Mirka Rauniomaa

The article examines naturally-occuring video-mediated breaks from work as social activity and focuses on the use of waving gestures in their openings and closings. Drawing on multimodal conversation analysis as a research method and recorded virtual breaks of two work communities in Finland as data, the study shows that, contrary to openings and closings in a physical breakroom at the workplace, waving ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’ is a prevalent practice in video-mediated break openings and closings. By waving their hand(s), which is typically accompanied by a verbal greeting or farewell, participants make their own arrival or departure, or their orientation to the arrival or departure of someone else, visible and explicit. Thus, waving facilitates the management of co-presence in technology-mediated encounters. Further, by waving in conjunction with other upgraded features of openings and closings, participants engage in important relationship maintenance work during their encounter.

This paper reports on a pilot project called Remote Research and Collaboration Using VR and 360° Video (RReCo) that was carried out in late Spring 2021 at the University of Oulu, Finland. The project explored new ways of collecting, viewing and analysing video data for the purposes of engaging in remote, collaborative research on social interaction and activity. Here we share our experiences in collecting different types of video data, especially 360°, and relate those to our user experiences in analysing the data together in virtual reality. Our remote multisite data sessions were organised using software for immersive qualitative analytics, virtual reality and live streaming. In this paper, we also reflect on the similarities and differences between our data sets, especially with view to how awareness of different technical setups may help in making informed choices, and thereby increase the reliability of research on social interaction.

Drawing on video data and ethnomethodological conversation analysis, the study focuses on sequences of human action and interaction in which participants orient to small wildlife within their nature-related activities outdoors. The participants are family members, friends or participants on organized outings, and they engage in activities such as trekking, foraging and fishing. The study examines moments when small wildlife become the focus of the participants’ talk and other action and when the relationship between human beings and the natural world is thus constructed in situ. The study considers how participants in such moments display, pursue and achieve shared understandings about what the appropriate ways of treating other living beings and, more generally, conducting oneself in nature are.

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan puhetoimintoja, joissa esiintyy jokin katsoa-verbin 2. persoonan imperatiivimuodoista, tyypillisesti kato. Tutkimusmenetelmänä käytetään keskustelun­analyysia, ja aineistona toimivat videoidut tilanteet luontoilutoiminnasta, kuten marjastuksesta, sienestyksestä ja retkeilystä. Artikkelissa analysoidaan, miten meneillään oleva toiminta ja sen resursseina kieli, osallistujien kehot, tila, liike ja materiaalinen ympäristö vaikuttavat kato-vuorojen muotoiluun ja tulkintaan. Artikkelissa osoitetaan, että kato-vuoroilla on ainakin neljä eri tehtävää sosiaalisessa vuorovaikutuksessa. Valtaosa tutkimusaineiston kato-vuoroista toimii direktiiveinä tai liittyy direktiivisiin tilanteisiin, joissa puhuja ohjaa vastaanottajaa toimimaan tai olemaan toimimatta tietyllä tavalla. Direktiivisillä kato-vuoroilla puhuja ohjaa vastaan­ottajaa joko 1) katsomaan jotain objektia ympäristössä tai 2) tekemään jotain meneillään olevan toiminnan kannalta relevanttia. Tällaiset direktiiviset kato-vuorot eroavat toisistaan niin kielellisen kuin kehollisen muotoilun suhteen: ­kato-­vuoroissa, joilla ohjataan vastaanottajaa katsomaan, huomion kohde nimetään (kato muulahait­petä) ja siihen suuntaudutaan kehollisesti, mutta osallistujat jäävät hieman etäälle siitä. Sen sijaan sellaisissa kato-vuoroissa, joilla osallistujaa ohjataan tekemään jotain muuta kuin katsomaan, ei yleensä nimetä tekemisen kohdetta tai tekemistä ylipäätään vaan kohde merkitään kehollisesti ja tekemistä käsitellään yhteisesti jaettuna meneillään olevan aktiviteetin perusteella (katopas tuosa ohjaa poimimaan marjan). Tutkimus­aineistossa on myös sellaisia kato-vuoroja, joissa kato toimii 3) päivittelyn keinona tai 4) huomion kohdistavana, selittävänä lausumapartikkelina. Tutkimuksessa vuoro­vaikutusta tarkastellaan holistisesti, eli meneillään oleva toiminta ja osallistujien käyttämät multimodaaliset resurssit luovat puitteet sille, miten toimintoja on mahdollista tuottaa ja tulkita. Kato. An insane amount of lingonberries. Kato as an interactional resource in nature-related activities The article examines actions that include one of the second-person imperative forms of the verb katsoa (‘to look’), typically kato (‘look, see’). Methodologically the study draws on conversation analysis, and the data include video recordings of activities in nature, such as berry picking, mushroom picking and trekking. The article analyses how participants design and interpret turns that include kato on the basis of ongoing activities and available resources, such as language, participants’ bodies, movement, space and the material environment. The article shows that turns including kato have at least four functions in social interaction. In the majority of the cases in the data, kato functions as a directive or is used in a directive context. These turns are used for directing the recipient either 1) to look at some object in the surrounds or 2) to do something relevant in terms of the ongoing activity. Apart from the use of kato, the turns differ in their design: In turns in which kato directs the recipient to look at something, the target is mentioned explicitly (e.g. kato muulahaitpetä ‘look an anthill’) and the participants remain at some distance from it. By contrast, in turns in which kato directs the recipient to do something, the target – or the intended action in general – is not mentioned, but the target is indicated by embodied means and the desired course of action is dealt with as shared by the participants on the basis of their ongoing activity (e.g. katopas tuosa ‘look right there’ is used to direct the recipient to pick a berry). The data also include turns in which kato functions 3) as a resource for general wondering or 4) as an explanatory connective and attention getter. The study approaches interaction holistically, having as its premise that the ongoing activity and the multimodal resources employed by the participants provide the framework for the formation and interpretation of social actions.

