Noticing

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Noticing
Author(s):	Danielle Pillet-Shore (University of New Hampshire, USA) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4757-4082)
To cite:	Pillet-Shore, Danielle. (2023). Noticing. 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:

The term noticing is used to describe:

(i) a private, individual, perceptual/cognitive action of bringing one’s attention or conscious awareness to a target phenomenon/experience (e.g., a yoga class instruction to ‘notice your breath,’ or becoming aware of a strong smell as one enters a new space; cf. Robinson, 1995; Schegloff, 2007);

(ii) a public, social action of calling joint attention to a target referent (e.g., Goodwin & Goodwin, 2012:274; Kääntä, 2014; Pillet-Shore, 2021; Sacks, 1992; Schegloff, 1988; 2007).

Conversation analytic work examines noticing as a social/interactional event, which “need not be engendered by a perceptual/cognitive one. And many (perhaps most) perceptual/cognitive noticings do not get articulated interactionally at all. But one key normative trajectory is an interactional noticing presented as occasioned by a perceptual/cognitive one” (Schegloff, 2007:87). As an action-in-conversation, noticing involves the selection and presentation of a target referent—some feature of the setting and/or its participants that is publicly and concurrently perceivable (Pillet-Shore, 2021; Schegloff, 2007:219) and thus available for mutual scrutiny (Goodwin & Goodwin, 2012). Though many studies examine the action of noticing visible referents (e.g., while driving in a car, Goodwin & Goodwin, 2012; in a classroom, Kääntä, 2014), others also examine the action of noticing (or otherwise commenting upon) referents that are audible, olfactible, palpable (Pillet-Shore, 2021) and/or tasteable (e.g., Mondada, 2012; Vannini, Ahluwalia-Lopez, Waskul & Gottschalk, 2010).

Participants to interaction use various multimodal (spoken and/or embodied; visible and/or audible) resources to do the action of noticing (Goodwin & Goodwin, 2012; Kääntä, 2014; Pillet-Shore, 2021; Sacks, 1992:81-94; Schegloff, 2007:87). These include utterances that audibly point (Pillet-Shore, 2021:11-12) to a selected target referent (e.g., using deictic terms [Hindmarsh & Heath, 2000], perceptual directives [Goodwin & Goodwin, 2012:275-279], and/or response cries [Goffman, 1978]). These also include other audible and visible actions such as smiling and laughter, sudden gaze shifts, intensified gaze to the target referent accompanied by a facial expression that displays stance, and sharing a mutual glance with a companion (Kääntä, 2014; Pillet-Shore, 2021; Schegloff, 2007:87-88, footnote 17).

The action of noticing mobilizes joint sensorial attention (Goodwin & Goodwin, 2012:274; Kidwell & Zimmerman, 2007; Pillet-Shore, 2021) to/on “features which it formulates or registers, but treats them as its source, while projecting the relevance of some further action in response” (Schegloff, 2007:219). Noticing thus constitutes a first pair part (FPP) in an adjacency pair sequence that makes “relevant a sharing of the noticing” (Schegloff, 2007:74-75), initiating a “retro-sequence” (ibid:217-19). There is debate, however, about whether noticing embodies conditional relevance, with one view suggesting that depends upon how it is visibly and audibly designed (Stivers & Rossano, 2010:9, 17-18). Noticing is a practice often used to introduce a new topic and initiate a new sequence of interaction (e.g., during conversation openings [Pillet-Shore, 2008; 2021] and at a places of possible sequence completion, including after a lapse in conversation [Hoey, 2018]). Noticings are accountable events that participants treat as interactionally consequential (Kääntä, 2014; Kidwell, 2009; Pillet-Shore, 2021).

Studies investigating this social action use various terms to refer to it, including not only “noticing” (e.g., Goodwin & Goodwin, 2012; Kääntä, 2014; Sacks, 1992; Schegloff, 1988; 2007) but also “announcing” (Schegloff, 2007:86-87; Stivers & Rossano, 2010:9), “registering” (e.g., Hoey, 2018; Pillet-Shore, 2008; 2017; 2018; 2021; Schegloff 2007:87), “setting talk” (Maynard & Zimmerman, 1984:304), “comments on the physical surroundings” (Keevallik, 2018), and “local sensitivity to elements in participants’ field of perception” (Bergmann, 1990:207). Among these, Sacks (1992 II:87–97) and Schegloff (1988:119–131) use “noticing” as a vernacular term to invoke and parlay “the reader’s experience” without offering a definition (Schegloff, 2007:88).

Scholars’ usage of these terms—particularly “noticing” and “announcing”—is inconsistent. For instance, when analyzing cases of car talk, while Schegloff (2007:74) uses both of the terms “noticing” and “announcing” to describe the utterance “There’s MahCo:”, Goodwin & Goodwin (2012:276-277) use only the term “noticing” to describe a similar utterance, “There’s the fire up there guys.” Such inconsistency leaves unclear what makes an action recognizable (to participants, and then to analysts) as doing “noticing” versus “announcing” a publicly and concurrently perceivable referent. Consider the bolded utterances in Excerpts (1) and (2):

(1) [PT25]

01 Tea:     =hh[h! ((T gazing at table/moving student work))
02 Dad:        [hheh huh
03 Mom:     hhih hu[h ((M gazing toward table))
04 Dad: ->         [Oh wo:w.=Look at that.=
05 Tea:     =.hhuh! h[ih hih
06 Mom:              [hhh hh* ((*D extends his right arm,
07          pointing his index finger at a guillotine paper trimmer 
08          on the floor))
09 Dad:     ^Is tha:t a sa:fe way ((^T’s/M’s gaze follow D’s point))
10          [to leave that big bla:d*e¿ ((*D lowers his arm))
11 Mom:     [hhih! Hah [hah hoh hoh
12 Tea:                [No:::,
13 Tea:     You’re noticing all our: [(.) Yih know what? This is=
14  M?:                              [.hh (  )
15 Tea:     =a room that’s been <unot used¿ 
16 Mom:     Fer a while,=  ((T, D bending to pick up paper trimmer))
17 Tea:     =°Yeah.°=

(2) [Holidayc-1 (Pillet-Shore, 2021:27-28)]

01          ((dog Bailey puts front paws up on D’s side))
02 Dav:     Awo:h,=Good heavens Bay leaf¿= ((D lifts Bailey))
03 Kik:     =nhhm!
04 Cla:     hhhh!
05 Dav:     [Come (on/here)= ((D hugging Bailey))
06 Ale:     [Bay leaf,=
07 Cla:     =O:h B(h)ay lea[f?
08 Kik: ->                 [Look.=He’s dre:ssed* up. 
09 Cla:     [Aw:, ((*K moves rt hand to touch dog’s collar))
10 Kik:     [Did you notice his outfit?=
11 Dav:     =Uh- Di:d I. Why do you think I’m holding him.

According to one view (Goodwin & Goodwin, 2012:268, 276), both Excerpt (1)-line 4 and Excerpt (2)-line 8 contain “resources for constructing noticings.” These resources include: Excerpt (1)’s response cry or exclamatory interjection (“Oh wo:w.”; Goffman, 1978), perceptual directive (“Look”), and deictic term (“that”); and Excerpt (2)’s perceptual directive (“Look”) and categorization/description (“dre:ssed* up”). From this perspective, both bolded utterances work to “bring a seeable field into view” and summon “someone to look at a particular phenomenon,” and thus are describable as doing “noticing.”

According to a second view (Schegloff, 2007:82), the bolded utterances in Excerpts (1) and (2) differ: whereas Excerpt (1)-line 4 shows a “noticing-by-other,” Excerpt (2)-line 8 shows an “announcement-by-self” (where ‘self’ is the one characterized by the feature)”—the participant regarded as most responsible for the target referent (Pillet-Shore, 2021). From this perspective, the referent in Excerpt (1)—a guillotine paper trimmer laying on the floor with its blade in an open position—has just now become perceivable to the speaker Dad (note his turn-initial reaction token [Heritage, 1984:286–7]), who is not regarded by other participants as in any way responsible for it. Since Dad is a guest entering a school meeting room for a conference with his child’s kindergarten teacher (who is acting as host and regarded as more responsible for this referent), Dad is doing a “noticing-by-other.” In Excerpt (2), however, the referent—a colorful collar wrapped around the neck of a pet dog—has been perceivable to the speaker Kiki for some time, since Kiki is standing in her own home welcoming guests to her party, for which she has specifically “dressed up” her own dog. Thus, since Kiki is regarded by other participants as responsible for her dog’s appearance, she is doing an “announcement-by-self.”

A third view (Pillet-Shore, 2021:13-16) empirically demonstrates that it can be difficult to analytically disaggregate “noticing” from “announcing” a here-and-now referent. To solve this terminological problem, this view proposes the term “registering” to name the basic underlying social action for what it is apparently designed to do—to multimodally register or call joint attention to a selected publicly and concurrently perceivable referent so others shift their sensory attention to it. Excerpts (1) and (2) both show participants registering by using linguistic and embodied resources to call joint attention to a target referent (in Excerpt (1)-lines 4, 6-8; and Excerpt (2)-lines 8-9), with fellow participants responding by observably shifting their displayed attention to that target referent (see Pillet-Shore [2021] for analysis of registering sequences, including how participants produce and understand their actions guided by a structural preference organization).

Additional Related Entries:

• Preference
• Announcing
• Registering
• Sequence
• Social Action

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Additional References: