Location, mobility and the body as resources in selecting a route

Abstract This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the implications of ‘being-on-the-move’ for language use and the organization of social actions in the context of driving a car. The paper analyses the social and sequential organization of multimodal, embodied and technologically mediated human action. More specifically, we look at how interlocutors negotiate routes as a social accomplishment. When several participants are present inside the car, both the route and often also the end point of the journey can become subject to negotiation between the driver and the passenger(s). As previous research has shown, participants to an interactional situation rely on various semiotic (linguistic, material, and embodied) resources to organize their interaction. One important aim of this paper is to consider how—in addition to above resources—movement in time and space, and the changing contextual configuration caused by movement, both drives action and is used as a resource in action production. The data come from recordings of social interaction inside cars.

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