In this article, I examine the function of both gaze and gesture in relation to conversational story telling. Conversational storytelling, or reenactments, is an oral narrative that involves performing a new version of an old event in a theatrical way. By examining the transcript of “Chicken Dinner” I address how the coordination amongst speaker and recipients to decipher gestures and use them to understand parts of what is being narrated. The analysis of said instance, suggests that speaker gaze plays a pivotal role in understanding gesture. I further explore the gesticulation typology, participation framework, and the use of eye gaze to understand multimodality in the interaction and how one cannot do without the other.
Gesticulation, or
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In most situations, speaker gaze is often used to select who from amongst the recipients they chose to address. However, in conversational story telling the speaker often shifts their gaze away from others. The redirection of eye gaze go hand in hand with what is being said and serve to suggest that a retelling of events is in progress. This also relates to participation framework as it suggests that the speaker controls the footing and perspective of their storytelling. For example, the speaker may discuss the events they witnessed opening up room for the recipient to discuss their participation in it, two different perspectives within a single conversation. Gesture, production format of speech, and eye gaze, all show how different modalities work together to. With further analysis of the transcript one can see a prominent display of the cooperation amongst the different modalities to understand its effectiveness of conversational …show more content…
Michael’s use of gaze allows for a separation of addressing recipients and reliving the story. This redirection of gaze allows for the speaker to enter the story that will be reenacted rather than narrated. Examining recipients during gesticulation reveal how recipients coordinate their gaze with the speaker’s hands when engaged in symbolic action (Streeck). The separation of narration and reenactment also tie into production format. As the narrator, Michael is the author, he controls what sentiments to be used in his description of events. However, when reenacting the event, Michael becomes the animator as he is now using expressive actions to accompany his talk (Goffman). Again, this is important as it contributes patriation framework, footing, and how recipients are being addressed. The gestures involved in the conversation are also key. The pressing down on a car’s horn is an iconic gesture because it assists in providing a visual with a reference. The key point, after my analysis of the transcript, is that multimodal communication allows for communication to be more expressive without just the reliance of language. There are many ways to communicate and multimodal communication allows for the various modes of communication to be combined in an effort to compose a message. Here gaze, gesture, and talk all work in conjunction with one another to allow an effective way for Michael to
Conversation Analysis (CA) is the study of talk-within-interaction that attempts to describe the orderliness, structure and sequential patterns of interaction in conversation. It is a method of qualitative analysis developed by Harvey Sacks with the aid of Emmanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson in the late 1960s to early 1970s. Using the CA frame of mind to view stories shows us that what we may think to be simplistic relaying of information or entertaining our friends is in fact a highly organised social phenomena that is finely tuned in a way that expresses the teller’s motivation behind the talk. (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2011). It is suggested that CA relies on three main assumptions; talk is a form of social action, action is structurally organised, talk creates and maintains inter-subjectivity (Atkinson & Heritage, 1984).
[During the telling of the story there were no meaningful gestures, just pauses when the storyteller couldn't remember certain details, or when she wanted to take more sips of her macchiato. The storyteller did not relate the story with intonation or pitch changes, nor did her rate change. It was more like the stating of facts she knew.]
In “Turkeys in the Kitchen,” an essay written by Dave Barry, humor is used as an aid to make a point about the usefulness of men after Women’s Liberation. “A Plague of Tics,” a personal narrative written by David Sedaris, uses a different kind of humor to explain the reasoning behind his behavior. Through these two essays and their author’s personal experiences, humor is presented as a device to captivate reader’s attention and declare the author’s intended meaning.
He relates how Irish storytellers would turn their backs to the audience, or speak from another room in order that the listeners would rely on their imaginations. These types of storytellers would not rely on gestures, or voice inflections, but instead chose to paint a mental picture for their audiences who created vivid imagery in their own minds. The story was paramount to the teller. Lindahl laments that current storytellers have become enamored with their own performances and become as important to the tale as the tale itself. The “quiet, shyer world of the lone, quiet voice figures too rarely in folkloric performance studies.” Lindahl compares the true märchen tellers to the quilters who are more intrigued in the stitches of their work, and not the beautiful patterns or to the skilled basket weavers who focus on the intended use of the basket and not the aesthetic beauty of the weaving patterns (McCarthy xix-xx). In today’s society, the figure of a great storyteller evokes an image of gestures, voice inflections, voice impersonations provided by a colorful character. Perhaps our sensory overload from high definition televisions, streaming video, IMAX theaters have dulled our appreciation for the story itself, which is created in our own imaginations by a teller with skilled
The narration mimics human speech through breaking grammar rules and using informal language. This is exemplified through the passage where Granny is in the hospital and the narrator comments on the medical system saying, “Those doctors tell Granny, ummmm, ummmm, ummmm. Maybe you better stay here. One day. Four days. Maybe we see something” (King, Magpies 23). The narrator pokes fun at a system which frustrates him and a somewhat sarcastic and witty voice is created in the passage. The uncomplicated nature of the narrator’s speech strengthens the voice of a storyteller and makes the narrator more relatable and realistic. The onomatopoeia of the word “ummmm” adds sound to the narration and brings his speech to life. These techniques pull the reader to not only read, but also to listen to the story. The narrator is given a personality through this and is given the opportunity to express personal opinion and engage with the reader, much like a real
Pages 261- 267. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2011.10.006. Cameron, D. (2001). The 'Case Working with spoken discourse and communication. London: Thousand Oaks & Co. Carson, C., & Cupach, W. (2000).
The audience sees through staging and conversation between the two main characters that the communication of modern relationships
Through the omniscient narrator, readers are able to see the full story behind what the characters tell each
The worst essay from this semester is Magical Dinners by Chang-rae Lee. Why even have this atrocity on the syllabus? Magical Dinners is very blandly written (almost as bland as the food his family makes). This was made obvious by the fact that nobody in our class was into it and there was silence during the whole discussion instead of lots of participation. Furthermore, the only rhetoric I could find Lee even attempting to use was code grooming, which was highly unsuccessful because the meals that his mom made did not sound good and were unable to grab my attention or appetite. This is illustrated when Lee writes “She cooks an egg for me each morning without fail. I might also have with it fried Spam or cereal or a slice of American cheese,
Dialogue gives the audience a clear view of what is happening in the story, but the
The Effect of Dual Narration by Michael Frayn on the Readers Understanding of the Text
Eye gaze is essential for evaluating the following objects: liking and attraction, attentiveness, competence, social skills and mental health, credibility, and dominance (Kleinke, 1986), these evaluations provide information about the target of another person’s attention and expression. Therefore, eye gaze helps to obtain information about communicative intentions and future behaviour (Baron-Cohen, 1995). Moreover, according to Patterson’s distinguish between communicative behaviours and indicative behaviours in 1982, only communicative behaviours are driven by a goal or purpose. Thus when infants are using eye gaze for communication, they are subjective to process the information transition. This statement also be demonstrated by many studies. For instance, D 'Entremont and his colleagues tested 24 infants form 3- to 6-month-olds in 1997 and they found that 73% participants followed the adults’ head-turn behaviour to change the direction of their eye
For my video paper I chose to do a Pixar movie called Finding Nemo. Although Pixar movies are more aimed for the younger generations, it is becoming more popular for these movies to be introduced in the classrooms. In our DeVito text it shows and explains all the different forms of communication that can be related back to Finding Nemo. Along with other Pixar movies, they all portray many different aspects of communication. Nonverbal communication is presented in the movie by using gestures/movement. Although cartoon characters are not actually real people in the movie, they are created by real people who have experienced nonverbal communication in their lives.
It might be pertinent and helpful here to first discuss the structure of the narrative itself, for there are several elements in the sequencing of the discourse that contribute in no small way to the overall effect of the narration/narrator. The narrative begins in media res (beginning in the midst of the action at a crucial junct...
...tention to how people react to one another’s comments, guessing the relationship between the people and guessing how each feels about what is being said. This can inform individuals to better understand the use of body language when conversing with other people. It is also important to take into account individual differences. Different cultures use different non-verbal gestures. Frequently, when observing these gestures alone the observer can get the wrong impression, for instance, the listener can subconsciously cross their arms. This does not mean that they are bored or annoyed with the speaker; it can be a gesture that they are comfortable with. Viewing gestures as a whole will prevent these misunderstandings. Non-verbal gestures are not only physical, for example; the tone of voice addressing a child will be different from the way it is addressed to an adult.