Challenges of multimodality: Language and the body in social interaction

Abstract

This article reflects on recent challenges emerging from the study of language and the body in social interaction. There is a general interest in language and the body across disciplines that has invited a reconceptualization of the broader issues relative to action, cognition, culture, knowledge, social relations and identities, spatiality and temporality. The study of social interaction focuses on how multimodal resources – including language and bodily movements – are holistically and situatedly used in building human action. This article discusses some consequences and challenges of putting the body at the center of attention: it repositions language as one among other modalities, and invites us to consider the involvement of entire bodies in social interaction, overcoming a logo‐centric vision of communication, as well as a visuo‐centric vision of embodiment. These issues are developed through a series of conversation analytic studies, firstly of classic topics in linguistics like deixis, then of more recent topics, such as mobility and sensoriality.