Topic Proffers as Beginnings in Interaction: Gaze Practices
Topic Proffers as Beginnings in Interaction: Gaze Practices

Summary/Abstract: The study of gaze within a conversation analytic framework was pioneered by Charles Goodwin, beginning with the publication of his ground-breaking article, “The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation,” in 1979. In his justifiably well-loved 1981 book, Conversational Organization, introducing the CA community to the value of video data, Chuck demonstrated the interactional significance of gaze direction, including the practice of gaze withdrawal, both as a recipient practice and as a speaker practice, and explored verbal practices such as self-repair, for eliciting gaze from non-gazing recipients. Analysing video recordings of both two-party and multi-party interactions, Chuck observed the embodied methods for moving in and out of interactional engagement, including the use of gaze (sometimes in conjunction with objects that could obstruct or distract gaze, such as cigarettes). In this book and in numerous subsequent detailed and careful studies (e.g., 1984, 1986, 1996, 2000, 2007; Goodwin and Goodwin 1992, 2004), he opened the CA scholarly community to the new world of multimodal practices in interaction.

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