Home position
| Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Home position | |
|---|---|
| Author(s): | Leelo Keevallik (Linköping University, Sweden) (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2175-8710) |
| To cite: | Keevallik, Leelo. (2023). Home position. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/27K9B |
Home position refers to the bodily configuration to which a moving body part returns after a single move or a series of moves. Schegloff and Sacks (2002 [1975]) coined the term with the following observation:
“A very large number of moves and sequences of moves in interaction end where they begin. That is, they end in the same place and regularly in the same position, which we are calling ‘home position.’ The moves depart from home and return to home” (pg. 137, emphasis original)
The organizational pattern of home–away–home bounds various types of ‘away’ moves: speaker gestures, grooms, sips, writing spurts, fidgets, cough, and laugh covers (Schegloff & Sacks 2002 [1975]: 144). Iconic gestures have been shown to move from home position to thrust and even back to home position during a turn-constructional unit in progress, before their lexical affiliates are uttered (Schegloff 1984). The concept, however, goes beyond manual gestures. It also can refer to the realignment of a torqued body part with the rest of the body, such as when a participant remains oriented toward a group with their lower body (below the neck and waist), while turning the upper part toward someone else to mark that engagement as being relatively brief, which itself projects a return of the upper part to home position (Schegloff 1998). The notion of home position has also been applied to gaze behavior in specific tasks, such as pilots treating the cockpit instrument panels and windows as home position for gaze (Nevile 2010). Cibulka (2015) complexifies the home–away–home organization by arguing that various possible locations of non-movement are arranged along a continuum from the space of gesticulation to a relaxed rest position, and that these locations reflect various degrees of involvement or claims of speakership by the gesturer. Cibulka calls the intermediate positions of non-gesturing between stage and home position provisional home positions.
Instead of home position, McNeill (1992) calls the same phenomenon rest position, that is, some position “where the hands are relaxed and are not supported solely by the arms in midair” (pg. 376). Kendon, likewise, confirms that the term is synonymous with rest position (discussion at the end of Schegloff & Sacks 2002 [1975]: 145). Gesture retraction to home is generally associated with sequence closure or action completion (Mondada 2007; Sidnell 2005), although these authors do not use the term home position.
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Cited References:
Cibulka, P. (2015). When hands do not go home: A micro-study of the role of gesture phases in sequence suspension and closure. Discourse Studies 17(1): 3-24.
McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. Chicago University Press.
Mondada, L. (2007). Multimodal resources for turn-taking: Pointing and the emergence of possible next speakers. Discourse Studies, 9(2), 194-225.
Nevile, M. (2010). Looking for action: Talk and gaze home position in the airline cockpit. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 33(1), 3.1-3.21. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.2104/aral1003
Schegloff, E. A., & Sacks, H. (2002 [1975]). Home position. Gesture, 2(2), 133-146.
Schegloff, E. A. (1984). On some gestures' relation to talk. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of Social Action (pp. 266-296). Cambridge University Press.
Schegloff, E. A. (1998). Body Torque. Social Research, 65(3), 535-596.
Sidnell, J. (2005). Gesture in the pursuit and display of recognition: A Caribbean case study. Semiotica (156), 55-87.
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