Jones Zimmerman Child Point Intentionality

8/18/2019 Jones Zimmerman Child Point Intentionality

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156 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

Pointing — the use of an outstretched arm and hand (with extended finger

or fingers) — is often accompanied by vocalizations to initiate a joint activity in

the course of which the caregiver locates a candidate specification of the point’s

target. In this fashion, caregivers treat the point as an act undertaken by thechild to call the caregiver’s attention to some feature of the present situation,

and to have her respond in some way. For example, a child initiates an interact-

ional sequence by extending a point and the caregiver responds to the child’s

point by identifying an object, fetching an object or commenting on a quality

or state of an object. The child’s point is oriented to by caregivers as a recogniz-

able action directed to some end, i.e., as intentional.

Of course, very young children are largely dependent on adult caregivers (or

on older children) to satisfy their needs — an obvious aspect of infancy andearly childhood that caregivers in daycare centers such as the ones we studied

have a professional obligation to manage. We explore how what might be

thought to be simply an instrumental act — an attempt to satisfy a need —

becomes organized as an interactional sequence. It is within interaction that

pointing becomes action, and the intentionality of the point is achieved by both

the child and caregiver, an instance of early, emergent sociality.

In both lay and professional discourse, the concept of intentionality

presupposes an interior, mental state or representation. For the former, to speak

of an individual’s intention or purpose provides a way of addressing the reasons

for their actions. For the latter, the concept furnishes issues for theory and

research, such as the criteria for identifying behavior as intentional, the nature

of the relationship between intentional states and representations of them, and

the functions performed by “the ability to attribute intentional states … to

oneself or others” (Olson, Astington & Zelazo, 1999, pp.3–4).

Rather than seeing intentionality as an exclusively cognitive process, we ask

how both the caregiver and the child orient to the child’s actions (pointing,

gaze, vocalization, etc.) as intentional. It is reasonably clear that children

beginning at the age of nine months can engage in, or are beginning to develop,

joint attention, gaze-following, social referencing and imitative learning, all of

which are critical cognitive and social capacities (Tomasello, 1999, pp.61–76).

This enables young children to participate in a range of interactional engage-

ments with caregivers and peers (Kidwell, 2003; Kidwell & Zimmerman, 2002a,

2002b; Lerner & Zimmerman, 2003).We assume that the “default presupposition” guiding social life is that the

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A child’s point and the achievement of intentionality 157

(cf. Heritage, 1984, pp.260–280; Levinson, 1995, pp.239–242). This paper

attempts to trace how this presupposition is actualized in conduct in a setting

where most of the participants are preverbal and cannot articulate their

intentions. We will ask how, by their actions do adult caregivers treat the child’sactions as intentional? And a further, critical question: do children in turn

orient to their own actions in pointing and vocalizing as intending some

outcome, i.e., a response of some sort from the caregiver? This approach to

intentionality locates it in the orderly production and recognizability of actions.

What we suggest in this paper is that intentionality (and other the aspects of

“mindedness”), usually treated as dwelling in a private mental domain, parades

around in full public view as integral, facilitating practices of interaction, even

among very young children. We suggest that intentionality is a feature of participants’ production and recognition of actions, and that the intentionality of

the child’s point is accomplished through, and hence becomes visible in, interac-

tion between the child and the caregiver as it unfolds in a particular situation.

To address these questions, we first provide a framework within which to

examine these child-caregiver interactions. Then we will examine two cases

drawn from a broader collection of 80 episodes and describe how intentionality

emerges as a property of interaction as much as of mind.

A method for looking

Trying to make sense of interactions in which one of the participants does not

use speech can be an extremely challenging task.1 It seems difficult to under-

stand what a child, who does not use speech, is up to, without “guessing” what

is going on “inside” his or her head, that is, his or her intentions. One way toavoid this is by examining how any given action is demonstrably relevant for

the participants involved in the interaction without giving analytic priority to

what is going on in the minds of the participants. In order to do so, we pose

three questions to each interaction we examine.

First, how does the adult caregiver observably orient to a child pointing ? That

is, we look to the caregiver’s response as the determination — for all practical

purposes, and in that moment — of the specific action embodied in the point

and, if present, the child’s vocalization.Second, how does the caregiver come to select the responding action that they do?

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Third, how does the child orient to his or her own actions and the actions of the

caregiver? Intention-in-action, in this view, is not static — it is not simply a

mental event that occurs in a particular moment of time, but rather unfolds and

is made visible in interaction. The child initiates an action and the caregiverresponds, showing her uptake of the child’s act. In turn, the child responds to

the caregiver’s response, treating it as appropriate or pursuing further action by

the caregiver. If, for example, the child’s action is ignored, a pursuit may ensue

through a repetition of their initial action and hence, offers evidence that the

expected response is seen to be missing. Indeed, it is in those cases where the

child must pursue a response that we see some the clearest evidence of “intent”

made interactionally visible.

With these questions in mind, we turn to our first example to furtherexplicate our method of examining adult-child interactions.2

Case one: Camera

In this episode there are several children (approximately 12 months of age)

playing on the porch, and two of the children, Sally (S) and Roger (R), are in

view of the camera at the beginning of the clip. Roger shakes the tripod that

houses the video camera that is recording his and Sally’s actions. The caregiver

and the cameraperson tell him, that he should stop shaking the tripod. Finally,

Roger stops. Shortly thereafter, Sally produces a point in the direction of the

camera. In the transcripts that follow a point is indicated by punctuation marks.

When the child raises the point we indicate this with a “+”. When the point

reaches its apex we use a“,” to indicate this. Finally, when the child lowers his or

her point we use a “-.” When the point accompanies a child’s speech you canfind the transcription of the point above the child’s talk. If, however, the point

does not accompany any talk, it has it’s own line number. Visible actions that

occur, aside from pointing, are noted in parenthesis in the transcription. To

view this video clip please refer to the clip entitled “Camera.”

Extract one: Camera

Movie 1. Camera

Tape ID: 971203A2CH1; Time: 12:56:06 12:56:36

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01 CG: No Roger [(.) ] Barbara doesn’t want you to shake that

02 CP: [Roger ]

(Roger and Sally turn and move to the right of the screen)

03 CG: Blow your nose

+++++,,,,,,,,,,, ---- (Sally extends point in direction of camera)

04 S: Geh? Gishh

05 CG: SCamra

06 S: Moves her gaze down.Turns her head to

the left and walks in that direction away from


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07 CG: Camra °camra° (sing-song voice)

Adult orientation to a child’s point

In order to begin breaking down this interaction, let’s consider our first

question: how does the caregiver orient to Sally’s point? In this example Sally

produces a point along with a vocalization with a questioning (rising) intona-

tion. In line 05, the caregiver produces an utterance “Scamera” which is

positioned as response to Sally’s pointing, gaze shift, and vocalization. More-

over, the caregiver treats Sally’s actions as the initiation of an identification

sequence, the response to which is the provision of a name.

Note that what the child is doing here may or may not be a request for

identification. Our analysis does not attempt to specify what the child’s intent

“really is.” What is key is that the caregiver treats the child’s point as an initiat-

ing action, thus setting the caregiver to the task of determining an appropriate

responding action (in this case, an identification). Further, there are at least two

issues implicated in determining a response: (1) the recognition of the point as

an action of a specific sort (in this case, a request) and (2) locating the target of

the request.

It is tempting to say at this point that the adult is ascribing an intention tothe child.


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Here, Levinson’ s (1995) discussion of intention-ascription is useful (and

keep in mind he is speaking of fully competent adult speakers of a language).

He argues:

human interaction, and thus communication, depends on intention-ascrip-

tion. Achieving this is a computational miracle: inference must be made way

beyond the available data. It is an abductive process of hypothesis formation,

yet it appears subjectively as fast and certain — the inferences seem determi-

nate, though we are happy to revise them when forced to do so. The extraordi-

nary thing is that it seems, for all practical purposes, to work most of the time.

(Levinson, 1995, p.241)

The “computational miracle” has to do with the problem of reverse inference.

That is, while going from a given intent to a behavior is fairly straightforward,

going from behavior to intent is not. A may know what he intends, and B may

know what she intends, but how do each know, from their respective behaviors

(including the use of language), what intent animates them and hence, what

their implications are for further action and inference? As Levinson (1995)

points out, however, language is ordinarily thought to be the basis for the

communication of intent, i.e., it functions as “an independent channel of

information about the other’s plans and desires, which then makes coordinatedinteraction possible” (p.19). However, for this to work, one must assume that

language involves the encoding of an intention as a linguistic signal drawn

from, in effect, a shared dictionary, with meaning decoded by recipients by

recourse to some sort of a “look-up” algorithm. A similar kind of algorithm would

seemingly have to be assumed for communication effected through body move-

ments, e.g., the meaning and interactional import of a “wink” or a “wave” or a

“turning away,” or in the present case, a point. Levinson’s argument is that this

paradigm does not adequately come to terms with actual communicative activities.Levinson (1995, pp.233–238) provides his solution to this communicative

conundrum in terms of two sets of what he calls “non-logical heuristics.” The

first set is based not on dictionary look-up but utterance type. At play in this

case is the use of what he terms “normal” expressions, ordinary ways of saying

things, an unmarked form (pp. 233–234). Perhaps of more immediate relevance

to this paper, the second set of heuristics involve conversational — and more

specifically, sequential — inferences (pp.234–238) Levinson likens conversa-

tional inference to “solving a slot in a crossword puzzle: such inferences havethe rather special property of having been designed to be solved and the clues have



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To stretch Levinson a bit, while the interactional import of any given point

does not have a “look up” dictionary solution, and is not an “utterance type,”

it is a recognizable gestural form with a normal, if broad, attention recruiting

function. And it poses a puzzle designed to be solved: what is the intendedobject of attention, and for what purpose is attention being called to it? Further,

actions congregate in sequences or at least in temporal relationship to one other,

such that the placement of a given action relative to others can be inferentially

rich. And to this we add another “heuristic,” participants knowledge of and

orientation to the activity system in which they act and in which they have a role .

These considerations set up our second question: how the caregiver determined

the “appropriate responding action.” In this regard, we need to consider what

Goodwin (in press) refers to as the participation framework.3

Adult formulation of a response

According to Goodwin (in press) we need to think of language as being made

up of a layering of semiotic systems. In other words, it is not just talk that the

participants orient to, but such interactionally relevant features as gaze, body

position, gesture, within an activity framework.4 It is with this in mind that we

can begin to see pointing as a practice that is situated within a larger activity

context, i.e., a participation framework. Thus, participants may “use” gaze,

body position, gesture, and current circumstances as resources for figuring out

what a point is doing and how it is doing it. Goodwin writes:

Pointing is not a simple act, a way of picking things out in the world that

avoids the complexities of formulating a scene through language or other

semiotic systems, but is instead an action that can only be successfully per-formed by tying the point to the construals of entities and events provided by

other meaning making resources…

A central locus for the act of pointing is a situation that contains at least two

participants, one of whom is attempting to establish a particular space as a

shared focus for the organization of cognition and action. Within such a field

pointing is constituted as a meaningful act through the mutual contextual-

ization of a range of semiotic resources including at least 1) a body visibly

performing an act of pointing; 2) talk which both elaborates and is elaborated

by the act of pointing; 3) the properties of the space that is the target of thepoint; 4) the orientation of relevant participants toward both each other and

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Given that the majority of the children in our collection of episodes do not use

speech when they point, we utilize Goodwin’s definition of a participation

framework with a slight modification. Goodwin suggests that we look to the talk

that accompanies a point to better understand the point’s context, which aidsin understanding its meaning. We wish to include the children’s’ vocalizations,

which, while not well-formed speech or talk, appear to play a role in establish-

ing a context for the point. By this move, we are able to consider vocalizations

that are produced by children who are not yet able to speak as well as the talk

produced by the adult caregivers, which apart from their verbally constructed

actions, often articulates the child’s intentions. Thus, by taking Goodwin’s

framework, with a minor modification, into consideration, we can eliminate

some of the mystery of how adult caregivers come to understand what apreverbal child “wants.” In order to see how the participation framework may

aid our analysis, let’s re-examine the camera example.

Example 1A: Camera

Tape ID: 971203A2CH1 Time: 12:56:06–12:56:36

S=Sally; R=Roger; CP=cameraperson; CG=caregiver

01 CG: No Roger [(.) ] Barbara doesn’t want you to

shake that.

02 CP:[ Roger ]

(Roger and Sally turn and move to the right of the screen)

03 CG: Blow your nose

+++++,,,,,,,,,,, ---- (Sally extends point in direction of camera)

04 S: Geh? Gishh

---

05 CG: SCamra

06 S: Moves her gaze down.Turns her head to

the left and walks in that direction away fromthe camera

07 CG: Camra °camra° (sing-song voice)

In our discussion of this example just above, we suggested that the adult

caregiver designs her utterance in such a way that it shows her to be treating

Sally’s point as an initiating action; a request for identification. The question

that remains is how the caregiver comes to take Sally’s point as a request for

identification? In Levinson’s terms (1995), it is a puzzle to be solved. As

previously mentioned, Goodwin suggests that two resources that individualsmay use to determine the meaning of a point are the vocalizations that accom-


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When Sally produces her point in line 04, she does so in the direction of the

camera. Once she begins to raise her point, she makes a vocalization with a

rising intonation. The combination of a point and vocalization with a rising

intonation are resources which allow the caregiver to treat Sally as doing somesort of questioning related to the camera. Because the target of Sally’s point is

understood by the caregiver to be the camera (see below), and because it is

accompanied by a ‘questioning’ vocalization, there are a limited number of

responses that the caregiver may appropriately produce, given the nature of the

setting and its participants. For example, handing Sally the camera to play with

would be an unlikely response. Furthermore, because the point is accompanied

by a vocalization with a rising intonation, it can be taken as doing questioning

rather than as a noticing. Therefore, given the production of the point, produc-ing an identification appears to be an appropriate responding action.5 Though

an identification may be fitting here, we still need to consider how it comes to

be that the camera is identified. We next look at the ‘larger activity within which

the act of pointing is embedded’ (Goodwin, in press), as well as its position with

respect to the components of that activity.

At the beginning of this episode Sally is off to the side and Roger is shaking

the tripod, which holds the camera. The caregiver then admonishes Roger by

stating, “No Roger, Barbara doesn’t want you to shake that.” Because both the

caregiver and Sally are already oriented towards the camera, from the immedi-

ately prior sequence, the caregiver has a context from which she can infer the

referent of Sally’s point. Thus, rather than identifying the cameraperson, or

something behind the camera, or rather than asking Sally to clarify what she is

pointing out, the caregiver identifies the camera, the focus of the prior talk and

action.6 Clearly, by drawing from the activity context in which the point occurs,

we are able to see the possible basis of the caregiver’s understanding of Sally’s

point. Specifically, we can begin to see how participants employ the overall

activity context of a point to design an appropriate responding action.

