F-formation

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: F-formation
Author(s):	Leelo Keevallik (Linköping University, Sweden) (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2175-8710) & Hannah Pelikan (Linköping University, Sweden) (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0992-5176)
To cite:	Keevallik, Leelo, & Pelikan, Hannah. (2023). F-formation. 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/A7MQB

An F-formation (or facing formation) is a spatial-orientational organization, in which participants have arranged their bodies so that their lower bodies are turned towards a common center, such as forming a circle or a ‘horseshoe’ shape. The term was coined by Adam Kendon, who defined an F-formation as taking shape “whenever two or more people sustain a spatial and orientational relationship in which the space between them is one to which they have equal, direct, and exclusive access” (Kendon 1977: 179, 1990: 209). Within this conformation of bodies, each person has a ‘transactional segment’ in front of them, which defines their area of focus, involvement, and engagement. And when multiple participants engage in an activity together, they make their transactional segments overlap, creating a shared ‘transactional space’ or ‘o-space’ (Kendon 1977: 181, 1990: 210-211).

Kendon noticed a number of patterns in how people generally position themselves, which he referred to as ‘arrangements’ (Kendon 1977: 183, 1990: 213-214). While groups commonly arrange themselves in a circle, two people may position themselves ‘vis-à-vis’ (facing each other frontally), in an ‘L-arrangement’ (standing at a right angle, creating an L-shape from a birds-eye view), or ‘side-by-side’ (next to each other, facing in the same direction). He worked at a time when researchers became interested in how humans move and position themselves in space (Scheflen 1976). In contrast to earlier work that focused on the distance people keep in different settings and cultures (Hall 1966), Kendon argued that the angles of mutual positioning are equally important (cf. Kendon 1977: 184ff, 1990: 214ff). Kendon highlights that a formation needs to be actively maintained, through behavior that sustains the o-space. He calls this the F-formation system.

Later work has taken interest in the intertwinement of talk and embodied interaction. While building on the notion of F-formation, the concept has, however, often been replaced with others, due to its arguably static nature. As one way of achieving a focused encounter (Goffman 1963), it has alternatively been described as an aspect of contextual configurations and participation frameworks (Goodwin 2000) or as part of interactional space (Mondada 2013) that likewise describe how parties orient their bodies to make themselves available for each other and thereby negotiate participation. And an entirely embodied notion of mobile formations has been developed to account for situations where people are moving together (McIlvenny, et al. 2014), occasionally pointing out the differences between those and F-formations.Though different in their emphases, these conceptualizations have gradually become more focused on the continuous transformation and dynamic assembly of embodied orientations to achieve various types of ever-changing interactional engagements.

Drawing on Kendon’s insight that people work to sustain specific spatial arrangements, several studies have targeted the interplay of talk and bodily arrangements. It has been described how people enter or leave F-formations and how formations change during specific moments in interaction, such as when newcomers enter a group and greet each other (Pillet-Shore 2010; Tuncer 2018) or when participants leave a conversation by gradually walking away from the circular arrangement (Broth & Mondada 2013; Tuncer 2015). Fox and Heinemann (2017: 47) argue that some request formats are designed to achieve a F-formation at their completion, and Keevallik (2018) has shown its relevance in treating someone’s talk as sequence initiation rather than self-talk in extended co-presence.

The following example comes from a recording of several people mucking out a sheep stable. It shows how one participant, Vello, makes use of the circular placement of his co-participants (Figure 1) to launch a joke about his fork-load that has landed on the wheelbarrow (line 2) such that it is then developed into a conversational sequence (lines 4-7). Figure 1 shows the moment before Vello’s joke, where most group members are positioned with their lower bodies turned towards the center of the room just before Vello utters his joke (line 2). Figure 2 illustrates the joint visual focus on the leaving wheelbarrow as well as smiling faces, right before another participant continues with another comment on the same topic.

(Keevallik 2018)

01           #(1.3)
    fig      #fig. 1

02  Vello:   see sitajunn on seal õlgedel nagu kirss koogil.
             that piece of shit on the straw is like a cherry on a cake

03           (0.9)

04  Mari:    äh

05   	     (3.5#)
    fig          #fig.2

06  Renee:   õhtu:söögiks on nüd kirss koogig- e kook kirsiga jah,
             for dinner we’ll now be having a cherry cak- cake with a cherry,

07  Jaan:    ähähä ((laughter))



Figure 1: Vello gazes towards the wheelbarrow in the center of the F-formation.




Figure 2: Seven people gaze at the leaving wheelbarrow.

Most recent work has studied the challenges of establishing F-formations in technological settings, among others with telepresence robots that are controlled by a remote operator. As they have limited visual access for remote parties and currently cannot tilt their “heads”, establishing an F-formation is especially difficult, with side-by-side arrangements not suitable (Jakonen & Jauni 2023). The challenges seem to give rise to new solutions, which Due (2021) refers to as a ‘face-to-screenface’ arrangements.

Additional Related Entries:

• Participation
• Participation framework
• Gaze
• Gesture

Cited References:

Broth, M., & Mondada, L. (2013). Walking away: The embodied achievement of activity closings in mobile interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 47(1), 41–58.

Due, B. L. (2021). RoboDoc: Semiotic resources for achieving face-to-screenface formation with a telepresence robot. Semiotica, 2021(238), 253–278.

Fox, B. A., & Heinemann, T. (2017). Issues in Action Formation: Requests and the Problem with x. Open Linguistics, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2017-0003

Goffman, E. (1963). Behavior in Public Places. The Free Press.

Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(10), 1489–1522.

Hall, E. T. (1966). The Hidden Dimension. Doubleday.

Jakonen, T., & Jauni, H. (2023). Telepresent Agency: Remote Participation in Hybrid Language Classrooms via a Telepresence Robot. In J. Ennser-Kananen & T. Saarinen (Eds.), New Materialist Explorations into Language Education (pp. 21–38). Springer International Publishing.

Keevallik, L. (2018). Sequence Initiation or Self-Talk? Commenting on the Surroundings While Mucking out a Sheep Stable. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(3), 313–328.

Kendon, A. (1977). Studies in the Behavior of Social Interaction. Indiana University.

Kendon, A. (1990). Conducting Interaction: Patterns of Behavior in Focused Encounters. Cambridge University Press.

McIlvenny, P., Broth, M., & Haddington, P. (2014). Moving Together: Mobile Formations in Interaction. Space and Culture, 17(2), 104–106.

Mondada, L. (2013). Interactional space and the study of embodied talk-in-interaction. In P. Auer, M. Hilpert, A. Stukenbrock, & B. Szmrecsanyi (Eds.), Space in Language and Linguistics (pp. 247–275). De Gruyter.

Pillet-Shore, D. (2010). Making Way and Making Sense: Including Newcomers in Interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly, 73(2), 152–175.

Scheflen, A. E. (1976). Human Territories: How We Behave in Space-Time. Prentice-Hall.

Tuncer, S. (2015). Walking away: An embodied resource to close informal encounters in offices. Journal of Pragmatics, 76, 101–116.

Tuncer, S. (2018). Non-participants joining in an interaction in shared work spaces: Multimodal practices to enter the floor and account for it. Journal of Pragmatics, 132, 76–90.

Additional References: