Bodily Practices in Action Formation and Ascription in Multilingual Interaction: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

This special issue brings together empirical studies that investigate how bodily practices feature in action formation and action ascription in multilingual interaction (Schegloff, 2007; Levinson, 2013). Grounded in video-based conversation analysis and drawing on data from diverse sociomaterial settings, the articles investigate the contingent interactional processes through which speakers from different language backgrounds accomplish actions and achieve intersubjectivity. They demonstrate how specific constellations of linguistic resources, bodily conduct, spatial configurations, and material ecology are built into accomplishment of actions at different levels of interactional organization. Collectively, the articles illustrate how the participants draw on each other’s expertise, including different languages (code-switching, translanguaging) and bodily conduct as an integral part of the “web of resources” that are mobilized when actions are formulated and managed in interaction.