Spatial language and dialogue: A multimodal perspective.
Jana Holšánová · 2005
Reference frames, spatial relations and perspective-taking are studied in two types of conversation: a) in a face-to-face conversation among friends containing description, spontaneous drawing, pointing and gesturing and b) in a task oriented conversation (a variation of a reference task) where the partners do not see each other and where the task – to copy a figurative or abstract picture – could only be carried out verbally. The observations and preliminary results are connected to theories about alignment in dialogue. 1. Face-to-face conversation When describing an unknown visual environment for physically co-present listeners, speakers sometimes spontaneously use drawing. Holsanova (2001) studied such descriptions that were embedded in a casual and amusing type of conversation among friends (see also Holmqvist and Holsanova 1997). The main question is: How is the joint focus of attention created in a face-to-face conversation where the partners share the perceptual space? It shows that in the referring process, apart from the verbal and prosodic means, also the non-verbal means and actions (drawing, laughing, nodding, pointing, gazing and gesturing) played an important role. Let us have a look at an example where the speaker is describing spatial relations between objects and suddenly decides to change perspective and adjust the presentation according to the listeners ' verbal and non-verbal feedback. After A has given an overview over a whole bathroom (see Drawing a), he continues with the description of some details (see Extract 1).