020a
| Kamunen2020a | |
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| BibType | PHDTHESIS |
| Key | Kamunen2020a |
| Author(s) | Antti Kamunen |
| Title | Busy embodiments: the hierarchisation of activities in multiactivity situations |
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| Tag(s) | EMCA, Conversation Analysis, Embodiment, Hierarchisation, Multiactivity, Multimodality, Social Interaction |
| Publisher | University of Oulu |
| Year | 2020 |
| Language | English |
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| URL | Link |
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| Institution | University of Oulu |
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Abstract
This thesis examines multimodal practices used for managing multiple parallel activities, and studies how participants in social interaction make visible their local prioritisation of one activity over another. It consists of a summary and three original articles, which present different practices with which participants manage their involvement in multiactivity by making publicly visible their prioritisation of one activity over another. The thesis uses the conversation analytic method to study naturally occurring conversations, and the data for the study consists of video recordings of everyday interactions in both domestic and work settings. The languages used in the data are English, Finnish, and French. The thesis shows how participants in face-to-face interaction use priority displays to visibly give priority to one activity over another by (re-)allocating some of their embodied resources — the body, gaze, and hands — away from the lower hierarchised activity and to the prioritised one. What activity is prioritised can be either due to a participant’s trouble in conducting the activities simultaneously, or, as argued in this thesis, done for interactional purposes, such as prompting action from a co-participant. The embodied practices for making the hierarchisation of activities visible are recognised and oriented to by co-participants, who adjust their own activities to enable a successive coordination of the simultaneous activities, leading to the minimisation of parallel involvements. The findings also suggest that, in addition to a participant’s direct involvement in two or more parallel activities, publicly visible and socially relevant orientation to two or more parallel activities could be considered as involvement in said activities. This thesis contributes to research on social interaction and the organisation of multiactivity by providing new knowledge on how participants manage and orient to the different temporal and sequential demands related to multiactivity.
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