The child’s orientation to action

Now that we have seen how the caregiver comes to formulate the response that

she does, let’s take a look at how and if Sally orients to her own actions and theactions of the caregiver. Sally’s eye gaze is an important indicator of how she

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caregiver and/or the cameraperson,7 then back to the camera. Sally’s gaze shift

here indicates that she is orienting to either the cameraperson or the caregiver

as a possible recipient of her point and vocalization. In this way Sally is showing

through her visible actions that she is aligns to her own point as designed for someone else, calling their attention to some feature of the situation. We suggest

that the action of recruiting another’s attention projects some sort of response,

e.g., to the target feature or to implications of it having been targeted by the

pointer. Furthermore, once the caregiver provides a response in line 05, Sally

turns and walks away, suggesting that she found the caregiver’s response

satisfactory. That is, Sally does not repeat the point and accompanying vocaliza-

tion as is the case with the boy in the next example, but treats the sequence as

complete by leaving the scene. By this, we are not implying that what Sally wasspecifically looking for was an identification; rather, she was looking for a

responding action, and in fact received one that was satisfactory for her. In

summary then, we can see that not only the caregiver, but the child also orient

to her point as calling for a response. We wish to emphasize that the issue here

is not whether Sally formulated a prior “intention” to elicit an identification of

a targeted object, but rather that a sequence of recognizable action was initiated

and responded to, and was treated by participants as appropriate and complete.

We now turn to a second example that is a little more complex. Unlike the

camera example, in the next example (Telephone) the caregiver’s responding

action is not immediately forthcoming.

Case two: Telephone

In this episode the interaction opens with a group of children gathered on thefloor around the caregiver, who is sitting with them.

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While sitting on the floor the caregiver points out the location of a new play

telephone that the center has just acquired. The caregiver (CG) has an exchange

with one of the children, Randy (R), who crosses the room to locate the phone.

The caregiver then crosses the room to assist Randy with the telephone.

As the caregiver is helping Randy, two other children, Lester (L) and Amy (A)

cross the room and begin to make attempts to gain possession of the phone.8

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The focus of our analysis in this example is on Lester’s actions and the care-

giver’s treatment of those actions. To view go to the video clip entitled “Tele-

phone.” This portion of the clip occurs between 1:57:40 through 1:58:13.

Extract two: Telephone

Movie 2. Telephone

Tape ID: 980401A1LC1; Time: 1:57:40–1:58:13

CG=caregiver; A=Amy; L=Lester; R=Randy; CG2= second caregiver

38 CG: Can you say hello?

39 A: [Mammy eh dat eh dat

40 L: [°ehhh°

41 L: ++++++,,,,,,,( L reaching for phone),,,,

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42 R: Pulls phone away

43 A: [Eh dat eh dat eh DAT EH DAT

A: pointing at phone while her pleas become more intense

CG: Gaze is on Amy

+++,,,,,,,,,(L pointing at Randy’s phone and gazing at the caregiver),,,,

44 L: [eh huh eh huh eh


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,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ---------

45 CG: Yo[u want that you want that you want that (CG addressing Amy)

L: [ehh

+++++,,,,(L pointing to phone),,,,,,,

47 CG2: Uh oh Jim [I don’t think that is too safe

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,48 L: [Eh huh he

CG: Shifts gaze in direction of CG2

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

49 L: Eh-

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ---- (point falls fast)

50 R: Sets phone down in front of Lester


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51 L: He huh

52 L: Reaches to touch telephone

A: Squats down to touch phone too


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53 CG: Here I’ll go get my telephone and then you guys

can listen to that.

CG: Walks away

54 L: Turns his head in the direction of the CG

55 R: Stands up, picks up phone and turn to CG

56 CG: °go this way°57 R: walks away from Amy and Lester

58 A: Muh[may

59 L: [eehh

Because the caregiver’s response is not immediate in this example, let’s begin by

examining Lester’s orientation to his own actions. In line 41 Lester makes an

initial reach for the telephone which Randy is holding, and as he does so, Randy

stands up, removing the telephone from Lester’s immediate reach. Lester’s

reach here (and possible attempt to take) displays his desire for the phone. Oncethe phone is no longer in his reach, in line 44 Lester produces his first point,

accompanied by a whining vocalization and a gaze shift in the direction of the

caregiver. The point, vocalization, and gaze shift as well as a look of distress on

Lester’s face suggest that Lester is initiating a request, asking the caregiver to

give him the phone. However, unlike the Camera example, the caregiver does

not immediately attend to Lester’s pointing.9 When Lester does not get a

response to his initiating actions he tries a second time to initiate a sequence when

he re-extends his point in line 47. A whining sound and a gaze in the direction of the caregiver also accompany this point. As he does with his first point, Lester

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point until Randy sets the phone down directly in front of him in line 50.

Several things are happening here that are important in understanding the

significance of Lester’s actions, and are important in seeing if Lester treats his

own point as deserving of a response. First, a gaze shift and a vocalizationaccompany each of the points that Lester produces. By shifting his gaze towards

the caregiver, Lester shows that his points are being produced for someone, and

that they are not just an extension of what he is noticing or a reach. Specifically,

Lester’s point shows that he is addressing the caregiver as a possible recipient.

The vocalization also has the potential of playing an important role. As we

mentioned in our analysis of the previous example, Camera, the caregiver may

make use of all sorts of resources when responding to a child’s point. Thus, the

whining vocalization Lester makes may be taken by the caregiver as an expres-sion of desire.10 Also, as we can see, the caregiver’s attention (eye gaze) is not on

Lester. Thus, his vocalization may also be an attempt to elicit the caregiver’s

attention. By shifting his gaze and vocalizing we suggest that Lester is designing

his point for another individual. This suggests that Lester’s actions are designed to

draw a response from the caregiver. However, we must also take into consideration

the sequential position of Lester’s points to understand their design.

