| This panel will examine how different non-verbal resources are mobilised in response to specific actions in talk. For example, requests, announcements and informings may each elicit a specific response; such responses may not be delivered verbally but by means of shifts in body posture, gaze, gesture, and other resources (such as laughter) which embody some sort of stance towards the prior talk over and above sheer recipiency. That response, in embodying either a negative or positive stance, may in turn set up sequential relevancies subsequently realised in the talk. While there is a significant body of conversation analytic work examining response tokens in talk, there has been no concomitant focus on non-verbal responses. This panel thus seeks to contribute to work in this area by examining the intersection of talk and non-verbal conduct in the in situ management of responsive action. By reference to a range of data from both so-called ‘normal’ and disordered talk, it will examine, inter alia, the use of nodding and other bodily configurations in response to talk, the deployment of laughter and its relationship to smiling, and the synchronisation of talk and object transfer. |
