The Embodied Work of Repairing-for-Teasing in Everyday L2 Talk

Abstract

This paper focuses on participants’ embodied conduct in the service of action ascription in teasing environments. The teasing activity is sequentially organized as an other-initiated repair sequence in which the other-initiations of repair (OIRs) are used as vehicles for carrying out the teasing actions (see also Schegloff, 1997, 2007; Rossi, 2018). The analysis shows that the double-barreled OIRs are designed as multimodal action packages in which the verbal part is delivered in a serious manner and combined with embodied conduct that typically characterizes repair environments, such as head turns and tilts, forward-leaning, and gestural holds, but produced in exaggerated or pretended manner. The embodied exaggeration and performed character are the key elements contributing to action ascription in teasing environments.