As we mentioned, Lester’s point follows a reach and what might be seen as

a potential take. Thus, we can see his point as an attempt at gaining possession

of the telephone that he failed to take earlier. Next, when Lester does not receive

a response to his initial point in lines 44–45, he reinitiates his point in line 47.

If Lester had only pointed once it might have been coincidental, or even

accidental. However, a subsequent point has different implications. By pointing

a second time, it shows a response to be either unsatisfactory or missing (in this

case it is missing), and more importantly, that the initial point was an initiating

action. Furthermore, when Randy sets the phone down in front of him, Lester

immediately drops his second point and reaches for the phone. This demon-

strates, first, that he was seeking to gain possession of the phone, and second,

that although the caregiver did not respond to his point, the fact that Randy put

the phone in close proximity to Lester is consonant with his desire to acquire it,

potentially satisfying the intent of his request. Clearly, Lester is orienting to his

points as initiating actions that call for a very specific type of response. (Note,

however, that Randy subsequently takes the phone and moves away from Lester

and also Amy, who is also interested in this object.)As of yet, we have not seen if the caregiver treats Lester’s point as an

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will be focusing on lines 62–75 of the Telephone Example. This portion of the

video clip, “Telephone” occurs from 1:58:15 to 1:58:52.

Extract 2A: Telephone

Tape ID: 980401A1LC1 Time: 1:58:15–1:58:52

CG=caregiver; A=Amy; L=Lester; R=Randy; CG2= second caregiver

60 CG: °up Cindy’s on the phone° (hear this from other room)

61 CG: CIndy’s on the telephone…

+++,,,,,,, --- (L points in the direction where R and CG went)

62 L: ehh

63 A: Eh duh duh.A: Says this while standing up

L: Begins crawling towards Randy


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+++,,,,,,(L extends point towards Randy),,,,,,

64 A: duh duh [duh duh (A turns away from Randy)

65 L: [EEhhh

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

66 CG: You want [the phone too I know

67 R: [ L e m i’ m what dat?

,,,,,,,,,, -----68 L: Heh huh huh


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70 CG: Did you see this Lester? Did you see this?

CG: Offers Lester another toy

71 CG: Randy’s on the phone right now

A: Comes over to see Lester’s toy

R: Comes over to see Lester’s toy

++,,, -- (Caregvier pointing to Randy)72 CG: Randy’s on the phone


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+++,,,,,,,,,,,

73 L: Ehh huh=

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,(Lester pointing in direction of phone)

74 L: =e_eh

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ----------

75 CG: [kay I’m gunna see if Cindy’s off

In line 62 Lester points in Randy’s direction, who has, as noted above, removed

the phone from Lester’s immediate grasp. He then drops his point and crawls

towards Randy and the direction the caregiver has gone. He stops, points again,

and finally, as Lester is holding his point, the caregiver specifically responds to

Lester’s actions (line 66). She says, “You want the phone too, I know.” By

stating this, the caregiver articulates that she sees Lester’s actions as expressinga desire for the phone, displaying her understanding of Lester’s unclear visible

and vocal action. By acknowledging Lester’s desire she displays recipiency of his

request. However, she does not give him the phone. Instead she provides him

with an alternative toy to play with in line 70; “Did you see this Lester? Did you

see this?” Following this offer, she then justifies her provision of an alternative

by giving an account for why she is not giving Lester the phone, “Randy’s on the

phone right now,” (line 71).

What is interesting here is that although the caregiver acknowledges Lester’sactions as a request she does not grant or deny his request, but rather, she

produces an offer of an alternative toy to play with. There are several reasons

why this offer is important. First, by offering Lester an alternative toy, we can

visibly see that a granting of the request is missing. Because a granting is

missing, the offer of an alternative may be an implicit way of doing a denial.

Another important point related to this offer is connected to an action that

occurs at the beginning of this sequence. As we mentioned earlier, in lines

41–42 Lester attempts to take the phone from Randy. This ‘potential take’provides an important context that may be relevant to the formulation of the

caregiver’s response. As Lerner and Zimmerman (2003) argue:

The possibility of object transfer is a commonplace circumstance among

toddlers in a group care setting. Moreover, the mere availability of a play object

can provide an occasion for a take attempt whether it is being offered by

another child or not, whether it is in use or not. The looming possibility of

object transfer is a source of both cooperation and conflict…(p.2)

Because object transfer, both takes and potential takes, is such a salient activity

http://-/?-http://-/?-


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the case that by providing an alternative toy for Lester to play with, the caregiver

is trying to thwart a potential conflict as well as denying his request.

All of the actions here are extremely important in seeing that the caregiver

treats Lester’s actions as the initiation of a request sequence. First, the fact thatthe caregiver responds to Lester’s actions implies that she takes them as an

initiating action that deserves a response. Furthermore, the caregiver designs

her utterance in such a way that she is treating Lester’s actions as a request (line

66). Second, the caregiver offers Lester an alternative toy to play with (line 70).

This not only does the work of an implicit denial, but it also orients to Lester as

attempting to gain possession of the phone, and that that attempt may result in

a take. Finally, the caregiver provides an account for why Lester’s request is not

granted (lines 71 and 72). Clearly, both Lester and the caregiver orient toLester’s point as an initiating action that works to gain possession of the phone

that he desires.

Concluding remarks: The intentionality of pointing

In this paper we have we have introduced a method for examining points that

preverbal children produce. By examining: (1) the manner in which the

caregiver treats the child’s actions (responding action); (2) the way the caregiver

comes up with the response that they do (the context of the responding action);

and (3) the way in which the child treats his or her own actions, and the actions

of the caregiver, we can gain an understanding of the interactional import of a

child’s point, that is, its treatment as an action element calling for a response.

This approach was addressed to the question of how, by their actions, do

caregivers treat the child’s actions as intentional? And a further, critical ques-tion: do children in turn orient to their own actions in pointing and vocalizing

as intending some outcome, i.e., a response of some sort from the caregiver?

To the extent that the child’s point is treated as second action implicative,

then a scaffolding of intentionality is erected: the caregiver “finds” the sense of

the point as an intentional act, and the child “finds” that such actions lead to

responses. A child’s point appears to be oriented to by both the caregiver and

the child as an initiating action. For example in the Camera Excerpt (Example

1 and 1A), both the caregiver and the child design their actions in a particularmanner. The child, Sally, does several things. First, she designs her point with a

hif i h di i f ibl i i Th h i h i


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provides a response, Sally turns and walks away from the camera. We can now

observe that Sally may be orienting to her point + vocalization as an initiation

that calls for a response, i.e., as the first member of a set of initiating and respond-

ing actions. Further, upon occurrence of the response, she disengages, perhapsmarking the completion of the sequence. Sally thus displays orientation to paired,

adjacent actions, that is, to certain features of adjacency pair organization.11

In the examples we have provided in this paper, including the camera

example, the initiating action is a point produced by the child, accompanied by

a vocalization, single word or protoword, or multiple words. The responding

action, on the other hand, is provided by the adult caregiver. In the Camera

example, we can also see how the caregiver orients to this feature of adjacency

pairs. For example, we can see that the caregiver designs her utterance in sucha way as to show it as response to Sally’s point. She does this by identifying an

object that is in the direction of Sally’s point. Therefore we can see that the

caregiver treats Sally’s point as an initiating action, and designs her actions as a

response to Sally’s initiating action. The responding action that the caregiver

provides here is also quite interesting. We see that she has chosen the response

she has from various factors, such as how Sally’s point is produced, the vocaliza-

tion that accompanies it, and the overall activity context. This shows that the

caregiver is orienting to another feature of the adjacency pair. That feature is

that not any responding action can properly follow any initiating action. In

other words, they are pair-type related. Clearly what we have here is adult and

child orientation to some of the of the adjacency pair, despite the fact that the

child’s point is not accompanied by formalized talk.

It would be premature on the basis of the evidence presented claim that the

point/request — response sequence is an adjacency pair, but it is perhaps a

“proto-adjacency pair” in the same way that toddler vocalizations are proto-

words that are given determinate meanings and responded to by adults. Both

have interactional and communicative force, scaffolded by adult competence.

This analysis was extended in our examination of the more complex

episode we called Telephone. First, we showed that Lester designed his actions

is such a way that addressed the caregiver as a possible recipient. One way that

he did this was to shift his gaze in her direction as he pointed. Second, by

repeating his point, we showed that Lester oriented to his first point as an

initiating action, and that a response to this point was missing. We also showedthat the caregiver treated Lester’s actions as a specific type of initiating action.

F h h i d i d h di i k l

http://-/?-http://-/?-


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initiating action, but as a request, which she subsequently denies. Her denial

comes in the form of an offer of an alternative toy for Lester to play with. This

not only does the work of an implicit denial, but also orients to Lester as

attempting to gain possession of the phone. Clearly, both Lester and thecaregiver orient to Lester’s point as an initiating action that works to gain

possession of the phone.

By showing that both the caregiver and the child orient to the child’s

actions as being produced in the service of eliciting a specific type of response,

we would like to argue, that the participants are orienting to Lester’s actions as

intentional and communicative actions. In the telephone example we see Lester

“doing being intentional” by showing he expects a specific response to his point

through his gaze shift, his re-initiation of the point with an upgrade in intensity on several occasions and through the sequential positioning of the point.

Furthermore we can see the caregiver treat Lester’ point as an intentionally

communicative by responding to it. In this way, intentionality is not a notion

that we, as analysts, have invoked to understand what is going on. Rather, it is

something that is consequential for the participants within the interaction (and

not just inside their heads). Thus, we cannot only see “intentionality” as a

cognitive and psychological process, but also, and perhaps in the first place, as

a social and interactional phenomenon.

Notes

1. See Goodwin’s work on a man with Aphasia (1995).

2. Transcription conventions are located in appendix B.

3.

See also Levinson’s (1992) notion of activity type.4. The term is drawn from Goodwin’s (1998) article “Pointing as a Situated Practice”. By

activity framework Goodwin is referring to the overall activities that are taking place in which

the point is embedded.

5. This may not be the only “appropriate” response. What is important to note is that it is an

appropriate response given its context.

