Professional vision

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Professional vision
Author(s):	Aug Nishizaka (Chiba University, Japan) (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2565-0934)
To cite:	Nishizaka, Aug. (2023). Professional vision. 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 professional vision was introduced by Goodwin (1994) to emphasize the idea that no vision--including scientific vision--is neutral; instead, vision is shaped by the specific activity in which the viewer is engaging. It can be defined as a visual perception that serves as a source for specific knowledge relevant to a professional activity.

Goodwin (1994) focused on three generic practices for professional vision: (1) coding, (2) highlighting, and (3) producing material representations. The following example illustrates these practices: the example begins as a senior archeologist (Ann), who is building a map (a material representation) of the layers of dirt visible, requests a student archeologist (Sue) to provide her with measurements to be inscribed onto paper (lines 1–2). Sue first takes Ann’s request as the request to provide the measurement of the depth of a layer at “ninety” on the ruler placed at an edge of the square hole where they work. Ann corrects Sue’s understanding (from line 4 onward); Ann needs the measurements at several points between the end of the edge where Sue is positioned and “ninety” on the ruler.

After two attempted corrections (lines 5 and 7), Sue “again moves her tape measure far to the right” during the two-second silence in line 9, thereby revealing that she was unable to appropriately understand the instructions. At this moment, “Ann moves into the space that Sue is attending to and points to one place that should be measured while describing in more vernacular language what constitutes ‘a change in slope’: ‘where it stops being flat’ (line 11). She then points to additional places for measurement (lines 13–17)” (p. 613). Ann is thus perceptually restructuring the dirt in front of them as a specific pattern, employing pointing gestures to specific places of the layer (highlighting), combined with using the words “flat” and “stops being flat” (practically appropriate to the task at hand) (coding). The pointing gestures and the words might not make sense if they stand by themselves, but if juxtaposed with each other and the domain of scrutiny (i.e., the dirt), they mutually elaborate their meaning (cf. Goodwin 2000; Lynch 1985, 1988; Nishizaka 2011).

Furthermore, the combination of these practices is not completed in the relationship between Ann’s isolated body and its environment. These practices are further juxtaposed with Sue’s body. Sue also participates in their current bodily configuration by maintaining her posture toward the surface of the dirt. Finally, it should be added, Sue, on the one hand, makes a space for Ann’s pointing gesture by moving the tape measure but still maintains it at a “ready position.” Ann, on the other, moves into the space to provide the instructions but also maintains her lower body at the position for building the map and still appears oriented to the surface of the dirt (cf. Schegloff 1998, for the notion of body torque). Both participants thus sustain their basic orientation toward the ongoing activity of building a map. Thus, seeing is not an occurrence in the individual mind but, instead, essentially embodied, interactional, and specific to the activity at hand.

Another important point made by Goodwin (1994) is that the same practices used to socialize novices into a new way of seeing are applicable to 'contested vision'. For example, an expert witness in a courtroom uses the practices to instruct the jury—laypersons—on how experts see a person’s body movements, which appear responsive to violent beating, as aggressive actions and see the person, who appears to be a victim, as an offender. Professional vision is another way of seeing bound to the membership in a relevant community of practitioners; the difference lies in the entitlement to “speak the truth” that is institutionally provided to the professional community.

Goodwin’s perspective on professional vision is widely influential outside CA (e.g., Jasanoff 1998).

Additional Related Entries:

• Multimodality
• Project
• Multiactivity
• Embodiment

Cited References:

Goodwin, C. (1994). Professional Vision. American Anthropologist, 96(3), 606-33.

Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and Embodiment Within Situated Human Interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1489-522.

Jasanoff, S. (1998). The Eye of Everyman: Witnessing DNA in the Simpson Trial. Social Studies of Science, 28(5/6), 713-740.

Lynch, M. (1985). Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory. Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Lynch, M. (1988) The Externalized Retina: Selection and Mathematization in the Visual Documentation of Objects in the Life sciences. Human Studies, 11(2/3), 201–234

Nishizaka, A. (2011). The Embodied Organization of a Real-Time Fetus: The Visible and the Invisible in Prenatal Ultrasound Examinations. Social Studies of Science, 41(3), 309-336.

Schegloff, E. A. (1998). Body torque. Social Research, 65(5), 535-596.

Additional References: