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Face-To-Face Dialogue As a Micro-Social Context. the Example of Motor Mimicry

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Face-To-Face Dialogue As a Micro-Social Context. the Example of Motor Mimicry Thc ptpcr urcd ln thir publicrtion meetsthc minimurn rcquircmcntrof \-Y/l-r-iltt Amcrican National Standard for Information Sciences- pcrmancncc of Gestureand Papcr for Printed Library Materids, exsr 239.4E-1984. the Dynamic Dimension orfr Language Essaysin honor of DavidMcNeill Editedby SusanD. Duncan University of Chicago JustineCassell Northwestern University ElenaT. Levy Library of CongrcssCrtaloging-in-Publicatlon Dete University of Connecticut - Stamford Gcstureend the dynamic dimensionof tanguagc:cxays in honor of David McNeiIl / edit€dby SusanD. Duncan,lustine Casscll,Elena Lwy. p. cm. -- (Gesturestudics, rssx 1874-6829 ; v. r) Includesbibliographical references and index, r, Gesturc.L McNcill,David, IL Duncan,Susrn D. III. Cassell,tustine, 196o- Mcvy, ElenaTcrry, r95z- PrrZ.Gr6Sj 2oo7 8oE.5--dczz zoo7orr245 rsBN978 go zTzz8'4tr (Hb;alk. paper) @2oo7 - fohn BenjaminsB.V No part of this bookmay be reproducedin anyform, by print, photoprint,microfilm, or any othermeans, without wrinen permissionfrom the publisher. fohn BenjaminsPublishing co. P.o. Box 36224' lo2o MEAmsrerdarn . The Netherlands fohnBenjamins North America. P.O. Box 27519 . philadelphia nr rgug-o5r9.usr fohn BenjaminsPublishing Company Amsterdam/ Philadelphia Face'to-faceDialogue rs a Micro-smial Contert The Exampleof Motor Mimicry' JanetBavelas Univcrsityof Victoris Fsce'lo-frcc dirl ue procccdsmorr|Gr by t|EErcnt,ts O|c Frticipdnts clnst&trly and prcciscly rsspondio <rch ofh6. Thcil r€ciproc.l sctions are dre micro-social contcxtoflanguage usc and socirl int r'rlion, Thc old pu.zle ofmolor minisy (..g., wincing .t someore els€'s injury) illustl8tes rh€ benelit of moving oubidc th€ boundaryof$e individual.ndcxamining sctionr in $cir micro-socialcontext. Motor mimicryis not simplyimiotive or emotignal;thc evidcncc demonstrates rhat it is a micrc-sdirl communicativeact with a significs[trcle io fac!-to-facedialoguc. Unfonunately,experimenral evidencc dcmonsuaring this role hasusually be€n re. intcrpretcdas evideDcefor tradirionalindividual thcorics, ignoring thc micro-social level. l. lntroduction 'social' What does it meafl to say that language is social? Often, means either society writ large or social stimuli for the mental processesof individuals. Although the societaland the individual approachcscontribute to a complete perspective,both are abstractedfrom direct observation.They lie on either side of-and omit entirely-an immediate,observable focus on languageuse as social. Larguagehappens in the momenrby-momentmicro-social context consisting of he observableacts of interlocutorsas they actuallyuse languagein face-to-face dialogue. That is, what individuals say and do in face-to-facedialogue is intimatelyaffected by what the other personis sayingand doing at that moment and by the immediateeffect that their own actionswill haveon the otherperson. This chapter will offer a casefor tbe importanceof lhe micrcsocial context and also some ideasabout why it is so consistentlyneglected. l.l The imponanceof face-to-facedialogue A diversegroup of scholan has proposedthat face-to-facedialogue is the basic or fundamentalsite of la.nguagcuse (e.g., Bavelas, 1990; Bavelas, ' I am plesscdto acknowledgeboth the manycollaboralon cited herEinand researchgrrnL9 ftom theSociol Sci€nccs and Hurnanilies R€scrrch Grant ofCaneda. I28 JANETBAVELAS Hutchinson.Kenwood. & Matheson,1997; Clalk, 1996;Fillmore, l98l; Garrod & Pickering,2004;Goodwin, I98l; Levinson,1983; Linell, 1982,2005). Face-to- face dialoguemust havebeen the first languageof the earliesthumans; it is the infant's first languagedevelopmentally; and it remainsthe languageof everyday interactions.A corollary assumption,which I share with most of the above authors,is that, unlike written forms of languagcuse, face-to-facedialogue includesboth audibleacts (words and their prosody)and visibleones (such as co- occurring hand and other bodily gestures,facial displays,and gaze) that arc complementaryto or evenmomentarily replace words (Bavelas & Chovil' 2006). One importantfeature of face-to-facedialogue is its affordanceof micro' social inleraclion, that is, a high level of reciprocityand mutual influence. It representsone end ofa continuumofthe probabilityand speedofa responsefrom the other person.In publishedtext, for exampl€,therc is a low probability and high latencyof response;if the readersrespond to the writ€r at all, it is long after the act of writing. Lenen or especiallyemail are faster,and both are more likely (but not certain)to receivea reply. In a telephonedialogue, exchanges can occur rapidly, and even a momentaryfailure to respondis noticeable.In face-to-face dialogue, responsesare highly probable and extremely fast; frame-by-frame microanalysisreveals that addresseesoften providesin rltaneousfeedback lo ttLe speaker(e.g., Bavelas, Coates, & Johnson,2000).They nod or say "Mhrn" and constantlyconvey information to the speakerby their ever-changingfacial displaysof anentiveness,confision, alarm, or amusement,among many others. Theseresponses often overlapthe speaker'stum (Goodwin, 1986),but they are not considered interruptions. Indeed, such reciprocal responses are demonstrativslyessential to the speaker,whose narrativefahers when they are absent(Bavelas €t al., 2000). Thus, becauseof its reciprocity and precision, language use in face-to-facedialogue is not simply absractly social. A participant'scontribution does nol originateautonomously in his or her mind (or from "language"as an abstraction)and doesnot evaporateinto a social vacuum. Rather, each contribution is part of a social interactionat the micro-level; fortunately, with video technology,these essentialdetails are also directly observableat thatlevel. There is accumulatingexperimental evidence for micro-socialeffects on both verbal and nonverbalbehaviours. For example,Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs (1986) showedthat speakersoften usedverbal references ihat the addresseehad helpedto shape.Schober and Clark (1989) then demonstratedthat tbeseterms were not as clear to overhearerswho did noa participatein their moment-by- moment creation.Other experimentshave shown that when speakersbecame aware that they did or did not have commonground with their addressee,they immediatelyadjusted their verbal descriptions(Isaacs & Clark, 1987)or hand gestures(Gerwing & Bavelas,2004).Evidence from McNeill's lab has revealed other micro-socialeffects on handgestures, which were formedin relationto the other person's spatial perspective(Ozytirek, 2000; 2002) or previous gesture (Furuyama,2000). ln Clark and Krych's (2004) experiment,addressees often MICRGSOCIALCONTEXTI29 began to gesture relevant actiotlf during the speaker's verbal instructions; speaken intemrpted or changedtheir insEuctiofls,even in mid-s€nlence,in order to confirm (or correct) the addressee'sproposed action. Some gestureshave interactiverather than referentialfunctions (Bavelas, Chovil, Lawrie, & Wade, 1992) and are specializedfor the coordinationof face-to-facedialogue, where they haveprcdictable micro-effects on the addrcssee'sncxt act (Bavelas,Chovil, Coates,& Roe, 1995).Facial displays can also have micro-socialfirnctions. For example, Brunner's (1979) microanalysisconfirmed that addresseesoften preciselytimed their smilesto speakers'ufierancrs so that thcscsmiles served as back-channelresponses, just aswords 8nd nods do. In this chapt€r,I will illustratethe urility and importanceof a micro-social perspeclivewith a programof rcsearchon lhe historicalphenomenon of 'motor mimicry', which is Allport's (1968) term for a reactionby an observerthat is appropriale to the situation of the person bcing observedbut noaappropriate to the observer'sown immediale situation (e.g., $,incing at someoneelse's injury). Allpon had pointedout tbat "the linl€ understoodt€nd€ncy to elem€ntarymotor mimicry" (p.29)was still a "riddle in socialpsychology" (p.30). Previous theories had cast motor mimicry as "basicaUya perceptualmotor re€ction"(p.32), that is, within an individual framework.It tumed out that a solutionto Allport's riddle was to place motor mimicry in its micro.socialcontext. B€forc describingthis research,thougb, I will inuoduce the secondarytheme of this chaptcr, which is the apparentdifficulty tbat many researchershave in noticing the micro-social context of languageuse or in remembring it even affer it has b€en demoostratedas a solution.The next sectionillustrat€s this sub+hemeby analogy. L2 Self-imposedLimits on Observation The microsocial perspectiveseems elusive in the study of languageuse, evenand perhapsespecially in socialpsychology (Cla*, 1985;Bavelas,2005). I 'nine-dot proposethat its fate is analogousto the classic problem' in perceptual psychology,which startswith a 3-by-3matrix ofpoints: ooo aaa oao The problemis to draw a line throughthe middle of eacbof the dots only once,using four sbaightlines that are all connected.In otherwords, use four lines to connect all of the dots without lifting the pen or pencil from thc paper and without retracingthrough any of the dots.(The solution can bc foundon lhe wcb or in a reviewanicle suchas Kershaw& Ohlsson,2004.) 130 JANEIBAVELAS To connect dre nine dots as required, one must think and act outside the appaFentsquarE or box that their configuration suggests.Tbe outer dots are not a borderor limit, but mostofus initially imposeone ourselvesand try to solvethe puzzle within a self-limited space,rather than using the spaceourcide it. Similarly, evenwhen ostrensibly studying language use, many researchers still operatewithin thc borders of the individual,
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