6. The fact that the caregiver identifies the camera and not the lens of the camera, the video

screen, or the buttons on the camera, may be part of a larger phenomenon in which one

identifies the “whole” object before identifying the object’s parts. For example if a child was

pointing to the forehead of another child, the caregiver may name the child before saying“head” or “forehead.”



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8. For a full transcript of all of the activities that take place in this instance, including those

that precede our analysis, refer to Appendix C.

9. It is possible that the caregiver does not attend to Lester’s actions because she is currently

preoccupied with Amy, who is also requesting the phone.10.

It is difficult to say how Lester’s vocalization may be interpreted without looking at the

actions of the caregiver. Our focus in this section is on how Lester orients to his own actions;

we will discuss the caregiver’s uptake of Lester’s actions shortly.

11. For more on the features of adjacency pairs see Schegloff and Sacks (1973) and Schegloff

(1995).

References

Goodwin, Charles (1995). Co-constructing meaning in conversation with an aphasic man .

Research on Language and Social Interaction. 28(3): 233–260.

Goodwin, Charles (in press). Pointing as a situated practice. Ms.

Heritage, John (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology . Cambridge: Polity Press.

Kidwell, Mardi J. (2003). Organizing ‘Trouble’: Gaze in interactions between very young

children and caregivers. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology,

University of California, Santa Barbara.

Kidwell, Mardi J. & Don H. Zimmerman (2002a). Communication, interaction and the

“Theory of Mind” in activities of very young children. Paper presented at the annual

meeting of the Western States Communication Association, Long Beach, CA.

Kidwell, Mardi J. & Don H. Zimmerman (2002b). Practices of mind and the emergence of

sociality in the interaction of very young children. Paper presented at the International

Conference on Conversation Analysis, Copenhagen, Denmark, May 16–21.

Lerner, Gene H. & Don H. Zimmerman (2003). Action and the appearance of action In the

conduct of very young children.” In P. Glenn, J. Mandelbaum & C. LeBaron (Eds.),

Studies in language and social interaction (pp.441–458). Lawrence Earlbaum and

Associates, Mahwah, NJ.

Levinson, Steven C. (1992). Activity types and language. In Paul Drew & John Heritage

(Eds.), Talk at work: Interaction in institutional setting (pp. 66–100). Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Levinson, Steven C. (1995). Interactional biases in human thinking. In Esther N. Goody

(Ed.), Social intelligence and interaction: Expressions and implications of the social bias in

human intelligence (pp.221–260). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Olson, David R., Janet Wilde Astington, & Philip David Zelazo (1999). Introduction:

Actions, intentions, and attributions. In Philip David Zelazo, Janet Wilde Astington, &

David R. Olson (Eds.), Developing theories of intention: Social understanding and self-

control (pp.1–14). Lawrence Earlbuam, Mahwah NJ.Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, & Gail Jefferson (1974). A simplest systematics for the



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Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1995). Sequence organization. Unpublished Ms: UCLA Department

of Sociology (mimeo).

Tomasello, Michael (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition . Harvard University

Press, Cambridge, MA.

Wootton, Anthony J. (1997). Interaction and the development of the mind . Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Appendix A

The data employed in this paper were collected by the Very Young Children Project at the

University of California, Santa Barbara, Gene Lerner (Sociology), Amy Kyratzis (Education), Pat

Clancy (Linguistics), Daphne Bugental (Psychology) and Don H. Zimmerman (Sociology) co-investigators. Sarah Jones, Mardi Kidwell, Lars Linton, and Michele Wakin staffed the cameras.

The project was funded by the Vice Chancellor for Research France Cordova’s Research

Across Discipline initiative. It’s primary focus was on the origins of sociality among very

young children, that is, understanding the emergence and early development of the

interactional skills and communicative action, including both verbal and non-verbal

behavior central to research on the rule-governed, sequential organization of social interac-

tion and talk among young children. Communicative action is at the heart of the develop-

ment of social relationships, and the acquisition of strategies for gaining the attention of

peers and engaging in persuasion, agreement.The project, with the scope and quality of its naturalistic data collection provides a

comprehensive peer-research archive that now numbers 462 HI8 and Digital videotapes

collected from 1997 through the fall of 1999. Three different daycare centers located in the

Santa Barbara, California area were taped for varying periods of time. Children in the project

range from approximately 8 months to 3 years old

The tapes are indexed minute by minute, using a set of broad categories that enable a

researcher to employ Boolean searches on the database to identify specific minutes on

specific tapes where activities of possible interest can be found. These categories are not

analytic codes but merely devices for locating sites for possible analysis. Over 25,000 minutes

have been indexed.

Appendix B

Transcript Conventions

1. (.) -Micropause less than two tenths of a second

2. (.5) -Length of a pause

3. [ ] -Brackets overlapping talk by speakers

4. oh:: -Extension of a syllable beyond a tenth of a second. Each : indicates a tenth of


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6. . -a downward terminal intonation

7. ? -an upward terminal intonation

8. ( -downward intonation in the following syllable

9. ( -upward intonation in the following syllable

10. (( )) -notes made by transcriber that are “untranscribable” but relevant to talk

11. Heh -indicates laughter

12. (h) -laughter within a word

13. .hh -audible in-breath

14. hhh -audible aspiration

15. , -continuing intonation

16. = -Start of an utterance by one speaker directly tied to the end of another

speaker’s utterance.

