Multimodal Assemblies for Prefacing a Dispreferred Response : A Cross-Linguistic Analysis

In this paper we examine how participants multimodal conduct maps onto one of the basic organizational principles of social interaction: preference organization - and how it does so in a similar manner across five different languages (Czech, French, Hebrew, Mandarin, and Romanian). Based on interactional data from these languages, we identify a recurrent multimodal practice that respondents deploy in turn-initial position in dispreferred responses to various first actions, such as information requests, assessments, proposals, and informing. The practice involves the verbal delivery of a turn-initial expression corresponding to English I dont know and its variants (dunno) coupled with gaze aversion from the prior speaker. We show that through this multimodal assembly respondents preface a dispreferred response within various sequence types, and we demonstrate the cross-linguistic robustness of this practice: Through the focal multimodal assembly, respondents retrospectively mark the prior action as problematic and prospectively alert co-participants to incipient resistance to the constraints set out or to the stance conveyed by that action. By evidencing how grammar and body interface in related ways across a diverse set of languages, the findings open a window onto cross-linguistic, cross-modal, and cross-cultural consistencies in human interactional conduct.Funding Agencies|Swiss National Science FoundationSwiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)European Commission [100012_178819]; Israel Science FoundationIsrael Science Foundation [1233/16, 941/20]