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Face-to-Face Dialogue: Theory,
Research, and Applications Janet

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FACE-TO-FACE DIALOGUE
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FACE-TO-FACE DIALOGUE
THEORY, RESEARCH, AND APPLICATIONS
Janet Beavin Bavelas
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1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bavelas, Janet Beavin, 1940– author.
Title: Face-to-face dialogue : theory, research, and applications /
Janet Beavin Bavelas.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020] |
Series: Foundations of human interaction |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019053113 (print) | LCCN 2019053114 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190913366 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190913380 (epub) |
ISBN 9780190913397
Subjects: LCSH: Dialogue analysis. | Conversation analysis. |
Interpersonal communication.
Classification: LCC P95.455 .B38 2020 (print) | LCC P95.455 (ebook) |
DDC 302.2/242—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053113
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053114
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190913366.001.0001
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

v
CONTENTS
Preface by the Series Editor vii

Preface by the Author ix
Acknowledgments xi
About the Companion Website xiii
1 Appreciating Face-to-face Dialogue 1
PART I. CHANGING THE FOCUS

2 From Individuals to Interactions 17
3 From Nonverbal Communication to Co-speech Gesture 35
4 Common Goals, Different Methods 49
PART II. INSIDE FACE-TO-FACE DIALOGUE

5 Doing Dialogue 71
6 Dialogue Favors Demonstrations 87
7 The Social Life of Hand Gestures 103
8 The Social Life of Facial Gestures 125

9 Meaning and Understanding as an Interactional Process 145
PART III. DIALOGUES IN APPLIED SETTINGS

10 Dialogues in Computer-Mediated Communication, Autism, and
Medical Interactions 165
11 Psychotherapy as Dialogue 175
12 A Summary So Far 197
References 201
Index 219
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PREFACE BY THE SERIES EDITOR
Janet Bavelas reports here on the findings of a unique and formidable career of
pioneering studies in the psychology of dialogue. With this book, we are given
the fruits of more than a half century of work, spanning from her 1967 book
Pragmatics of Human Communication, co-authored with Paul Watzlawick and
Don D. Jackson, to the present volume. The many lessons outlined here pro-
vide a wealth of material for a much-needed reframing of the science of lan-
guage and human communication. Bavelas provides some key coordinates for
that reframing, for example: to discern meaning, we must directly observe the
functions of communicative acts; to comprehend spoken language, we must
see it as fully integrated with visible behavior; to ensure empirical validity, we
must work inductively from high quality natural(istic) data; and to understand
communication, we must see it as a form of joint action. This last insight is
perhaps the most urgent and potentially most consequential for theories of
language and communication. When we view communication as joint action,
not only does this draw our attention to a range of cognitive pressures for com-
munication beyond those of retrieving or recognizing linguistic structures—
such as the need to calibrate our own timing to that of an interlocutor, in the
flow of real time—it also draws our attention to the social accountability that
interlocutors have to one another. Bavelas’s social psycholinguistics is exactly
what the study of human communication needs.
N. J. Enfield
Sydney, November 2019
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PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR
This book brings together a long-term program of research focused on a

single question that I have pursued, passionately and stubbornly, over sev-
eral decades: What makes face-to-face dialogue unique? The theory that is still
evolving from this research starts with the premise, shared with many lan-
guage scholars, that face-to-face dialogue is the basic and prototypic form of
language use. The research goes on to identify and explore the two resources—
multi-modality and a high level of reciprocity—that do not occur in combina-
tion in any other form of language use.
Our team’s research has led me to conclude that having a face-to-face di-
alogue is the fastest and most skillful activity that ordinary humans do in real
time. To study face-to-face dialogue is to enter and explore a micro-world
that a written text cannot capture. The microscope for face-to-face dialogue
includes digitized video, appropriate software, and refocusing one’s mind from
the everyday pace of events. The website that supplements this book (www.
oup.com/us/bavelas) demonstrates microanalysis with videos of most of the
examples described in the text.
The ultimate goal of this book is for readers to appreciate face-to-face dia-
logue in the several senses of the word:
¤ to be able to perceive
¤ to apprehend or understand
¤ to recognize the significance or subtleties of
¤ and to recognize as valuable or excellent. (OED online)
Face-to-face dialogue is relevant to and draws on several academic fields
and any applied or professional field in which face-to-face encounters are
important. As the subtitle implies, I hope the book is readable equally by
researchers or practitioners in many fields. Because dialogue is entirely ob-
servable, it is possible to describe and exemplify the material in plain words or
videos, without jargon or over-simplification. For example, the descriptions of
specific research studies in this book focus on what happened during the study
and what we learned from it. (The original journal articles contain all the tech-
nical details, statistics, and jargon one could ever want.)
This book is not—and could not be—a contemporary systematic review
of research on all the topics covered. It is about a focused program of research
over the decades and includes the previous research and theories of others who
contributed the foundations. Nor could this be a detailed comparison to our ix
x
x Preface by the Author
earlier Pragmatics of Human Communication (Watzlawick, Beavin Bavelas, &

Jackson, 1967). The many similarities and changes after 50 years of research
are summarized in Bavelas (2021).
I want to acknowledge and thank my research team over these years. I don’t
know how people do research alone and, fortunately, have never had to. The
members of our team have changed over time, as students do, but many names
endure as authors and co-authors of most of the research studies in this book,
as do the names of our practitioner-collaborators. Therefore, I have avoided
“et al.” and listed all co-authors every time. In the past decade or so, Jennifer
Gerwing and Sara Healing have become long-term collaborators whose skill,
experience, and collegiality have made possible even more challenging and
demanding projects. They have also edited a manuscript for this book to great
effect. Nick Enfield’s help was generous and invaluable.
Three other acknowledgments are much more than a formality: Hundreds
of students volunteered to be in our studies, and the studies here will show
how much they taught us. Many of them gave permission to use their videos to
pass the knowledge on. The University of Victoria provided and maintained an
excellent video lab of our design as well as working space for an often large re-
search team. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
provided essential continuity of funding for over 30 years.
xi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In preparing this book, I have made use of previously published material,

including from the following sources:
Republished with permission of Annual Reviews, Inc., from Annual Review of

Psychology, “The Antecedents and Consequences of Human Behavioral
Mimicry,” Chartrand, T. L., & Lakin, J. L., Volume 64, 2013; permission
conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
Republished with permission of Annual Reviews, Inc., from Annual Review
of Anthropology, “Conversation Analysis,” Goodwin, C., & Heritage, J.,
Volume 19, 1990; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance
Center, Inc.
Reprinted with permission from the Encyclopædia Britannica, © 2019 by
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Watzlawick, P., Beavin Bavelas, J., & Jackson, D. D. (1967). Pragmatics of
human communication: A study of interactional patterns, pathologies, and
paradoxes. Reprinted with permission from Norton.
Republished with permission of Taylor and Francis Group LLC Books, from
A. W. Siegman, & S. Feldstein (Eds.), Nonverbal behavior and commu-
nication (pp. 143–224), “Facial expressions of emotion: Review of liter-
ature, 1970–1983”; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance
Center, Inc.
Republished with permission of Taylor and Francis Group LLC Books, from
K. Fitch & R. Sanders (Eds.), Handbook of language and social interaction,
Bavelas, J. B. (2005). “The two solitudes: Reconciling social psychology
and language and social interaction”; permission conveyed through
Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
xi
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ABOUT THE COMPANION WEBSITE
www.oup.com/us/bavelas
Username: bavelas
Password: Ftfdb#2021
Oxford has provided the above password-protected website to accompany

Face-to-Face Dialogue. Here you will find the videos of virtually all of the
numbered examples in the book, narrated and shown by Sara Healing. We
are indebted to the individuals in these videos, who gave permission for their
use in a password-protected website for educational purposes. Please respect
their generosity by not copying any videos, showing them for other purposes,
or sharing the password.
xiii
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1
Appreciating Face-to-face Dialogue
Face-to-face dialogue is ordinary, everyday conversation, yet unique in sev-

eral respects: It was humans’ first language; they were not phoning or texting
each other. By whatever process language evolved, the original form had to be
face-to-face dialogue. An infant’s first language is also face-to-face dialogue,
acquired in interactions with parents and caregivers long before learning to
read. For adults, face-to-face dialogue is still the language of everyday life—the
only form present in all societies and all cultures. Even in a highly mediated
world, face-to-face dialogue is arguably the most common form of language
use when people are physically together, present in the same place.
For all of these reasons, a wide variety of language scholars have long
emphasized the primacy of everyday conversation. As shown in Table 1.1,
some point out its frequency or pervasiveness. Others describe face-to-face
dialogue as fundamental, natural, or basic. The majority go even further, ex-
plicitly using face-to-face dialogue as the standard for comparison to other
forms of language use. For example,
The language of face-to-face conversation is the basic and primary use
of language, all others being best described in terms of their manner
of deviation from that base. (Fillmore, 1981, p. 152)
Several other scholars (included in Table 1.1) use terms such as “derivative” or
“deviation” to characterize the many other forms of language use. These other
forms include writing and all mediated language use such as email, texts, and
other computer-mediated written communication formats; phones, including
computer-mediated audio and video systems; television, movies, radio, and
podcasts. Even unmediated communication such as lectures to a relatively
passive audience fall outside the scope of face-to-face dialogue. This chapter
describes and illustrates the features of face-to-face dialogue that account for
its unique status.
Face-to-Face Dialogue. Janet Beavin Bavelas, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190913366.003.0001
2
2 FACE-TO-FACE DIALOGUE
TABLE 1.1
The Primacy of Face-to-face Dialogue
Firth (1935/ Semantics “Neither linguists nor psychologists have begun the
1957) study of conversation; but it is here we shall find the
key to a better understanding of what language really is
and how it works.” (p. 32)
de Saussure Linguistics “Language [langue] . . . is not to be confused with
(1959/1966) human speech [langage], of which it is only a definite
part, though certainly an essential one.” (p. 9)
“[Speech] requires the presence of at least two
persons; that is the minimum number necessary to
complete the circuit.” (p. 11)
Yngve (1970) Computational “By far, the most frequent uses of language occur in
Linguistics face-to-face conversations. For this reason, if for no
other, it would seem to be important to achieve an
adequate understanding of conversational settings.”
(p. 567)
Cherry (1971) Cybernetics “Conversation, the two-person interaction, is the
& information fundamental unit of human communication. Speech is
theory something which is spoken between persons, rather
than by persons.” (p. 12)
C. Goodwin Conversation/ “Conversation is among the most pervasive forms of
(1981) discourse human interaction.” (p. 12)
analysis
Fillmore (1981) Pragmatics “The language of face-to-face conversation is the
basic and primary use of language, all others being
best described in terms of their manner of deviation
from that base. I assume that this position is neither
particularly controversial nor in need of explanation.”
(p. 152)
Levinson (1983) Pragmatics “Conversation may be taken to be that familiar
predominant kind of talk in which two or more
participants freely alternate in speaking. . . .
Conversation is clearly the prototypical kind of language
use.” (p. 284)
Clark and Wilkes- Psycholinguistics “Conversation is the fundamental site of language
Gibbs (1986) use. For many people, even for whole societies, it is
the only site, and it is the primary one for children
acquiring language. From this perspective other arenas
of language use—novels, newspapers, lectures, street
signs, rituals—are derivative or secondary.” (p. 1)
M. H. Goodwin Linguistic “Face-to-face interaction is the most pervasive
(1990) anthropology type of social arrangement in which human beings
participate.” (p. 1)
Luckmann (1990) Sociology “If one compares the various forms of human
communication, it is evident that dialogue is the
elementary form and that the others are, in one way or
another, derivative. Indeed, several dialogical features
appear to be primitive.” (p. 52)
Chafe (1994) Discourse “I assume that there is one particular use of
language—ordinary conversation—whose special
status justifies treating it as a baseline from which all
other uses are deviations.” (p. 41)
3
Appreciating Face-to-face Dialogue 3
TABLE 1.1
Continued
Clark (1996) Psycholinguistics “In brief, face-to-face conversation is the basic

setting for language use. It is universal, requires no
special training, and is essential in acquiring one’s
first language. Other settings lack the immediacy,
medium, or control of face-to-face conversation, so
they require special techniques or practices. If we are
ever to characterize language use in all its settings,
the one setting that should take priority is face-to-face
conversation.” (p. 11)
Pickering and Psycholinguistics “The most natural and basic form of language use is
Garrod (2004) dialogue.” (p. 169)
Linell (2009) Pragmatics “More fundamental than language is dialogue.” (p.

xxvii)
Holler and Psycholinguistics “The natural ecology of human language is face-to-face
Levinson (2019) interaction.” (p. 1)
Defining Features of Face-to-face Dialogues
Probably the chief feature characterizing the approach to

communication centered on here, and differentiating it from
others, is our concern with the study and understanding
of actual communication as it really exists in naturally
occurring human systems, rather than involvement with some
ideal . . . of what communication should be. (Weakland, 1967,
p. 1, italics original)
Face-to-face dialogues can be any length and any topic, from Goffman’s (1971,
p. 75) “passing greetings” in a hallway to an important discussion that goes
long into the night. Whatever the length or topic, several features define face-
to-face dialogue as unique. In combination, these features make face-to-face
dialogue different from other forms of language use and may explain its spe-
cial status. The following list of features owes a great deal to Linell (1982/2005)
and Clark (1996).
1. A dialogue has two or more interlocutors, that is, individuals who
are engaged in a conversation. In a two-person dialogue, the interlocutors are
a speaker and an addressee. An addressee is distinct from a generic listener
who may overhear the speaker but is not the person the speaker is talking to
(Schober & Clark, 1989). The addressee also contributes to the dialogue (i.e., is
not a passive listener or audience). The roles of speaker and addressee can and
do change rapidly and fluidly. Dialogue is not an individual performance for
an audience; it is a coordinated activity, analogous to duets in music or pairs in
ice skating.
4
2. Face-to-face dialogues are spontaneous, not scripted. The interlocu

tors probably have an overall goal or plan, such as getting acquainted, giving
and receiving instructions, collaborating on a project, or settling an argu-
ment, but they are improvising the moment-by-moment details with each
other. This criterion means that, for example, performances by actors in a play,
confederates in an experiment, and most political debates are not spontaneous
face-to-face dialogues.
3. The interlocutors are also face to face in the same physical and social
context. Because they are face to face, the interlocutors share the same physical
and social context. The physical setting may be co-workers in a meeting, a psy-
chotherapist and client in a consulting room, a family dinner, two students in
a psychology experiment, friends in a pub, a stranger asking directions on the
street. Therefore they can include, refer to, or point at each other and objects or
events around them. In each setting, they also share a particular social context
that constrains some actions and permits others.
4. The interlocutors can see and hear each other instantly, without
delay. They are not, for example, back to back, divided by a partition or using a
mediated format. Their contributions are therefore instantaneous—the speed
of light and sound. To study face-to-face dialogue is to enter a micro-social
world measured in seconds and fractions of seconds. Not only their individual
contributions but their exchanges can be extremely rapid and efficient. The
normal speed of face-to-face dialogue is such that even a second without a
response from one of them is a noticeable pause. Indeed, each interlocutor is
accountable to the other for noticeably longer pauses.
5. Face-to-face interlocutors can use words, voice qualities, and vis-
ible co-speech gestures, that is, hand gestures, facial gestures, and gaze.
Language use in face-to-face dialogue is inherently multimodal, integrating
audible and visible components. Gesture-word combinations are particularly
efficient because, unlike words alone, they are synchronous rather than se-
quential. A speaker can describe something in words while also showing a
gestural image of it; for example, “The fence was this high” versus “The fence
was approximately two meters high.”
6. The interlocutors’ contributions can overlap or be simultaneous
with each other. For example, addressees can provide feedback by nod-
ding or saying “m-hm” or “yeah” while the other is speaking. An addressee
can also anticipate or project where a speaker’s sentence is going to end,
then begin to respond with an initial overlap, without being disruptive (e.g.,
Goodwin, 2018; Mondada, 2006; Streeck & Jordan, 2009). They can deliber-
ately say the same words at the same time (Lerner, 2002). In some settings,
overlapping speech may be labeled as interrupting, impolite, or disrespectful,
but these are external restrictions, not an inherent requirement of face-to-
face dialogue. Many technologies preclude overlap by enforcing turn-taking,
although “real time” texting, for example, is becoming a reality (e.g., Federal
5
Communications Commission, https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/

DOC-342624A1.pdf).
7. Both audible and visible contributions are ephemeral; they occur
and disappear in seconds. Mediated forms such as written, recorded, or elec-
tronic formats leave an object behind. Words, once said, disappear along
with the gesture or gaze that may have accompanied them. The information
continues to exist to the extent that the interlocutors explicitly or implicitly
sustain it. For example, they can overtly acknowledge it as understood (“That’s
true”); refer back to it (“What you said earlier”); or incorporate previously
introduced information in a pronoun or other abbreviated form (“John Smith”
becomes “John” becomes “he”). See Chapter Nine for details of this process.
A Dialogue-Monologue Continuum
In the research and theoretical literature, there are many variations on face-to-
face dialogue, as defined here; see Table 1.2. Only the first context has all the
TABLE 1.2
A Continuum of Contexts from Dialogue to Monologue
1. B oth the speaker and the addressee are face to face in the same setting, interacting
spontaneously and instantaneously, with full audible and visible resources, accumulating
shared understandings.
2. The speaker and addressee are talking on the phone, spontaneously (e.g., an experimental
condition in Bavelas, Gerwing, Sutton, & Prevost, 2008).
3. T he speaker and addressee are in the same room but talking through a partition. Chovil
(1991b) showed that this condition is less social than talking on the phone.
4. T he speaker is talking face to face to a distracted and therefore less responsive addressee
(e.g., an experimental condition in Bavelas, Coates, & Johnson, 2000).
5. T he speaker is talking face to face to an addressee who is not acting as him-or herself and
is at least partially scripted (e.g., a confederate, the experimenter, or a participant whose
actions are constrained by instructions—a common context in social psychology).
6. T he speaker has an audience of listeners and they can see each other, but the listeners are
not individual addressees. For example, “One person [is speaking to an audience] with little
or no opportunity for interruption or turns by members of the audience” (Clark, 1996, p. 4)
or “speech . . . by a single person, as in a lecture” (Crystal, 2001, p. 220).
7. The other person is a “mere presence,” listening but unseen and not responding.
8. T he speaker is alone but practicing what he or she will say later, such as “preparing and
listening to speeches” (Garrod & Pickering, 2004, p. 8). For example, in the “alone”
condition in Cohen’s (1977) experiment, the speaker was rehearsing his descriptions for
later presentation to the experimenter.
9. T he speaker is talking to an imagined addressee, who does not exist (e.g., Fridlund, 1991;
Fridlund, Sabini, Hedlund, Shaut, Shenker, & Knauer, 1990).
10. T he speaker is alone and is focusing on his or her own ability to describe or respond to
something, without reference to an addressee or audience (e.g., an experimental condition
in Bavelas, Gerwing, Sutton, & Prevost, 2008).
11. T he speaker is alone and believes that what he or she says will never be seen or heard by
anyone else. This situation is unlikely to be ethically achievable.
Note. Adapted from Bavelas, Gerwing, and Healing (2014a, Table 1, p. 624).
6
defining features of a face-to-face dialogue. For example, a mediated dialogue

(e.g., by phone or computer) lacks co-presence and visible resources but also
limits instantaneous and overlapping exchanges. Any of the others may pro-
vide informative contrasts as experimental conditions—as long as it is clear
which feature(s) they lack.
Observing Closely
Recording Face-to-face Dialogues
A suitable video-audio record of the dialogue is the next essential starting
point. Just as mapping certain brain functions starts with a technically ap-
propriate recording, seeing face-to-face dialogue starts with the best pos-
sible video-audio recording. Even when a live dialogue meets all of the
criteria in this chapter, recording or editing choices can destroy its key
features.
For example, truly dialogic data means everyone is on-screen at all times,
as they saw each other. Inappropriate editing was apparent in the only pub-
licly available videos of psychotherapy dialogues, which we had to use in the
studies described in Chapter Eleven. The producers seem to have started with
a camera on each person but then edited the video to show only the person
speaking at the moment. This choice eliminated all visible simultaneous or
overlapping contributions of the other person, as well as coordinated actions
such as mutual gaze. The resulting video reflects (and will appear to confirm)
an implicit assumption that dialogue is simply alternating monologues with an
occasional “m-hm” from an addressee, rather than a constantly interactional
process.
Our research group learned early on how important such decisions
were. Through trial and error, it became clear that more than technology
was at stake: “the dyadic aspect of the reaction may be missed when [an
individual] is filmed and studied monadically” (Bavelas, Black, Lemery,
MacInnis, & Mullett, 1986, p. 108). Only when we started using precisely
synchronized split-screen views of both interlocutors, as they saw each
other, did we begin to fully appreciate face-to-face dialogue. (There is a one-
camera alternative: With precise planning and attention to seating, distance,
and focus, it is possible to use one camera to record both interlocutors in
partial side views, which are suitable for many purposes; e.g., in the DVD
accompanying De Jong & Berg, 2013.)
Analysis
Interlocutors build and shape their dialogue together with actions that
occur in seconds or fractions of seconds in the constantly moving stream
7
of their dialogue. Therefore, analysis involves repeated viewing of small

sections. Fortunately, the necessary user-friendly technology is available in
the form of software for digitized video. We use ELAN, which is free and
maintained by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, The
Netherlands (https://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/; Wittenburg, Brugman,
Russel, Klassmann, & Sloetjes, 2006). Some of the features that make ELAN
valuable are the ability to
¤ play at any speed, including second-by-second or frame-by-frame;
¤ move around a video easily;
¤ select a specific section of video to play repeatedly;
¤ add a written explanation or annotation to a specific selection;
¤ link one’s analysis directly to the video, all in one file;
¤ export to other software;
¤ decide what is of interest, with no imposed or a priori categories or
analyses.
The video examples on the password-protected website accompanying
this book (www.oup.com/us/bavelas) are formatted and demonstrated for the
reader in ELAN. If, for some reason, this book’s website is not available, a
reader can make suitable videos (perhaps using tasks from our studies) and
then use ELAN to find examples of phenomena in this book. For researchers
or practitioners who wish to study their own videos, the relatively short time it
takes to download and learn ELAN will keep repaying with new insights. The
gain is similar to using a microscope to see the structure of a leaf or a telescope
to see the details of the face of Mars.
Transcribing Face-to-face Dialogues

ELAN can eliminate the need for transcription, at least for analysis, but it is
often necessary to approximate data in a transcript (e.g., for publication). As
Ochs (1979) showed, any transcription is a theoretical decision, not a repli-
cation of what occurred. A transcript reflects the author’s main focus in an
example—what is important and what is not. For example, the purpose of the
purely verbal transcript in Table 1.3 (in the next section) is not only to provide
the plot of the story but also to demonstrate its inadequacy compared to the
video.
In transcripts of examples in this book, words will always be in quotation
marks, but additional information and markings will depend on the purpose
of the example and will be as transparent as possible. When relevant, and es-
pecially in later chapters,
¤ Other vocalizations, such as laughing, would be noted in parentheses.

¤ Overlapping or simultaneous speech as well as noticeable pauses
would also be described in parentheses.
8
¤ Co-speech hand and facial gestures, including smiling, nodding, and

gaze, would be in italics.
¤ When stress on a particular word is important, the word would be
in CAPS.
¤ The word(s) accompanied by a gesture may be marked with wavy
underlining.
¤ Other points of focus in a particular example may be in boldface or
other markings, as identified at the time.
Even with these conventions, all transcripts are approximations, hence, the
website videos.
Illustrating the Defining Features with a Close-call Story
Most people have a close-call story, when something bad could have happened
but fortunately did not. We often ask for these stories in our research studies
because they are interesting, varied, and easy to tell; speakers have usually told
their favorite close-call story at least once before. Example 1.1 is the “Burning
Pillow” story, a typical close-call story which will illustrate each of the distin-
guishing features of face-to-face dialogue introduced earlier, along with some
of the micro-social processes that implement these features. A good way to ap-
preciate this 1 minute, 15-second dialogue is, first, to read the verbal transcript
in Table 1.3, then go to www.oup.com/us/bavelas and listen to the audio-only
version, and finally watch the full video in split-screen. The defining features
of face-to-face dialogue only become clear in the full video.
TABLE 1.3
Transcript of the Burning Pillow Story
Speaker: “Um, Uh, I have a single bed with a headboard on the back of it. And I got a light for
Christmas, a lamp that you clamp on to the headboard. And it’s got like-a, um, you know, a
reading lamp or whatever. And, for at night when you’re in bed, you don’t feel like getting out of
bed, just attached right to your headboard. And I guess I left it on. And it’s got a really, really
strong, hot light, like the, the light really heats up. You—you can put your hand really close to
it and feel heat coming off the light. I guess it was on for, I don’t know how long it was on for.
But, it was facing down towards my pillow? Started burning a hole in my pillow. And I—my head
is like this far away from the light, right. Burning a hole, burning hoy—a hole. Then it starts to
catch on fire, and I still don’t, I—like I’m still sleeping, and it’s like, you know, right, like you
know, my head’s on the pillow like this and it’s just right there. And my mom smelled the smoke
in her room. And she came in and she’s going (slight screech)—”
Addressee: (overlapping) “So it—the room was starting to get full of smoke?”
Speaker: (overlapping) “Yeah (laughs). And I didn’t even wake up. And like it could have gotten
on fire, might—”
Addressee: (overlapping) “You couldn’t feel the heat or anything?”
Speaker: (overlapping) “No (laughing). I just sleep really, soundly—”
Addressee: (laughs, overlapping with “soundly.”)
9
1. The interlocutors were a speaker and addressee, although these roles

were not fixed. For example, the addressee spoke up and contributed to the
story at the end.
2. Their exchanges were spontaneous, not scripted. The speaker
had probably told this story before, but she had to create a way to tell it to
a new person, a stranger with no previous background. Although sponta-
neous, her narrative structure was clear and efficient: She set the scene, then
added and explained the key element (the lamp), the dangerous event, and its
consequences. The addressee, on her part, had only known that it would be a
close-call story. Telling a story to a stranger who has no relevant information
to contribute creates an asymmetrical dialogue, but this was still not a mono-
logue performance. The addressee was attending closely, constantly looking at
the speaker and spontaneously providing responses that matched the narrative
structure (i.e., going from neutral to more dramatic). At 1 minute, 2 seconds,
the addressee spoke up and elaborated on the story, emphasizing two of its
dramatic elements. Their audible and visible contributions often overlapped
or interrupted each other. Yet they improvised smoothly and cooperatively,
smiling and laughing.
3. The interlocutors were face to face in the same physical and so-
cial context. Figure 1.1 shows the nested contexts within which any dialogue
THE SETTING
THE
INTERLOCUTORS
THEIR TASK
THE
DIALOGUE SO FAR
THIS
MICRO-SOCIAL
MOMENT
FIGURE 1.1. The nested contexts of face-to-face dialogue.

10
proceeds. Here, two undergraduates, strangers to each other, had each

volunteered to be in a psychology study on communication, so they came
to our video lab—a pleasant, open room with original art on the walls and
cameras in the corners. They knew in advance that they would meet another
student and have a conversation; for example, they would tell each other about
a close call they had had at some time. Our instructions ask for a story that
they would feel comfortable telling about an experience that could have turned
out badly but, in the end, everything was all right. They also knew that their
conversation would be recorded on video and that, afterward, they would be
able to view the video and choose who could see it. Both of these participants
agreed that professional audiences could see their video, including as part of
an academic publication.
4. They could see and hear each other instantly, without delay. They
were sitting face to face directly across from each other, contributing audibly or
visibly at all times, in real time. It is essential that observers have the same view,
so there was a camera pointed directly at each of them. A special-effects gen-
erator synchronized and configured these two camera views into split-screen.
The resulting video, with the speaker on the left and the addressee on the right,
requires some getting used to, but it lets us see them as they saw each other.
4a. The pace of their exchanges could be rapid, even overlapping, be-
cause they could see and hear each other at the speed of light and sound. The
speaker’s delivery was focused and efficient, covering her whole story in 1 mi-
nute, 15 seconds without seeming hurried. The addressee’s visible responses
closely overlapped the speaker’s speech.
Example 1.1a. The Burning Pillow: Addressee’s response
At 22.6 seconds, the speaker gave the first hint of the problem with
the lamp,
“I guess I left it on.”
At 23.2 seconds, before the speaker had finished this phrase, the
addressee flashed her eyebrows as if surprised. Then, at 23.8, as the
speaker drew out and emphasized the word “on,” the addressee drew
in her lips in her first look of alarm. Both of her responses were within
.6 seconds of the speaker’s eliciting words.
This rate of interchange is not at all unusual. Studying face-to-face dialogue
means leaving our everyday notions of time for a much faster world.
4b. The speaker accounted for her pauses. At several points, the speaker
paused briefly but did not go blank or indicate that the addressee should speak
up. Instead, she used several micro-signals identified by previous researchers.
Example 1.1b. The Burning Pillow: Accounting for hesitations
In the first 1.6 seconds, the speaker paused, looked down, and said
“um,” then “uh,” which Clark and Fox Tree (2002) showed were
1
collateral signals for shorter and longer pauses, respectively. Then,

before “and I got a,” she paused for .7 seconds and accounted for it
with Goodwin and Goodwin’s (1986) thinking face (looking down
with lowered eyelids). She also, very quickly, stuck her tongue out
and back in. Bizarre as this action seems, Smith, Chase, and Lieblich
(1974) found that what they called a tongue-show conveys a brief dis-
engagement from interaction in adults, children, and primates. The
speaker made three more thinking faces and another tongue show
during her story, each signaling a brief pause in the pace of her story.
During these pauses, the addressee did not speak up but, appropri-
ately, waited for the speaker to resume.
5. Their dialogue was multimodal. The speaker’s frequent hand gestures
were precisely timed with the words they complemented (e.g., Kendon, 2004,
Chs. 7–10). Sometimes the information in the gesture was not in the words,
so the gesture was not redundant. It was, as De Ruiter, Bangerter, and Dings
(2012) put it, obligatory.
Example 1.1c. The Burning Pillow: An obligatory hand gesture
At 44.8 seconds, exactly as the speaker said that her head had
been “THIS FAR away from the light,” her hands showed how far
“THIS” was.
From the beginning, the speaker had also used her gestures with her words to
create a virtual reality for her addressee:
Example 1.1d. The Burning Pillow: A virtual bed
Between 2.3 and 5.1 seconds, she began to draw a virtual single bed
with her hands on either side of her own body. Then she gestured
a virtual headboard behind her on this bed. Throughout the story,
she maintained these locations, often presenting the addressee with a
re-creation of herself as a character in the bed in which the close call
occurred (i.e., a character viewpoint rather than observer viewpoint;
McNeill, 1992). So, for example, at 9.5 seconds, the speaker could say
“a lamp, that you CLAMP onto the headboard,” as she showed herself
clamping the lamp on the right-hand side of her previously gestured
virtual headboard.
The faces of both interlocutors were also contributing:
Example 1.1e. The Burning Pillow: Facial gestures
The addressee showed alarm with a succession of facial gestures. As
noted earlier, the speaker marked her pauses with facial gestures, and
she often smiled gleefully at the danger (e.g., when portraying her
mother’s alarm at 1:01.56). As in many close-call stories, the speaker
was combining danger and humor, often close together. The addressee
12
tracked these two themes with facial gestures that alternated between
alarm and amusement.
6. The interlocutors overlapped and also contributed simultaneously.
The addressee’s responses were often simultaneous within the speaker’s narra-
tive. Also, when the addressee began to speak up at the end, the two of them
overlapped with every utterance. Yet, as shown in the transcript in Table 1.3,
each utterance was responsive to what the other person had just said.
7. Their dialogue was ephemeral. Language use in face-to-face dialogue
disappears without a trace, but the interlocutors took actions to sustain and
accumulate shared understandings. For example, the lamp quickly became
“it.” More subtly, because the speaker consistently maintained the virtual set-
ting of herself in bed, she did not have to explain the location of the lamp
introduced later (in Example 1.1d). It was clear that the addressee was fol-
lowing the accumulating information quite closely because of her constant
back channels and her anticipation of events, as shown in the next example.
Example 1.1f. The Burning Pillow: Addressee built on what speaker had
said or shown
The addressee’s interjections at the end of the story presupposed in-
formation earlier in the story. At 1.1 seconds, she said
“You didn’t feel the heat or anything?” placing her hand on her
cheek, mirroring the side of the speaker’s face that the lamp had
been focused on.
On “Slow Research”
The analysis of Example 1.1 spent quite a bit of time on a few parts of a story
that is itself only 1 minute, 15 seconds long. This ratio of analysis time to real
time is typical of microanalysis of face-to-face dialogue because the essential
details occur on a smaller time scale than everyday life. Locating these details
and bringing them into view takes much longer than the duration of the micro-
events. By analogy, what started primarily as a “slow food” movement soon
led to advocates of going slow in many areas, including “slow science” (e.g.,
McCabe, 2012). In the same spirit, this book is advocating slow(er) research.
Two Advantages of Face-to-face Dialogue
Taken together, the defining features of face-to-face dialogue contribute to

two functional advantages over other forms of language use. First, being
in a dialogue offers a high level of reciprocity (mutual responsiveness).
Interlocutors are very likely to respond to each other and to do so rapidly. In
13
words, voice, Lecture to a Formal Seminar Face-to-face

gestures, passive debate Dialogue
gaze, and audience
shared space
words, voice, Television, Audience at a Computer- Computer-

and gestures movie play mediated mediated video
RESOURCES
video with lag with no lag
words and Radio, Voice mail CB radio Phone;

voice podcast computer-
mediated audio
words, Book, article Facebook Email, texting Chat Real-time texting

graphics, and
formatting
Low Moderate High Overlapping

Degree of Reciprocity (probability and speed of response)
FIGURE 1.2. Matrix of resources from written text to face-to-face dialogue.
contrast, written or mediated responses are often delayed; it is not unusual

to receive no response. The other advantage is that face-to-face dialogue is
multimodal, with the full repertoire of audible and visible resources: words
and their vocal nuances as well as hand and facial gestures, including gaze.
Gibson (1966, p. 285) would call such features affordances, which are the
intrinsic properties of things that make them useful to us. They offer or “af-
ford” opportunities for their use. For example, a “push” plate or “pull” handle
on an unfamiliar door offers the right action for opening it. Similarly, being
in a face-to-face dialogue meant the interlocutors could convey visible as
well as audible information.
This chapter began by proposing that face-to-face dialogue is the basic
form of language use. Figure 1.2 illustrates how only face-to-face dialogue
combines its two affordances at their maximum values. Perhaps, as Firth
(1935/1957, p. 32) proposed, “it is here we shall find the key to a better un-
derstanding of what language really is and how it works.” The key, of course, is
only a beginning but an essential one.
What’s Ahead
Part I addresses and offers alternatives to the often-unexamined theoretical

and methodological assumptions that get in the way of seeing or studying
face-to-face dialogues. Specifically, it is necessary to
¤ change the focus from individuals to their interaction;

¤ change the focus from nonverbal communication (or “body lan-
guage”) to co-speech gestures;
¤ consider a more open approach to different research methods.
14
Part II is the empirical heart of the book, focusing on our program of basic
research:
¤ initial studies of processes within face-to-face dialogue;

¤ an as-yet unexplained relationship between being in a dialogue
(versus a monologue) and using hand gestures, figurative language,
direct quotations, and facial portrayals.
Then, focusing on the contributions of hand and facial co-speech gestures to
the process of having a dialogue:
¤ social interactive functions of hand gestures;

¤ social interactive functions of facial gestures (including gaze).
And, holding it all together:
¤ Moment-by-moment calibrating and display of mutual

understanding.
Part III describes some applications of this research in a variety of settings:
¤ computer-mediated communication;
¤ parent-child interactions with autistic infants;
¤ medical interactions;
¤ psychotherapy dialogues.
15
PART I
Changing the Focus

Many disciplines that study language or communication come
with assumptions that obscure our view of face-to-face dialogue.
Often these assumptions are received wisdom, unnoticed and
unquestioned. Part I addresses three such instances and, in each
case, offers changes that are essential for understanding face-
to-face dialogue: Chapter Two examines the factors that keep the
focus on individuals and their mental processes rather than on their
interaction. Chapter Three outlines the differences between nonverbal
communication and a specific set of empirically supported co-speech
gestures. Chapter Four proposes that any single research method for
studying face-to-face dialogue has advantages and disadvantages,
which suggests a more encompassing view of others’ work as
converging or complementary evidence.
16
17
From Individuals to Interactions
It needed great scientific imagination to realize that it is not

the charges nor the particles but the field in the space between
the charges and the particles which is essential for the description
of physical phenomena.
—Einstein and Infeld (1938, p. 259)
In a face-to-face dialogue, it is not the individuals but their interaction—the space

between them—that is essential for description of social phenomena; see Figure
2.1. Of course, familiar individual processes (e.g., cognitive, emotional, moti-
vational, neural) will also be occurring, but focusing on these will obscure any
FIGURE 2.1. Changing the focus.

Created for this book by S. McLaughlin.
Face-to-Face Dialogue. Janet Beavin Bavelas, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190913366.003.0002
18
analysis of interactional processes. This chapter is about choices that facilitate or

discourage the study of the details of face-to-face dialogue (Bavelas, 2005).
Choosing Data
The first essential choice is to obtain truly dialogic data. Many contexts that
are loosely called dialogues lack the defining characteristics of face-to-face
dialogues as set out in Chapter One. Other contexts such as dialogues on the
phone or computer-mediated dialogues are often useful for comparison, but
the standard has to be a face-to-face dialogue. Then, just as mapping certain
brain functions starts with a technically appropriate recording, seeing face-to-
face dialogue starts with the best possible video-audio recording. As described
in Chapter One, it is essential to see and hear both (or all) participants as they
saw and heard each other and equally essential to be able to study their inter-
action in the same time scale as it occurred.
Perceptual Choices
Video recordings and analysis software are physical tools for seeing interac-
tion, but the analyst’s perceptions are also an essential tool. The individuals in
a dialogue are stable perceptual objects that stand out in the foreground; what
happens in the space between and around them is not as immediately obvious.
A useful analogy comes from Maier (1930):
Example 2.1. The nine-dots problem
Draw a line through each of the dots using four straight lines. The
four lines must be connected to each other, and a line can go through
each dot only once.
(The solution is at the end of this chapter.)
The expected solution rate for this problem under laboratory conditions (e.g.,
a time limit of a few minutes) is 0% (MacGregor, Ormerod, & Chronicle,
19
From Individuals to Interactions 19
2001). Experiments that provide hints still do not raise the solution rate above
50% (Kershaw & Ohlsson, 2004).
One of the reasons for the difficulty is that, when most people see the
nine dots, they infer that the dots form a square. The “sides” of this imagined
square become implicit boundaries that limit where the lines can go. Even
though there are no visible boundaries and the space around the dots is open
and available, most people do not use it. The perceptual field strongly resists
change. (The nine-dot solution is a good example of “thinking outside the
box.”) When viewing face-to-face dialogue, a similar perceptual field often
makes social interaction hard to see. The implied boundary is each individual’s
body, which excludes what is happening from the skin outward, so to speak.
As a result, many observers focus on familiar attributions about one or both
individuals’ mental processes and literally do not see what is happening in
their interaction. The challenge is to think outside the box of an individual and
look outward instead of inward.
Developing a Schema
Neisser (1976) explained more specifically how observers might not see what
is in front of their eyes. He started by emphasizing that perception is not a
passive or unilateral process in which a perceiver simply receives informa-
tion from the environment. Neisser called the perceiver’s active contribution
to what he or she can see a schema (plural: schemata):
Because we can see only what we know how to look for, it is these
schemata (together with the information actually available) that de-
termine what will be perceived. Perception is indeed a constructive
process. (p. 20; italics added)
Some examples of Neisser’s theory: A person who has just purchased a new car
is likely to start seeing more of that model everywhere. Or, perhaps the reader
started noticing “uh’s” and “um’s” after reading Chapter One and watching the
video—and suddenly notices that everyone is using them. “We can see only
what we know how to look for.”
Observers who are new to face-to-face dialogue often anticipate what
their prior training and theory lead them to expect. When their schemata
are about individuals and mental processes, these are what they will see in
a dialogue. An overall schema that treats behavior as a route into the mind
will guide their perception, and behavior as interaction will be invisible. Only
after developing a schema for observable aspects of an interaction do these
details suddenly appear. For example, in the video of the Burning Pillow story
in Chapter One, an individual schema would lead to seeing the addressee’s
winces and concerned looks as a by-product of feelings of empathy. However,
with a schema for speaker-addressee interaction, it is possible to notice that
20
her reactions were clear, stylized, and precisely timed to each new event the
speaker described. That is, they were functioning as back channels, showing
the speaker that she was involved in the story and was following closely both
the content and the implications of the narrative.
Both academics and laypersons often use descriptive terms that make
inferences about individuals’ minds rather than language that describes their
observable actions. A readily available vocabulary tends to impose individual
rather than interactional schemata, focusing perception inward rather than
outward. A useful exercise is to contrast the two kinds of descriptions, that
is, to learn to recognize the implicitly individualistic schemata in familiar
descriptive language and then to apply an observable, interactional descrip-
tion to the same dialogue. A good start is to favor verbs and adverbs that
refer to observable actions, instead of nouns and adjectives. In short, think
function—what is this observable behavior doing at this point in this inter-
action? Table 2.1 illustrates one vocabulary that focuses on a state or charac-
teristic of an individual and an alternative vocabulary that focuses on what
the interlocutors did in relation to each other.
In short, the emphasis here is on choice. As Einstein and Infeld (1938)
implied, the charges and particles were still there, but it was possible to choose
to ignore them and shift their focus to the field in the space between. When
studying face-to-face dialogue, individuals and their mental processes are of
course still there, but it is possible to choose to ignore them for a moment in
order to shift the focus to what is going on between them. Asking “why” an
individual acted in a certain way need not automatically point to a mental
process. Why can mean what for, that is, with what interactional effect?
(Watzlawick, Beavin Bavelas, & Jackson, 1967, p. 45). By making these choices,
TABLE 2.1
Contrasting Schemata for the Burning Pillow Story
Individual Schema Interactional Schema
“The speaker was thinking how to start.” vs. “The speaker marked her hesitations for
the addressee.”
“The addressee was passive at first vs. “As the speaker provided the background,
(e.g., just nods and ‘mhm’).” the addressee showed that she was
following.”
“Then the addressee got excited.” vs. “The addressee began to display alarm
with her face and gestures exactly as the
narrator started to describe the danger.”
“The speaker was a good story teller.” vs. “The speaker told her story well, and the
addressee illustrated the danger with her
facial actions.”
“The addressee was trying to interrupt.” vs. “When the speaker was finishing,
the addressee joined the speaker in
elaborating on the danger.”
21
an observer can develop schemata that will make interactional answers more
likely. In this sense, the observer’s mind is as much an essential technical tool
as the camera and software are.
Choosing a Unit of Analysis
Kurt Lewin, who was arguably the first modern social psychologist, empha
sized that
The first prerequisite of a successful observation in any science
is a definite understanding about what size of unit one is going
to observe at a given occasion. (1943, p. 121, italics original)
As implied in the previous section, the chosen size of the unit of analysis can
be an individual or an interaction (Bavelas, 2005). The tendency to study
individuals rather than their interaction is not just about schemata; it has roots
in philosophy of science. (See Lewin, 1931, for a historical perspective.)
Reductionism
Implicitly or explicitly, many researchers adopt a strategy of reductionism,
based on the assumption that “complex phenomena are best understood by
a componential analysis that breaks down the phenomena into their funda-
mental, elementary aspects” (Reber, Allen, & Reber, 2009, p. 663). In this view,
dialogue is a complex phenomenon best understood by breaking it down into
its components, which would be the individuals involved. Reber, Allen, and
Reber pointed out that the debate about reductionism
is typically not over whether the more molecular [e.g., individual]
components exist: it is over whether or not greater insight into the
underlying nature of the phenomena under consideration can be
achieved by reaching down to them. (p. 663; italics original)
The Russian neuroscientist Luria (2004, p. 537) also emphasized the impor-
tance of preserving the underlying nature or basic features of the phenom-
enon under consideration. He pointed out that the components of water are
hydrogen and oxygen, but studying these (highly combustible) components
would provide no insight into the nature of water.
The Whole Is Something Else

The salient components of a dialogue are definitely individuals. The question is
whether studying them as individuals will inform us about the nature of their
interaction in a dialogue. Koffka (1935/1955) is usually misquoted as saying that
2
“the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” What he actually proposed was
that “the whole is something else than the sum of its parts” (p. 176, italics added).
In behavioral sciences, it is often difficult to imagine “something else” other
than individuals, so analogies may be helpful. In team sports, a team wins or
loses as a team, not as individuals; all-star teams are often less than stellar. In
music, it is the string quartet and not its individuals who perform the reper-
toire. In some plays or movies, the “chemistry” between actors is more impor-
tant than their individual performances. And it is the interlocutors, together,
who create a face-to-face dialogue. Even when an analysis may seem to focus
on a speaker’s or addressee’s actions, the context is always interactional. For ex-
ample, what did the speaker’s action convey to the addressee (vs. what might it
reveal about what the speaker was thinking or feeling)? What was the relation-
ship between one interlocutor’s action and the other’s preceding, simultaneous,
or subsequent actions?
Changing the focus from individuals to interactions has strategic and
methodological implications. If interaction in a dialogue is “something else
than” the sum of the individuals involved, then it is unlikely that individual
mental models are the way to begin to understand dialogue. When the goal is
to understand dialogue, a better strategy is to understand, first, how dialogue
works, then to build cognitive and neurological models that can account for
how dialogue actually works (e.g., Holler & Levinson, 2019). Research on dia-
logue that starts by studying individual cognitions or brain activity risks being
out of logical sequence—looking for explanations of phenomena without a
clear understanding of what needs explaining. A single piece of a jigsaw puzzle
takes its meaning from where it fits in the puzzle as a whole.
Disciplinary Constraints and Opportunities
The study of social interaction in face-to-face dialogue is intrinsically interdis-

ciplinary rather than fitting into any single discipline (Bavelas, 1999). In many
cases, the basic assumptions and established methods of some disciplines have
seemed to preclude the study of face-to-face dialogue. However, in every instance,
there are those who question these constraints and create opportunities instead.
Linguistics
It often goes unnoticed that, although de Saussure (1959/1966) chose to study
language, he started by placing it in a social context, as a subset of speech in
dialogue:
Language . . . is not to be confused with human speech . . . , of which it
is only a definite part, though certainly an essential one. (p. 9)
23
. . . . The act requires the presence of at least two persons; that

is the minimum number necessary to complete the circuit. (p. 11;
italics added)
De Saussure chose to focus on language as a subset of human speech. However,
he made clear that his choice was not absolute. What Neisser (1976) later called
a “schema,” de Saussure called a “viewpoint”:
Far from it being the object [of study] that antedates the viewpoint,
it would seem that it is the viewpoint that creates the object [of study];
besides, nothing tells us in advance that one way of considering the
fact in question takes precedence over the others or is in any way su-
perior to them. (de Saussure, 1959/1966, p. 8, italics added)
It seems that linguistics subsequently took the opposite viewpoint, namely,
that human speech is a subset of language—and a rather poor subset at that.
Chomsky (1965) famously declared natural speech with another person to be
unusable data because “a record of natural speech will show numerous false
starts, deviations from rules, changes of plan in mid-course, and so on” (p. 4).
In de Saussure’s terms, this viewpoint creates an object of study that consists of
idealized, context-free, individual sentences.
C. Goodwin (1981) turned Chomsky’s criticism into an opportunity,
suggesting that spontaneous natural speech can lead to new discoveries about
dialogue (many of which Goodwin went on to make):
The situation is perhaps not that actual speech restricts the analyst
to inadequate and degenerate data, but rather that, if [one] refuses to
look at actual talk, an important range of phenomena may be inacces-
sible to observation and study. (pp. 12–13)
For example, the transcript of the narrator in the Burning Pillow story (Table 1.3
in Chapter One) shows false starts, deviations from grammatical rules, and
changes of plan in mid-course, but a close examination of their interaction
reveals that the interlocutors were improvising very effectively. How they ac-
complished their improvisation requires a new viewpoint that, as Goodwin
suggested, makes an alternative object of study accessible to observation and
study. As de Saussure pointed out, “nothing tells us in advance that one way of
considering the fact in question takes precedence over the others or is in any
way superior to them.”
Linell (1982/2005, 2001, 2009) presented the same choice in broader
terms, characterizing traditional linguistic epistemology as monologism that
treats language as a system or structure in a formalistic framework. An alterna-
tive epistemology of dialogism treats language as discourse, in a functionalistic
framework (2001, p. 3). The difference is between abstraction and action.
Chomsky (1965) illustrated another major feature that Linell ascribed to
24
monologism, which was his emphasis on cognition rather than communi-

cation. Chomsky explained that, “in the technical sense, linguistic theory is
mentalistic, since it is concerned with discovering a mental reality underlying
actual behavior” (p. 4).
In a significant break from monologism, Yngve (1970) focused on spon-
taneous dialogues and how they functioned, questioning the very notion of
individual turns and sentences:
In fact, both the person who has the turn and his partner are simul-
taneously engaged in both speaking and listening. This is because of
the existence of what I call the back channel, over which the person
who has the turn receives short messages such as “yes” and “uh-huh”
without relinquishing the turn. The partner, of course, is not only lis-
tening, but speaking occasionally as he sends the short messages in
the back channel. (p. 568; italics added)
Back channels, often under different names, have since become so widely ac-
cepted that Yngve is often not even cited. Yet the ubiquity of back channels
and their influence on the speaker-of-the moment (e.g., Chapter Five) suggests
that monologism simply cannot extend to face-to-face dialogues.
Psycholinguistics
As a branch of linguistics and psychology, psycholinguistics has tradition-
ally investigated cognitive processes of individuals during language produc-
tion or language comprehension. Clark (1992, 1996) called this the product
tradition:
In the product tradition, sentences, words, and phonetic segments are
treated as linguistic types abstracted away from speakers, times, places,
and circumstances in which they might have been produced. . . .
The structure of these items determines only their potential uses. To
specify an actual use, we have to fill in what is missing from [what is
broadly called] “context.” (1996, pp. 56–57; italics in original)
The more recent action tradition “starts directly with what people do with lan-
guage and investigates how that works” (Clark, 1992, p. xiii).
In highly original experimental work (e.g., Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs, 1986;
Schober & Clark, 1989; see Chapter Five), Clark opened a new possibility.
He introduced the study of dialogue as a collaborative activity and conducted
experiments in which the dyad (rather than either individual) was the unit of
analysis. Collaborative theory has been quite influential on the program of re-
search in this book. More broadly, many of the major contributors to the study
of face-to-face dialogue are linguists in the action tradition.
25
Sociology and Conversation Analysis