17. - -broken off word or syllable

18. (( -words or groups of words spoken at an accelerated rate.19. (bye( -words spoken softer than surrounding speech

20. ( ) -transcriptionist doubt about a word (s)

Transcribing Points:

The following is the conventions for the transcription of points.

++++ is the raising of a point

,,,,,,,,,,, is the holding of a point

— — — — is the fall of a point

The transcription of the point is above the talk that it accompanies, even if the speaker and

the person doing the pointing are not the same person. We have noted who produces the

point in parentheses next to the transcription of the point. Visible actions other than

pointing are written in Italics.

Appendix C

1:56:40–2:00:23

CG= CaregiverCG2= Second CaregiverL=Lester A=AmyR=Randy

01 CG: Where’s the telephone?CG: Eyegaze is on Lester

02 CG: Where’s th- the new telephone we gottuhday?+++++,,,,( CG pointing in direction of phone),,,

03 CG: Look up there,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

04 L L k t CG’ fi


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,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, — — — — -

45 CG: ÆYo[u want that you want that you want that< —46 L: [ehh

+++++,,,,(L pointing to phone),,,,,,,47 CG2: Uh oh Jim [I don’t think that is too safe

48 L: [Eh huh heCG: Shifts gaze in direction of CG2

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

49 L: Eh-,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, — — (point falls fast)

50 R: Sets phone down in front of Lester 51 L: He huh52 L: Reaches to touch telephone

A: Squats down to touch phone too 53 CG: Here I’ll go get my telephone and then you guys

can listen to that.

CG: Walks away 54 L: Turns his head in the direction of the CG 55 R: Stands up, picks up phone and turn to CG 56 CG: °go this way°57 R: walks away from Amy and Lester 58 A: Muh[may59 L: [eehh60 CG: °up Cindy’s on the phone° (hear this from other room )61 CG: CIndy’s on the telephone.

+++,,,,,,, — - (L points in the direction where R went)62 L: ehh

63 A: Eh duh duh.

A: Says this while standing upL: Begins crawling towards Randy

+++,,,,,,(L extends point towards Randy),,,,,,64 A: duh duh [duh duh

A: turns away from Randy 65 L: [EEhhh

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

66 CG: You want [the phone too I know 67 R: [ L e m i’ m what dat?

,,,,,,,,,, — — -

68 L: Heh huh huh69 A: Bebi

70 CG: Did you see this Lester? Did you see this?CG: O ers Lester another toy

71 CG: Randy’s on the phone right now A: Comes over to see Lester’s toy R: Comes over to see Lester’s toy

++,,, — (Caregvier pointing to Randy)72 CG: Randy’s on the phone

+++,,,,,,,,,,,

73 L: Ehh huh=,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,(Lester pointing in direction of phone)

74 L: =e[eh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, — — — — —

75 CG: [kay I’m gunna see if Cindy’s o76 L: Gaze follows CG 77 CG C ld h d it t ?


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79 A: Whaaaaaaa[aaaaahhhhhhhh80 L: [aaaaahhhhhhhh huh81 CG: Thank you

82 CG: Here’s another telephone83 L: Eh he

A: Begins waving arms up and down in excitement84 L: Heh heh heh heh85 A: Ah ha˙hhehe˙h˙hhe

A: Waving hands up and down86 L: Ee[hh heehh87 CG: [Here I’m gunna talk on this telephone88 L: Uhh huh heh heh heh

L: Crawls towards her as he continues to cry

Authors’ addresses

Sarah E. Jones

Email: [email protected]

Don H. Zimmerman

Email: [email protected]

About the authors

Sarah Edith Jones, Doctoral Candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Santa

Barbara. Sarah is currently working on a dissertation project entitled, “Studying ‘Success’ atan ‘Effective’ School: How a Nationally Recognized Public School Overcomes Racial, Ethnic

and Social Boundaries and Creates a Culture of Success”. She examines the culture of the

school, the definition of success as well as the formation of the racial identity of the school’s

students. This project is funded by the University of California Linguistic Minority Disserta-

tion Grant. Sarah’s interests include: sociology of education, culture, qualitative methods,

conversation analysis, race and ethnicity (inequality and identity), human development,

educational policy and reform.

Don H. Zimmerman, PhD, Professor of Sociology and Affiliated Faculty in Communication at

the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has served as Department Chair and Dean of theDivision of Social Sciences. He has served as Associate Editor of Sociological Methodology and

American Sociological Review and served on the editorial board for Symbolic Interaction , Human

Studies , Language and Society and Research on Language and Social Interaction , of which he is

currently editor. His research interests are in conversation analysis, talk in institutional settings,

and the social life of very young children. Recent publications include “Action and the

Appearance of Action in the Conduct of Very Young Children” (with Gene Lerner) (2003),

in Glenn et al. (Eds.) Excavating the taken for granted . Lawrence Erlbaum; “Reduction and

specialization in emergency and directory Assistance Calls” (with Michele Wakin) (1999),

Research on Language and Social Interaction 32; “Identity, context and interaction” (1998), inAntaki & Widdicombe (Eds.) Identities in talk . Sage; and “Observations on the display and

managment of emotion in naturally occurring activities: The case of ‘hysteria’ in calls to

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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