Securing sufficient uptake and sequence progression – För att (‘because’)-prefaced self-continuations and gesture in Swedish talk-in-interaction

Abstract

This article scrutinizes how speakers in multi-party conversations on visual art use the Swedish connective för att ‘because’ in conjunction with their embodied behavior to elaborate on their prior contributions that have not received sufficient uptake by their recipients. The present multimodal interactional analysis demonstrates that the general interactional motivations for the use of turn-expanding practices with för att are to manage not fully affiliating responses or a complete lack of uptake. The connective för att operates discursively and marks the upcoming talk as an explanation of some sort. The för att-prefaced contribution serves as a justification and a warrant for a first action, as well as elaborating on or merely reformulating it. The speakers also signal with embodied cues that they are prepared to elaborate on their first contribution. After having deployed depicting or pointing gestures during their first contribution, the speakers do not retract to a full embodied rest position, but halt in an intermediate body position alongside or directly after the syntactic completion of the first contribution. Thus, the speakers treat the transition space multimodally as optional slots for further talk, depending on the recipiency that the initial contribution accomplishes.