Movement in action: Initiating social navigation in cars

Abstract

This paper studies how participants start social navigation in cars. It draws on audiovideo recordings of social interaction inside cars and on a methodology that studies situated multimodal social actions as they sequentially unfold in interaction. The paper studies what kinds of actions initiate or are treated as making navigation relevant, and how and when an initiating action is produced. The analysis shows that the design of the initiating action is indicative of the participants' situated understandings in a particular semiotic context of whether some driving action is required in the more distant future or right now. The analysis suggests that routes are not always planned before, nor do navigational plans always work. Navigation is also a social and collaborative activity that emerges from the requirements of the driving situation and in which co-participants display their understandings of the situation in a reflexive relationship with the semiotic environment and the events in it.