C. Goodwin and Heritage (1990) pointed out that sociology in the 1960s was
ultimately individualistic:
Cultural values, once internalized as personality dispositions, were
conceived as the causal drivers of social behavior. Within this per-
spective, mutual understanding and shared communicative meaning
were treated as the unproblematic outcome of a pre-existing common
knowledge of language and cultural symbols. Similarly, the coordina-
tion of [social] action was analyzed as the product of compliance with
shared norms of conduct. . . . In this context, detailed empirical anal-
ysis of social action and interaction was set aside in favor of developing
a conceptual approach to action that could prepare the way for macro
social systems analysis. (pp. 284–285; italics added)
Goffman (e.g., 1963, 1967, 1981) and Garfinkel (e.g., 1967; Heritage, 1984)
were two sociologists who overturned this hegemonic theory and actually did
“detailed empirical analysis of social action and interaction.” Both of them
observed and theorized about the micro-details of interactions in which
people engage every day. Both directly influenced their graduate students,
Sacks (1966) and Schegloff (1967), which ultimately led to the development of
conversation analysis (CA), an innovative sub-discipline of sociology that fits
many of the criteria for studying dialogue.
As summarized by Stivers and Sidnell (2013, p. 2), CA is distinctive in sev-
eral ways: (a) It is an inductive, qualitative method with the goal of describing
the overall structure of social interactions. (b) Conversation analysts assume
that language use is orderly at a minute level of detail. (c) The data must be
records of spontaneous, naturally occurring data and exclude data from lab-
oratory experiments. (d) Usually, conversation analysts work from a fine-
grained transcript of an audio recording. Within these parameters, the CA
method has produced a large body of work on dialogue in a wide variety of
contexts and disciplines.
Limitations of traditional conversation analysis. With significant
exceptions, traditional CA does not study face-to-face dialogue. The data are
and have been primarily transcripts of telephone calls or face-to-face dialogues.
In one of Sacks’s Lectures on Conversation (1995), someone in the audience
asked about “leaving out things like facial expressions, tone of voice, etc.” Sacks
answered with two different reasons, one technical and the other more fun-
damental. The technical issue was about the options for recording at the time:
Things like facial expressions are enormously difficult to study—which
isn’t to say that it wouldn’t be great to study them. It would be great to
study them. It’s an absence. But there are lots of terribly difficult issues
26
for trying to study things like facial expressions, having to do with,

e.g., it’s difficult to consider how you would do the filming that would
be involved. Like, just consider two people sitting and having a con-
versation together; it’s not too obvious how you’d get a picture which
got you what each of them saw of the other, at the same time, so as to
see what they were seeing. Clearly enough, a picture of the conversa-
tion from across the room wouldn’t give you the same sort of thing as
the idea of a camera built into each one’s head. (pp. 26–27)
Sacks was speaking in 1968, before videos with two cameras in split-screen
could routinely record “what each of them saw of the other, at the same time.”
Split-screen recordings are now quite possible in many settings, and it turns
out that side views with one camera are often satisfactory. See Mondada’s ex-
cellent discussion of both technical and conceptual issues involved in video
recording (2014, especially pp. 39–55).
However, this technical limitation was secondary to a more fundamental
issue, namely, Sacks’s goal and chosen research strategy:
Leaving aside whatever else is left out—and the kind of analysis I do
doesn’t deal with, e.g., all the things linguistics deals with—the main
reason why it’s left out is that the sorts of things I’m trying to do are not
particularly to develop anything like a comprehensive analysis of what ac-
tually happened, but to begin to set minimal constraints on what an expla-
nation or a description of talking or doing things together would look like,
and one gets started where you can maybe get somewhere. (1995, p. 26)
Sacks’s strong implication is that a transcribed audio version was the
minimal unit to which dialogue could be reduced and therefore constituted a
foundation that could be elaborated on in the future. Sacks’s rationale echoed
the strategy of reductionism, as described earlier in this chapter, but he was
also candid about his own limitations at the time:
So what’s involved is a sort of beginning. Though that shouldn’t be
treated as claiming excuses. It might be possible to do some things
with, say, facial expressions, but I don’t know what to do with them
now. (1995, p. 27)
Reductionist reasoning was more explicit in Sacks, Schegloff, and
Jefferson’s (1974) description of their classic turn-taking model, derived from
transcribed audio, as the “simplest systematics.” Simplest was a positive term,
meaning the most parsimonious; visible acts such as hand and facial gestures
or gaze were not necessary. (See Drew, 2013, p. 132, for a more explicit reduc-
tionist strategy.) Notice that this is not a reduction from interaction to indi-
vidual; CA is devoted to interaction. It is, instead, a reduction in a different
dimension, from face-to-face dialogue to transcripts.
27
Ultimately, the primary data for CA became a rigorous transcription

format (Jefferson, 1983, 2004), even when the dialogue had been face to face:
Given [that] the goal of CA is to identify structures that underlie so-
cial interaction, video or audio data are never coded or analyzed in
raw form. Rather, the preparation of data for analysis involves . . . de-
tailed transcription in order to facilitate the analysis of the details of
turns and sequences. (Stivers & Sidnell, 2013, p. 2)
Taken literally, the “structures that underlie social interaction” are not in the
video or audio data but in a transcription of the speech. This decision strongly
implies a view of dialogue in which the transcribed verbal features are neces-
sary and sufficient whereas the accompanying audible and visible features are
interesting but could be added later (or not).
However, as shown in Table 1.1 in Chapter One, numerous language
scholars have emphasized three criteria for the basic form of language use: It
is pervasive, used in all societies and cultures; it is predominant in everyday
interactions; and it is the form in which children acquire language. Obviously,
by these criteria, transcriptions of telephone or face-to-face dialogues cannot
be considered a basic form of language use. Face- to-
face dialogue does
meet these criteria (Clark, 1996, p. 11; see also Fillmore, 1981, p. 152; M. H.
Goodwin, 1990, p. 11; Holler & Levinson, 2019, p. 1; Yngve, 1970, p. 567).
In summary, CA has been officially devoted to one form of dialogue and
is without peer in the systematic examination of transcripts of dialogue from
the widest possible variety of non-lab settings. There are also many researchers
who extend these skills and insights to video-recorded face-to-face dialogues
(e.g., Enfield, C. Goodwin, M. H. Goodwin, Heath, Le Baron, Mondada,
Streeck, among many others).
Social Psychology
Social psychology has long struggled to accept social interaction as part of its
disciplinary domain. Thibaut and Kelley (1959, p. 1) pointed out that two early
books with Social Psychology in their title introduced contrasting traditions: the
study of the individual (McDougall, 1908) and the study of social interaction
(Ross, 1908). A primary historian of social psychology, Gordon Allport (1954,
1968, 1985) followed the McDougall tradition, emphasizing that social psy-
chology differed from other social sciences, such as sociology, because “its
focus of interest is upon the social nature of the individual person” (e.g., 1954,
p. 4). Mead (1934) followed Ross’s tradition, emphasizing the priority of social
processes, that is,
the necessity, in social psychology, of starting off with the initial as-
sumption of an ongoing social process of experience and behavior in
28
which any given group of human individuals is involved, and upon

which the existence and development of their minds, selves, and self-
consciousness depend. (p. 82)
There have always been social psychologists who emphasized that the central
social processes are language and communication. However, a century after
Ross’s book, an examination of the 2008 issues of three major social psychology
journals revealed not a single article on actual social interaction. More recent
years do not seem to have changed this pattern.
In looking for an interactional alternative, it is useful to consider
converging forces that have helped shaped social psychology as the study of
individuals rather than of interaction (Bavelas, 2005). First, social psychology
has historically aligned itself with general psychology, which evolved, early
on, into the study of a conceptually isolated individual. Danziger (1990) has
documented how, step by step, results in experimental psychology
were not taken as conveying information about an individual-in-a-
situation but about an individual in isolation whose characteristics
existed independently of any social involvement. This Robinson
Crusoe assumption played an increasingly important role. . . . (p. 186)
Social psychology has largely adopted this Robinson Crusoe assump-
tion focused on the individual, so that anyone interacting with an indi-
vidual became, not an interlocutor, but part of the environment (Danziger,
1990, p. 187). A contemporary example illustrates the curious schism that
this assumption creates: Experiments on deception usually start with an ex-
perimenter creating and sustaining a false scenario for the participants. Yet,
although these experimenters expect to see “nonverbal leakage” when the
participants lie, they do not consider that they themselves might also “leak”
when they are lying to the participant.
Still, in the 1970s, social psychology journals often included studies of
interaction. At about the same time, interest in interaction and commu-
nication began to encounter a second major barrier. As social psychology
aspired to be an experimental discipline like the rest of psychology, rigorous
control of extraneous variables became the ideal (see especially Aronson &
Carlsmith, 1968). Once interlocutors were defined as part of the environment
(as Danziger, 1990, had shown), they became a “stimulus” that needed to be
controlled rather than studied:
Often, of course, since we are studying social situations, the cru-
cial event will involve an interaction between the subject and other
individuals. If this is the case, the stimulus [i.e., actions of the
other person] may vary greatly. (Aronson & Carlsmith, 1968, p. 11;
bracketed paraphrase added)
29
For anyone who wanted to conduct experiments on face-to-face dialogue, the

actions of the other person were a methodological barrier rather than a legit-
imate topic of interest.
The accepted solution in mainstream social psychology became a scripted
confederate who, unknown to the real participant in an experiment, was
interacting as instructed by the experimenter. The use of confederates violates
a key definition of face-to-face dialogue, namely, that the interlocutors im-
provise their own actions spontaneously. When spontaneous interaction be-
came a threat to experimental control, it soon declined in social psychology
publications. (Even some psycholinguists adopted the use of confederates,
e.g., Branigan, Pickering, & Cleland, 2000, p. B14; Brown and Dell, 1987.)
Ironically, it turns out that research with confederates has fatal methodological
weaknesses, including lack of experimental control (see Bavelas & Healing,
2013; Kuhlen & Brennan, 2013; and Chapter Four in this book).
Fortunately, changes that originated primarily in psycholinguistic experi
ments on free dialogues (e.g., Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs, 1986; Schober & Clark,
1989) began to finesse the problem of experimental control by redefining their
unit of analysis as an interacting dyad. This was the breakthrough that gave
many of us the courage to let participants interact freely by standardizing
conditions outside (rather than within) their interaction (Bavelas & Healing,
2013; Kuhlen & Brennan, 2013). An increasing number of experimental
researchers (mainly outside of social psychology) now focus on collabo-
ration and mutual influence, not as a methodological problem, but as their
central topic of study. In many experimental fields, free dialogues have be-
come routine. In all of the experiments in this book, pairs of freely interacting
interlocutors, face-to-face, were the object of study. A particular study might
also include a reduced condition, such as monologues or telephone dialogues,
for comparison. (Our group’s earliest experiments with individuals in highly
controlled situations are not included in this book.)
Communication Research
The academic discipline of communication is vast and inclusive, covering mass
media, communication technology, political communication, and numerous
other communication settings. The field is newer than linguistics or psy-
chology and not constrained by the early 20th-century traditions from which
those two disciplines have had to emerge. Two sub-disciplines in particular—
interpersonal communication and language and social interaction— have
since their inception included research on the details of communication in
dialogues, including developing rigorous methods for assessing communica-
tion processes. Researchers in interpersonal communication focus on “inter-
action between individuals, typically ‘one-to-one’ (dyadic communication),
30
although it can also include small groups” (Chandler & Munday, 2016, on-
line) and tend to do experimental work. Those in language and social interac-
tion have a similar focus but use conversation analysis or ethnography and, as
noted in the following, are quite interdisciplinary.
Interdisciplinary Fields
Most dialogue researchers in any of the previously mentioned fields are

highly interdisciplinary, following or even collaborating with researchers out-
side their home discipline. The best fit for a study of face-to-face dialogue is
interdisciplinary research, drawing on whatever is useful in their own and
other fields (Bavelas, 1999). For example, the study of language and social
psychology (e.g., Giles & St. Clair, 1979) has become interdisciplinary (e.g.,
Holtgraves, 2014).
Discourse analysis (e.g., Jaworski & Coupland, 2014; Tannen & Hamilton,
2018) started in linguistics but now crosses many disciplinary boundaries.
Similarly, language and social interaction (e.g., Fitch & Sanders, 2005) is an
interdisciplinary field that includes language pragmatics, conversation anal-
ysis, language and social psychology, discourse analysis, and the ethnography
of communication.
From Cybernetics to Psychotherapy: The Palo Alto Group

