Open Hand Prone as a resource in multimodal claims to interruption

Abstract

This paper examines the Open Hand Prone ‘vertical palm’ as a resource for participants in conversation for displaying their treatment of a co-participant’s – or their own – turn/action as interruptive. Through this practice participants can manage turn-taking by making it relevant for the co-participant to stop talking. The data for this study consist of video-recorded conversations in English and Finnish from domestic and institutional settings, as well as broadcast talk. Using multimodal conversation analysis, this study shows that the gesture occurs in situations involving overlapping/competitive talk or incompatible embodied activities that somehow affect the progressivity of the ongoing talk. This paper complements previous research on gesture studies and interaction by investigating the function these gestures take in stopping/interrupting a co-participant’s turn-at-talk across multiple settings, and by studying how the gesture functions as a part of a practice which has direct social consequences on the local organization of turn-taking.