Liisa A Raevaara

This article discusses the interplay between verbal and embodied resources when requesting a product at the convenience store. We concentrate on requests for tobacco products, which are not directly accessible to the customers but have to be requested from the seller. We will explore a choice between a phrasal (NP) and clausal format for presenting a request, and show how the choice between these two formats is intrinsically tied to the arrangements of the physical space at the kiosk, the location of and the bodily movements by the participants, as well as to the sequential trajectory of the activity. More specifically, the key element in the verbal request is the description and identification of the product, presented with an NP, and this element is produced to coincide with reaching the counter and achieving a stationary position. There is a practical basis for the choice between an NP and a clause in formatting the request: the extended verbal format is chosen to manage the time it takes for the customer to reach the counter. Thus, the length of the verbal format stands in an iconic relationship to the relative distance and to the time needed for the customer to reach the counter. The verbal format is a flexible resource that is adjustable structurally and temporally to the embodied and sequential trajectory of the on-going activity. The data of the study consist of 101 encounters in which the customer asks for a tobacco product, collected in different parts of Finland.

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan nuorille aikuisille suunnatun teatteriprojektin harjoituksia ja niihin sisältyviä tilanteita, joissa puhutaan roolihahmoista ja roolihahmona toimimisesta. Tutkimus on keskustelunanalyyttinen ja kytkeytyy erityisesti vuorovaikutuksen multimodaalisuutta, kehollisten ja kielellisten resurssien käyttöä ja koordinointia tarkastelevaan tutkimukseen. Se täydentää myös tutkimuksia läsnäolijoihin viittaamisen käytänteistä vuorovaikutuksessa. Artikkelissa osoitetaan, miten läsnäolijoihin viittaavien kielellisten elementtien valinta sekä osanottajien kehollinen toiminta ja tilan käyttö rakentavat toiminnan osallistumiskehikkoa ja roolihahmon tarkastelun näkökulmia. Samalla ne rakentavat teatteriprojektin osanottajien kahdentunutta roolia esiintyjinä ja roolihahmoina sekä teatterityön ammatillista katsetta.

We explore the variety of practices professionals and patients use whilst discussing patients' eating and drinking habits in general practice and in homeopathic consultations. Our aim is to show how the interaction is shaped, on the one hand, by the professionals' theories and goals and, on the other hand, by the participants' orientations to other contextual features. In these two fields of medicine the discussions on the patients' lifestyle have a different role in the healing process: in general practice, drinking is considered a possible health risk, but in homeopathy, information concerning patients' eating and drinking habits is needed for defining the patients' idiosyncratic characteristics. This difference is indicated in the ways in which the professionals deliver their questions about patients' lifestyles and in the ways in which the patients design their responses and the discussion develops. However, the practices used by the participants also reflect their orientation to the institution-related tasks, such as maintaining professional neutrality and being a good patient, as well as to the wider cultural norms and discourses concerning socially appropriate behavior outside the institution. We also discuss the extent to which these different orientations are consistent or inconsistent with the professionals' theories and goals.