Probably the most circuitous route to interdisciplinary research on dialogue
began when mathematician Norbert Wiener (e.g., 1948) developed and
named cybernetics. Although the contemporary meaning implies computers,
cybernetics was a new science of living beings as well. The key concepts in-
cluded mutual (rather than unilateral) influence, feedback, and reciprocity.
These concepts immediately had wide appeal, and scholars who attended the
influential Macy Conferences (http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/
history2.htm#MacySum) came from anthropology, comparative psychology,
ecology, electrical engineering, mathematics, neurophysiology, neuropsychi-
atry, physiology, psychiatry, psychology, and sociology.
Of relevance here is that one of the core members of the Macy conferences
was anthropologist Gregory Bateson, whose classic book, Naven (1936/1958)
had described certain ceremonial social interactions among the Iatmul people
of New Guinea. Especially after the Macy conferences, Bateson analyzed these
ceremonies at a dyadic (rather than an individual or group) level, using the
concepts of feedback and mutual influence. He proposed “a process of differen-
tiation in the norms of individual behaviour resulting from cumulative interac-
tion between individuals,” which he called schismogenesis (1958, p. 175, italics
original).
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Dying, his lord he own’d; view’d him all o’er
With eager eyes, then closed those eyes, well pleased.
Of lesser ills the Muse declines to sing,
Nor stoops so low; of these, each groom can tell
The proper remedy. But oh! what care,
What prudence, can prevent madness, the worst
Of maladies? Terrifick pest! that blasts
The huntsman’s hopes, and desolation spreads
Through all the unpeopled kennel, unrestrain’d;
More fatal than the envenom’d viper’s bite,
Or that Apulian spider’s poisonous sting,
Heal’d by the pleasing antidote of sounds.
When Sirius reigns, and the sun’s parching beams
Bake the dry gaping surface, visit thou
Each even and morn, with quick observant eye,
Thy panting pack. If, in dark sullen mood,
The glouting hound refuse his wonted meal,
Retiring to some close obscure retreat,
Gloomy, disconsolate; with speed remove
The poor infectious wretch, and in strong chains
Bind him, suspected. Thus that dire disease,
Which art can’t cure, wise caution may prevent.
But, this neglected, soon expect a change,
A dismal change, confusion, frenzy, death!
Or, in some dark recess, the senseless brute
BOOK IV THE CHASE v. 210-234.

Sits, sadly pining; deep melancholy,
And black despair, upon his clouded brow
Hang lowering; from his half-opening jaws,
The clammy venom, and infectious froth,
Distilling fall; and from his lungs, inflamed,
Malignant vapours taint the ambient air,
Breathing perdition; his dim eyes are glazed,
He droops his pensive head; his trembling limbs
No more support his weight; abject he lies,
Dumb, spiritless, benumb’d; till death, at last,
Gracious attends, and kindly brings relief.
Or, if outrageous grown, behold, alas!
A yet more dreadful scene; his glaring eyes
Redden with fury; like some angry boar,
Churning, he foams, and, on his back, erect
His pointed bristles rise; his tail incurved
He drops; and, with harsh broken howlings, rends
The poison-tainted air; with rough hoarse voice
Incessant bays, and snuffs the infectious breeze;
This way and that he stares, aghast, and starts
At his own shade; jealous, as if he deem’d
The world his foes. If haply toward the stream
He cast his roving eye, cold horrour chills
His soul; averse, he flies, trembling, appall’d:
Now frantick, to the kennel’s utmost verge,

Raving, he runs, and deals destruction round.
The pack fly diverse; for whate’er he meets,
Vengeful, he bites, and every bite is death.
If now, perchance, through the weak fence escaped,
Far up the wind he roves, with open mouth
Inhales the cooling breeze, nor man, nor beast,
He spares, implacable. The hunter-horse,
Once kind associate of his sylvan toils,
Who haply, now, without the kennel’s mound,
Crops the rank mead, and, listening, hears with joy
The cheering cry, that morn and eve salutes
His raptured sense, a wretched victim falls.
Unhappy quadruped! no more, alas!
Shall thy fond master with his voice applaud
Thy gentleness, thy speed; or with his hand
Stroke thy soft dappled sides, as he each day
Visits thy stall, well pleased: no more shalt thou
With sprightly neighings, to the winding horn
And the loud-opening pack, in concert join’d,
Glad his proud heart; for, oh! the secret wound,
Rankling, inflames; he bites the ground, and dies.
Hence to the village, with pernicious haste,
Baleful, he bends his course: the village flies,
Alarm’d; the tender mother, in her arms,
Hugs close the trembling babe; the doors are barr’d;

And flying curs, by native instinct taught,
Shun the contagious bane; the rustick bands
Hurry to arms, the rude militia seize
Whate’er at hand they find; clubs, forks, or guns,
From every quarter charge the furious foe,
In wild disorder and uncouth array;
Till now, with wounds on wounds, oppress’d and gored,
At one short poisonous gasp he breathes his last.
Hence, to the kennel, Muse, return, and view,
With heavy heart, that hospital of woe,
Where horrour stalks at large! insatiate death
Sits growling o’er his prey; each hour presents
A different scene of ruin and distress.
How busy art thou, fate! and how severe
Thy pointed wrath! the dying and the dead
Promiscuous lie; o’er these, the living fight
In one eternal broil; not conscious why,
Nor yet with whom. So drunkards, in their cups,
Spare not their friends, while senseless squabble reigns.
Huntsman! it much behoves thee to avoid
The perilous debate. Ah! rouse up all
Thy vigilance, and tread the treacherous ground
With careful step. Thy fires unquench’d preserve,

As erst the vestal flame; the pointed steel
In the hot embers hide; and if, surprised,
Thou feel’st the deadly bite, quick urge it home
Into the recent sore, and cauterize
The wound: spare not thy flesh, nor dread the event;
Vulcan shall save, when Æsculapius fails.
Here, should the knowing Muse recount the means
To stop this growing plague. And here, alas!
Each hand presents a sovereign cure, and boasts
Infallibility, but boasts in vain.
On this depend; each to his separate seat
Confine, in fetters bound; give each his mess
Apart, his range in open air; and then,
If deadly symptoms, to thy grief, appear,
Devote the wretch; and let him greatly fall,
A generous victim for the public weal.
Sing, philosophick Muse, the dire effects
Of this contagious bite on hapless man!
The rustick swains, by long tradition taught,
Of leeches old, as soon as they perceive
The bite impress’d, to the sea-coasts repair.
Plunged in the briny flood, the unhappy youth
Now journeys home, secure; but soon shall wish
The seas, as yet, had cover’d him beneath
The foaming surge, full many a fathom deep.

A fate more dismal, and superiour ills,
Hang o’er his head devoted. When the moon,
Closing her monthly round, returns again
To glad the night, or when, full-orb’d, she shines
High in the vault of heaven, the lurking pest
Begins the dire assault. The poisonous foam,
Through the deep wound instill’d, with hostile rage,
And all its fiery particles, saline,
Invades the arterial fluid; whose red waves
Tempestuous heave, and, their cohesion broke,
Fermenting boil; intestine war ensues,
And order to confusion turns, embroil’d.
Now the distended vessels scarce contain
The wild uproar, but press each weaker part,
Unable to resist: the tender brain
And stomach suffer most; convulsions shake
His trembling nerves, and wandering pungent pains
Pinch sore the sleepless wretch; his fluttering pulse
Oft intermits; pensive and sad, he mourns
His cruel fate, and to his weeping friends
Laments in vain: to hasty anger prone,
Resents each slight offence, walks with quick step,
And wildly stares: at last, with boundless sway,
The tyrant frenzy reigns; for, as the dog,
Whose fatal bite convey’d the infectious bane,

Raving, he foams, and howls, and barks, and bites!
Like agitations in his boiling blood,
Present like species to his troubled mind;
His nature, and his actions, all canine.
So, as old Homer sung, the associates wild
Of wandering Ithacus, by Circe’s charms
To swine transformed, ran gruntling through the groves,
Dreadful example to a wicked world!
See, there distress’d he lies! parch’d up with thirst,
But dares not drink; till now, at last, his soul
Trembling escapes, her noisome dungeon leaves,
And to some purer region wings away.
One labour yet remains, celestial Maid!
Another element demands thy song.
No more o’er craggy steeps, through coverts thick
With pointed thorn, and briers intricate,
Urge on, with horn and voice, the painful pack;
But skim, with wanton wing, the irriguous vale,
Where winding streams, amid the flowery meads,
Perpetual glide along, and undermine
The cavern’d banks, by the tenacious roots
Of hoary willows arch’d; gloomy retreat
Of the bright scaly kind; where they, at will,
On the green watery reed, their pasture, graze,

Suck the moist soil, or slumber at their ease,
Rock’d by the restless brook, that draws aslope
Its humid train, and laves their dark abodes.
Where rages not oppression? where, alas,
Is innocence secure? Rapine and spoil
Haunt even the lowest deeps; seas have their sharks;
Rivers and ponds inclose the ravenous pike;
He, in his turn, becomes a prey; on him
The amphibious otter feasts. Just is his fate,
Deserved; but tyrants know no bounds: nor spears
That bristle on his back, defend the perch
From his wide greedy jaws; nor burnish’d mail
The yellow carp; nor all his arts can save
The insinuating eel, that hides his head
Beneath the slimy mud; nor yet escapes
The crimson-spotted trout, the river’s pride,
And beauty of the stream. Without remorse,
This midnight pillager, ranging around,
Insatiate, swallows all. The owner mourns
The unpeopled rivulet, and gladly hears
The huntsman’s early call, and sees with joy
The jovial crew, that march upon its banks
In gay parade, with bearded lances arm’d.
This subtle spoiler of the beaver kind,
Far off perhaps, where ancient alders shade

The deep still pool, within some hollow trunk
Contrives his wicker couch; whence he surveys
His long purlieu, lord of the stream, and all
The finny shoals his own. But you, brave youths,
Dispute the felon’s claim; try every root,
And every reedy bank; encourage all
The busy spreading pack, that fearless plunge
Into the flood, and cross the rapid stream.
Bid rocks and caves, and each resounding shore,
Proclaim your bold defiance; loudly raise
Each cheering voice, till distant hills repeat
The triumphs of the vale. On the soft sand,
See there, his seal impress’d; and, on that bank,
Behold the glittering spoils, half-eaten fish,
Scales, fins, and bones, the leavings of his feast.
Ah! on that yielding sag-bed, see, once more
His seal I view. O’er yon dank rushy marsh
The sly goose-footed prowler bends his course,
And seeks the distant shallows. Huntsman! bring
Thy eager pack, and trail him to his couch.
Hark! the loud peal begins; the clamorous joy,
The gallant chiding, loads the trembling air.
Ye Naiads fair, who o’er these floods preside,
Raise up your dripping heads above the wave,
And hear our melody. The harmonious notes

Float with the stream; and every winding creek,
And hollow rock, that o’er the dimpling flood
Nods pendent, still improve, from shore to shore,
Our sweet reiterated joys. What shouts!
What clamour loud! What gay, heart-cheering sounds
Urge, through the breathing brass their mazy way!
Not choirs of Tritons glad, with sprightlier strains,
The dancing billows, when proud Neptune rides
In triumph o’er the deep. How greedily
They snuff the fishy steam, that to each blade,
Rank-scenting, clings! See! how the morning dews
They sweep, that from their feet, besprinkling, drop,
Dispersed, and leave a track oblique behind.
Now on firm land they range; then in the flood
They plunge tumultuous; or through reedy pools,
Rustling, they work their way: no holt escapes
Their curious search. With quick sensation now
The fuming vapour stings, flutters their hearts,
And joy, redoubled, bursts from every mouth,
In louder symphonies. Yon hollow trunk,
That, with its hoary head incurved, salutes
The passing wave, must be the tyrant’s fort,
And dread abode. How these impatient climb,
While others, at the root, incessant bay:
They put him down. See, there he dives along!