How do people answer polar questions? In this fourteen-language study of answers to questions in conversation, we compare the two main strategies; first, interjection-type answers such asuh-huh(or equivalentsyes,mm, head nods, etc.), and second, repetition-type answers that repeat some or all of the question. We find that all languages offer both options, but that there is a strong asymmetry in their frequency of use, with a global preference for interjection-type answers. We propose that this preference is motivated by the fact that the two options are not equivalent in meaning. We argue that interjection-type answers are intrinsically suited to be the pragmatically unmarked, and thus more frequent, strategy for confirming polar questions, regardless of the language spoken. Our analysis is based on the semantic-pragmatic profile of the interjection-type and repetition-type answer strategies, in the context of certain asymmetries inherent to the dialogic speech act structure of question–answer sequences, including sequential agency and thematic agency. This allows us to see possible explanations for the outlier distributions found in ǂĀkhoe Haiǁom and Tzeltal.

Drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, the study examines video data in which drivers with a valid licence participate in voluntary instructor‐led training. The study discusses noticings by the instructor that concern current events or states of affairs and prompt the driver to adjust her driving or that concern habitual practices developed by the driver over time and encourage her to alter them in the future. The former are simple noticings, whereas the latter are prefaced with “I notice that.” The design and timing of the noticings reveal how they are to be understood with respect to the mobile instructional situation. Moreover, they make visible the instructor's ongoing monitoring and assessment of the driver's performance and the instructor's expectations regarding the driver's experience and competence.

The study examines turns-at-talk with which a participant directs another in a mobile instructional setting, i.e., directive actions produced by an instructor to a student during a driving session. The data comprise video recordings from voluntary training for car drivers who have a valid license but little practical experience. The study focuses on the instructor’s directive actions that are formatted as second-person imperatives. In contrast with other turn formats that promote an activity as a joint one, second-person imperatives define what the recipient is individually responsible for. Such directive actions either reinstate and make explicit roles and responsibilities that have not yet been followed through to an adequate degree, or set up certain roles and responsibilities for the participants based on their positions in space and their access to instrumentation relevant for the activity. In this way, imperatively formatted directives address the participants’ expectations about how the activity should appropriately unfold – expectations that are constantly being constructed through and reflected in the formatting of single actions.