Micro-sequentiality

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Micro-sequentiality
Author(s):	Lorenza Mondada (University of Basel, Switzerland) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7543-9769)
To cite:	Mondada, Lorenza. (2024). Micro-sequentiality. 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/G7N6S

The notion of micro-sequentiality has been used to explore sequential temporal relations in interaction based on relations of successivity and simultaneity. The notion of sequentiality is the fundamental principle of social interaction (Schegloff, 2006, 2007), highlighting the emergent, progressive, incremental temporal way in which actions are stepwise produced, and progressively attended, understood and responded to. The notion of micro-sequentiality emphasizes the fact that these emergent productions and their responses are often achieved not just within strictly successive actions (in which an action is followed by a response), but within largely simultaneous actions, in which an action is immediately responded to, while it is still ongoing, and where this response can reflexively affect the way that that action is continuously produced (Deppermann & Schmidt, 2021; Mondada, 2021).

Micro-sequentiality is afforded by the specific temporality of embodied practices and actions. While participants orient to restrictions concerning the amount of overlapping talk (Jefferson 1986), embodied conduct can be produced in a way that responds and adjusts in real time to prior actions while these are still ongoingly produced (Mondada, 2016: 346). An early example of micro-sequentiality is Goodwin’s (1979) analysis of the “interactive construction of a sentence” in which the speaker successively reflexively adjusts his turn while orienting towards different recipients and their (non)responses.

Micro-sequential phenomena are observable in early responses to a first action that is yet to be completed (Deppermann & Schmidt, 2021; Mondada, 2021). In this case, finely-tuned forms of coordination are achieved by the co-participants orienting to the projectability of the first action. That projectability creates opportunities to respond to the action underway even before it is fully produced, which may, in turn, generate adjustments of the first action taking into account the early response. This has consequences for the way multimodality is conceptualized and transcribed (Mondada, 2018), and how grammar in multimodal interaction is treated (De Stefani, 2021a, 2021b).

Micro-sequentiality is pervasive in intercorporeal encounters (Meyer et al., 2017). For instance, the sequentiality of haptic practices of one person touching and being touched by the other involves a series of continuous mutual adjustments between bodies in physical contact (Cekaite & Mondada, 2020: 14). The same also holds for interactions in which the bodies interact at some distance, orchestrating convergences and divergences of mobile trajectories (Mondada, 2022).

Micro-sequentiality is a form of sequentiality that casts new light on the “multiple temporalities” (Deppermann & Streeck, 2018; Mondada, 2018) characterizing multimodality of social interaction. This enables us to revisit temporal relations of successivity and simultaneity, and to reflect about the sequential organization of phenomena in which things seem to happen roughly at the same time—constituting in fact subtle forms of sequentially organized chunks of actions finely responding to each other in a reflexive way.

An example of micro-sequentiality is given by the following interaction, in which a customer (CUS) requests some cigarettes from a salesperson (SAL) in a convenience shop in Switzerland, speaking Swiss German. The response of the salesperson is to fetch the requested product while the customer’s request is still ongoing, stepwise adjusting to it during its production.

As soon as the salesperson greets her (Figure 1), the customer greets the salesperson in return while leaning over the counter (line 2). This change of position foreshadows the pointing gesture (Figure 2) deployed at the beginning of her request (line 4). The gesture reaches its full expansion on the numeral “zwöö::” / 'two::’ (line 4) and begins to retract just after it. At this point, the request is recognizable on the basis of the verbal construction projecting the product’s name: the orientation of the customer’s body and pointing indicate that the product is located on the cigarette shelf behind the salesperson. This makes the request projectable, and indeed the salesperson begins to turn back at that point (Figure 3).

In the remaining part of the customer’s turn (who stops pointing, thus adjusting to the salesperson not seeing the gesture anymore), the customer mentions the brand and the type of packet she wants. This is responded to step by step by the increasingly precise hand gesture of the salesperson, first moving towards the type of cigarettes (Figure 4) and then grasping the specific item requested (Figure 5). The ongoing embodied responsive action is thus shaped in real time by the progression of the request, and in turn has a reflexive impact on its design, which can adjust to it in real time.

The temporality of first and second actions observed in this extract highlights the issue of micro-sequentiality. Emerging responses show how once a first action is emerging, the second action can begin quite early on and largely anticipate its completion. In contrast to sequences in which responsive turns only come after the full completion of the first action, here we observe an early responsive action that begins immediately after the first action had begun. Moreover, the phenomenon of micro-sequentiality does not only address projections and anticipations: it crucially highlights the fact that responsive conducts reflexively shape the ongoing first action, which stepwise responds to the ongoing response.

Micro-sequentiality helps to conceptualize the relation between successivity and simultaneity. Even when two (or more) actions unfold more or less at the same time (in a simultaneous way), what is relevant is when they begin to emerge (in a successive way)—which marks the distinction between initiating and responding actions. Multi-sequentiality casts light on the organization of multimodal action within several parallel temporalities, which can be characterized as a plurality of sequentially ordered simultaneities (Mondada, 2018).

Additional Related Entries:

• Turn-taking
• Overlap
• Multimodality
• Multisensoriality
• Sequence organization

Cited References:

Cekaite, A., & Mondada, L. (2020). Towards an interactional approach to touch in social Encounters. In A. Cekaite & L. Mondada (eds.), Touching in social interaction (pp. 1-26). Routledge.

Deppermann, A., & Schmidt, A. (2021). Micro-sequential coordination in early responses. Discourse Processes, 58(4), 372-396.

Deppermann, A., & Streeck, J. (2018). The body in interaction. It's multiple modalities and temporalities. In A. Deppermann & J. Streeck (eds.), Modalities and temporalities (pp. 1-29). John Benjamins.

De Stefani, E. (2021a). If-clauses, their grammatical consequents, and their embodied consequence: Organizing joint attention in guided tours. Frontiers in Communication, 6.

De Stefani, E. (2021b). Embodied responses to questions-in-progress: Silent nods as affirmative answers. Discourse Process, 58, 353-371.

Goodwin, C. (1979). The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 97-121). Irvington.

Jefferson, G. (1986). Notes on “latency” in overlap onset. Human Studies, 9(2/3), 153–183.

Meyer, C., Streeck, J., & Jordan, S. (eds). (2017). Intercorporeality. Emerging socialities in interaction. Oxford University Press.

Mondada, L. (2016). Challenges of multimodality: Language and the body in social interaction. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 20(2), 336-366.

Mondada, L. (2018). Multiple temporalities of language and body in interaction: challenges for transcribing multimodality. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(1), 85-106.

Mondada, L. (2021). How early can embodied responses be? Issues in time and sequentiality. Discourse Processes, 58(4), 397-418.

Mondada, L. (2022). Adjusting step-by-step trajectories in public space: The micro-sequentiality of approaching and refusing to be approached. Gesprächsforschung, 23, 36-65.

Schegloff, E.A. (2006). Interaction: The infrastructure for social institutions, the natural ecological niche for language, and the arena in which culture is enacted. In S. C. Levinson & N. J. Enfield (eds.), Roots of Human Sociality (pp. 70-96). Berg.

Schegloff, E.A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis. Cambridge University Press.

Additional References: