The Alignment of Manual and Verbal Displays in Requests for the Repair of an Object

Abstract

In this study we explore request sequences at an American shoe repair shop. We investigate the methods through which customers at the shop present objects for repair or alteration, focusing on the fine interplay between their verbal requests and their manual manipulation of these objects. Our analysis shows that customers coming to the shoe repair shop enact an epistemic stance toward the object they have brought in for repair. We argue that the verbal utterances and manual manipulations are fitted to one another with regard to the epistemic stance individual customers display: Customers whose requests are formulated, for instance, as problem descriptions or as inquiries into the repairability of an object manipulate the object only very minimally, if at all; whereas customers whose requests are formulated as solution specifications manipulate the object in ways that also evidence the problem and/or its solution. The data are in American English.