Coordinating Gesture, Talk, and Gaze in Reenactments

Abstract

In this article, I examine the coordination of talk, gaze, and gesture in the production of reenactments in conversation. Reenactments involve re-presentations or depictions and are thus distinct from tellings, which are primarily descriptive. A basic question I address concerns how recipients are able to parse a larger telling into those parts of it that narrate or tell about the events being described and those that reenact them. Analysis of several instances suggests that speaker gaze plays a crucial role in this respect. I discuss the relation between reenactments and direct quotation (Holt, 2000) and demonstration (Clark & Gerrig, 1990) as well as the significance of the analysis for current understanding of multimodality in interaction.