Abstract
This article offers an analysis of turn-expanding practices with the connectiveå sen‘and then’ in Swedish multi-party conversations in which the participants discuss and assess works of visual art. The connective is recurrently used to introduce a turn continuation, i.e. a stretch of talk that is produced after a possibly completed turn-constructional unit (TCU). We identify three types of continuations: same-speaker continuations, occurring post gap or post-other talk, and other-continuations by the next speaker. Some of the “and then” continuations are clausal, syntactically free-standing, while non-clausal continuations have more in common with TCU increments. “And then” continuations specify, restrict or redirect the unfolding contribution while at the same time orienting to a collective interactional project. In same-speaker continuations, the speaker can introduce a new aspect of the established theme or offer an account. Other-continuations can be used to achieve a shift in footing to introduce a somewhat non-aligning contribution. Both grammar and embodied resources (especially hand gestures) are activated in the management of the completion of a prior turn unit, the initiation of a turn continuation and the recompletion of the speaker’s turn. The typical multimodal trajectory is: syntactic completion of a first unit + retracted gesture; link to prior talk and upcoming talk with “and then” followed by the core of the continuation +aredeployed gesture; and finally, syntactic completion of the continuing unit + retracted gesture to a rest position.
Highlights
This article offers an analysis of turn-expanding practices with the connective å sen “and ” in Swedish conversation
This article has described how verbal and embodied turnorganizing practices were used in the construction and achievement of turn continuations prefaced with the Swedish connective å sen ‘and .’
“And ”-prefacing constitutes a linking resource through which participants in a multi-party conversation can introduce an elaboration of already established thematic threads or bring in new observations, descriptions or interpretations that fit in the collective interactional project
Summary
This article offers an analysis of turn-expanding practices with the connective å sen “and ” in Swedish conversation. Following either no uptake (Excerpt 3) or ratifications of listenership (Excerpt 4), the speakers produce a continuation prefaced with å sen ‘and ,’ where å sen initiates another multimodal sequence where talk and gestures work together to both depict and point out observables (Excerpt 3) as well as to support a line of reasoning (Excerpt 4) In both types of continuations (post-gap and post-other talk), the connective å sen serves as the linking element that enables expansion, and it is produced with the speaker still in a bodily rest position. In these “and ”prefaced turn continuations, grammar in the form of the lexical linker precedes and paves the way for other multimodal resources to contribute to meaning-making in the content-wise more central and complex turn-parts (cf. Keevallik, 2017, Keevallik, 2013)
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