The ascending bubbles mark his gloomy way.
Quick fix the nets, and cut off his retreat
Into the sheltering deeps. Ah, there he vents!
The pack plunge headlong, and protended spears
Menace destruction: while the troubled surge
Indignant foams, and all the scaly kind,
Affrighted, hide their heads. Wild tumult reigns,
And loud uproar. Ah, there once more he vents!
See, that bold hound has seized him; down they sink
Together, lost: but soon shall he repent
His rash assault. See, there escaped, he flies,
Half-drown’d, and clambers up the slippery bank,
With ooze and blood distain’d. Of all the brutes,
Whether by nature formed, or by long use,
This artful diver best can bear the want
Of vital air. Unequal is the fight,
Beneath the whelming element. Yet there
He lives not long; but respiration needs,
At proper intervals: again he vents;
Again the crowd attack. That spear has pierced
His neck; the crimson waves confess the wound.
Fix’d is the bearded lance, unwelcome guest,
Where’er he flies; with him it sinks beneath,
With him it mounts; sure guide to every foe.
Inly he groans; nor can his tender wound

Bear the cold stream. Lo! to yon sedgy bank
He creeps, disconsolate: his numerous foes
Surround him, hounds, and men. Pierced through and through,
On pointed spears they lift him high in air;
Wriggling, he hangs, and grins, and bites in vain.
Bid the loud horns, in gaily-warbling strains,
Proclaim the felon’s fate; he dies, he dies!
Rejoice, ye scaly tribes; and, leaping, dance
Above the wave, in sign of liberty
Restored: the cruel tyrant is no more.
Rejoice, secure and bless’d; did not as yet
Remain, some of your own rapacious kind;
And man, fierce man, with all his various wiles.
O happy, if ye knew your happy state,
Ye rangers of the fields! whom nature boon
Cheers with her smiles, and every element
Conspires to bless. What, if no heroes frown
From marble pedestals; nor Raphael’s works,
Nor Titian’s lively tints, adorn our walls?
Yet these the meanest of us may behold;
And, at another’s cost, may feast at will
Our wondering eyes; what can the owner more?
But vain, alas! is wealth, not graced with power.
The flowery landscape, and the gilded dome,

And vistas opening to the wearied eye,
Through all his wide domain; the planted grove,
The shrubby wilderness, with its gay choir
Of warbling birds, can’t lull to soft repose
The ambitious wretch, whose discontented soul
Is harrow’d day and night; he mourns, he pines,
Until his prince’s favour makes him great.
See there he comes, the exalted idol comes!
The circle’s form’d, and all his fawning slaves
Devoutly bow to earth; from every mouth
The nauseous flattery flows, which he returns
With promises, that die as soon as born.
Vile intercourse! where virtue has no place.
Frown but the monarch, all his glories fade;
He mingles with the throng, outcast, undone,
The pageant of a day; without one friend
To sooth his tortured mind; all, all are fled.
For though they bask’d in his meridian ray,
The insects vanish, as his beams decline.
Not such our friends; for here no dark design,
No wicked interest, bribes the venal heart;
But inclination to our bosom leads,
And weds them there for life; our social cups
Smile, as we smile; open, and unreserved.
We speak our inmost souls; good humour, mirth,

Soft complaisance, and wit from malice free,
Smooth every brow, and glow on every cheek.
O happiness sincere! what wretch would groan
Beneath the galling load of power, or walk
Upon the slippery pavements of the great,
Who thus could reign, unenvied and secure?
Ye guardian powers, who make mankind your care,
Give me to know wise nature’s hidden depths,
Trace each mysterious cause, with judgment read
The expanded volume, and, submiss, adore
That great creative will, who, at a word,
Spoke forth the wonderous scene. But if my soul
To this gross clay confined, flutters on earth
With less ambitious wing; unskill’d to range
From orb to orb, where Newton leads the way;
And, view with piercing eyes, the grand machine;
Worlds above worlds, subservient to his voice;
Who, veil’d in clouded majesty, alone
Gives light to all; bids the great system move,
And changeful seasons, in their turns, advance,
Unmoved, unchanged himself: yet this, at least,
Grant me propitious, an inglorious life,
Calm and serene, nor lost in false pursuits
Of wealth or honours; but enough to raise
My drooping friends, preventing modest want
That dares not ask. And if, to crown my joys,

Ye grant me health, that, ruddy in my cheeks,
Blooms in my life’s decline; fields, woods, and streams,
Each towering hill, each humble vale below,
Shall hear my cheering voice; my hounds shall wake
The lazy morn, and glad the horizon round.
Printed by W. Bulmer and Co.
Cleveland-row, St. James’s.
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Face To Face Dialogue Theory Research and Applications Janet Beavin Bavelas Full Chapter

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Face-to-Face Dialogue: Theory,

Research, and Applications Janet

Janet Beavin Bavelas

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

Preface by the Series Editor vii

1 Appreciating Face-​to-​face Dialogue 1

PART I. CHANGING THE FOCUS

3 From Nonverbal Communication to Co-​speech Gesture 35

4 Common Goals, Different Methods 49

PART II. INSIDE FACE-​TO-​FACE DIALOGUE

6 Dialogue Favors Demonstrations 87

7 The Social Life of Hand Gestures 103

8 The Social Life of Facial Gestures 125

PART III. DIALOGUES IN APPLIED SETTINGS

11 Psychotherapy as Dialogue 175

12 A Summary So Far 197

PREFACE BY THE SERIES EDITOR

PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR

This book brings together a long-​term program of research focused on a

x Preface by the Author

earlier Pragmatics of Human Communication (Watzlawick, Beavin Bavelas, &

In preparing this book, I have made use of previously published material,

Republished with permission of Annual Reviews, Inc., from Annual Review of

ABOUT THE COMPANION WEBSITE

Oxford has provided the above password-protected website to accompany

Appreciating Face-​to-​face Dialogue

Face-​to-​face dialogue is ordinary, everyday conversation, yet unique in sev-

Appreciating Face-to-face Dialogue 3

Clark (1996) Psycholinguistics “In brief, face-​to-​face conversation is the basic

Linell (2009) Pragmatics “More fundamental than language is dialogue.” (p.

Defining Features of Face-​to-​face Dialogues

Probably the chief feature characterizing the approach to

2. Face-​to-​face dialogues are spontaneous, not scripted. The interlocu­

Appreciating Face-to-face Dialogue 5

Communications Commission, https://​docs.fcc.gov/​public/​attachments/​

defining features of a face-​to-​face dialogue. For example, a mediated dialogue

Appreciating Face-to-face Dialogue 7

of their dialogue. Therefore, analysis involves repeated viewing of small

Transcribing Face-​to-​face Dialogues

¤ Other vocalizations, such as laughing, would be noted in parentheses.

¤ Co-​speech hand and facial gestures, including smiling, nodding, and

Illustrating the Defining Features with a Close-​call Story

Appreciating Face-to-face Dialogue 9

1. The interlocutors were a speaker and addressee, although these roles

FIGURE 1.1. The nested contexts of face-​to-​face dialogue.

proceeds. Here, two undergraduates, strangers to each other, had each

Appreciating Face-to-face Dialogue 11

collateral signals for shorter and longer pauses, respectively. Then,

Two Advantages of Face-​to-​face Dialogue

Taken together, the defining features of face-​to-​face dialogue contribute to

Appreciating Face-to-face Dialogue 13

words, voice, Lecture to a Formal Seminar Face-to-face

words, voice, Television, Audience at a Computer- Computer-

video with lag with no lag

words and Radio, Voice mail CB radio Phone;

words, Book, article Facebook Email, texting Chat Real-time texting

Low Moderate High Overlapping

FIGURE 1.2. Matrix of resources from written text to face-​to-​face dialogue.

1 Appreciating Face-to-face Dialogue 1

3 From Nonverbal Communication to Co-speech Gesture 35

PART II. INSIDE FACE-TO-FACE DIALOGUE

This book brings together a long-term program of research focused on a

Appreciating Face-to-face Dialogue

Face-to-face dialogue is ordinary, everyday conversation, yet unique in sev-

Clark (1996) Psycholinguistics “In brief, face-to-face conversation is the basic

Defining Features of Face-to-face Dialogues

2. Face-to-face dialogues are spontaneous, not scripted. The interlocu

Communications Commission, https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/

defining features of a face-to-face dialogue. For example, a mediated dialogue

Transcribing Face-to-face Dialogues

¤ Co-speech hand and facial gestures, including smiling, nodding, and

Illustrating the Defining Features with a Close-call Story

FIGURE 1.1. The nested contexts of face-to-face dialogue.

Two Advantages of Face-to-face Dialogue

Taken together, the defining features of face-to-face dialogue contribute to

FIGURE 1.2. Matrix of resources from written text to face-to-face dialogue.

Part I addresses and offers alternatives to the often-unexamined theoretical

¤ initial studies of processes within face-to-face dialogue;

¤ Moment-by-moment calibrating and display of mutual

In a face-to-face dialogue, it is not the individuals but their interaction—the space

The study of social interaction in face-to-face dialogue is intrinsically interdis-

For anyone who wanted to conduct experiments on face-to-face dialogue, the