A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Opening interspecies encounters: Greetings between humans and nonhuman animals

  2024. Jenny Nilson, Stefan Norrthon. Journal of Pragmatics 229, 40-55

  Article

   This paper investigates how interspecies greeting routines between humans and horses/ dogs are organized. The aim is to understand how humans and animals jointly organize ‘becoming socially co-present’ (Pillet-Shore, 2008). The data comprises 12 h of video re- cordings with 30 humans, 40 horses and 7 dogs participating in every-day activities such as walks, dinner parties and grooming sessions. Multimodal interaction analysis (e.g., Mondada, 2019) is used to investigate how humans and horses/dogs initiate and respond to greetings, and image based transcriptions of human and animal actions are used to avoid species hierarchy. The analyses reveal that humans and animals make a distinction between being physically co-present and socially co-present in interspecies interaction, and that all involved species take initiatives to greet and respond to such initiatives. The findings show both similarities and differences to humanehuman greetings, which is are addressed in a concluding discussion. By including animals’ systematic communicative actions in the investigation of social life and co-operative action we gain knowledge on how understanding both within and across species boundaries is achieved, which may have implications for how humanity views other living species on the planet.

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• Samtal, omtal och somtal: interaktion mellan människor och husdjur

  2024. Stefan Norrthon, Jenny Nilsson.

  Conference

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• Cueing in Theatre: Timing and Temporal Variance in Rehearsals of Scene Transitions

  2023. Stefan Norrthon. Human Studies 46 (2), 199-219

  Article

  This video-ethnographic study explores how professional actors and a director at the end of a theatrical rehearsal process coordinate transitions between rehearsed scenes. This is done through the development and use of cues, that is, ‘signals for action’. The aim is to understand how cues are developed and how timing in transitions is achieved by using the designed cues. Work on three different scene transitions is analysed using multimodal Conversation Analysis. The results show that cueing is a central tool for developing well-timed transitions, and how cues serve different purposes in the developing performance. There is no prior plan for how to achieve timely transitions. In all the analysed examples, it is an actor who must produce or act on the given cue who insists on its precise definition, followed by a negotiation on candidate cues, confirmation and specifying the cue. It is also actors who are primarily responsible for the timing of transitions, and the timing is solved through an interplay of clear-cut and embodied actions that allow for temporal variance. Cues are reflexively linked to actors’ observation and interpretation of other actors’ actions, which prevents a mechanical determination of timing in scene transition.

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• Knowledge Accumulation in Theatre Rehearsals: The Emergence of a Gesture as a Solution for Embodying a Certain Aesthetic Concept

  2023. Stefan Norrthon, Axel Schmidt. Human Studies – A Journal for Philosophy and the Social Sciences (46), 337-369

  Article

  Theater rehearsals are (usually) confronted with the problem of having to transform a written text into an audio-visual, situated and temporal performance. Our contribution focuses on the emergence and stabilization of a gestural form as a solution for embodying a certain aesthetic concept which is derived from the script. This process involves instructions and negotiations, making the process of stabilization publicly and thus intersubjectively accessible. As scenes are repeatedly rehearsed, rehearsals are perspicuous settings for tracking interactional histories. Based on videotaped professional theatre interactions in Germany, we focus on consecutive instances of rehearsing the same scene and trace the interactional history of a particular gesture. This gesture is used by the director to instruct the actors to play a particular aspect of a scene adopting a certain aesthetic concept. Stabilization requires the emergence of shared knowledge. We will show the practices by which shared knowledge is established over time during the rehearsal process and, in turn, how the accumulation of knowledge contributes to a change in the interactional practices themselves. Specifically, we show how a gesture emerges in the process of developing and embodying an aesthetic concept, and how this gesture eventually becomes a sign that refers to and evokes accumulated knowledge. At the same time, we show how this accumulated knowledge changes the instructional activities in the rehearsal process. Our study contributes to the overall understanding of knowledge accumulation in interaction in general and in theater rehearsals in particular. At the same time, it is devoted to the central importance of gestures in theater, which are both a means and a product of theatrical staging.

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• Framing in theater rehearsals

  2021. Stefan Norrthon. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice 15 (2), 187-214

  Article

  This video-ethnographic workplace study documents a theater rehearsal process, which to date is an under-researched professional setting. More specifically, the study investigates the process in which actors and a director frame various contexts that together build the theatrical framework. Applying a conversation analytic method, the analysis follows actors and a director longitudinally as they frame a performance with respect to a single line in a script. The aim is to uncover how the participants develop the performance by framing various theatrical contexts in situated interactions and over time. The results show that the performance develops in a nonlinear manner, whereby social and psychological contexts are foregrounded first. These contexts are later backgrounded when the participants develop physical actions in the performance. In conceptualizing framing as a process of grounding, it can be seen that the participants collaboratively and interactionally add content to the script, and arrive at a mutual understanding by recycling and developing previously established framings. Negotiations of framings are joint and explicit, thus challenging a view of theater work that actors should not be overly conscious of their actions on the stage.

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• Teaterrepetitionens interaktion

  2020. Stefan Norrthon (et al.).

  Thesis (Doc)

  This thesis builds on three studies that explore a professional rehearsal process as situated interaction and as a longitudinal process. Primarily, the thesis contributes to the area of interactional linguistics, but it also seeks to contribute new knowledge to theatre studies. The empirical focus is on the participants’ interaction during the rehearsal process and how the performance develops procedurally over time. The main questions driving this research are: 1) What interactive, professional practices do the participants engage in during the rehearsal process, and in what way? 2) How is the script coordinated with other multimodal resources in the development from written text to performance?

  The theory and method used for this work is multimodal interaction analysis, that is, Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis (EMCA) developed towards multimodal analysis of verbal and non-verbal resources in communication. The data collection was carried out at Riksteatern, Sweden’s largest touring theatre, where Effekten, by Lucy Prebble (2013), had its Swedish premiere in the fall of 2015. I followed rehearsals of a selection of five scenes from the first rehearsal day to opening night. The data consist of field notes, as well as video recordings of a total of 85 hours, filmed mainly with three cameras. In addition, the data include approximately four hours of audio recordings.

  The three studies focus on different practices involved in the theatrical rehearsal process. Study I follows the participants as they laminate (Goodwin 2018) eight lines in a scene where the characters are quarrelling. The aim is to document longitudinally how the actors develop, use and coordinate these and other multimodal resources in different phases of the rehearsal process. Study II focuses on one line in the script, with the aim of uncovering how the participants develop the performance by framing (Goffman 1974) various theatrical contexts in situated interactions and over time. Study III focuses on how the participants at the end of the rehearsal process create timing in transitions between rehearsed scenes by developing and using cues.

  The results show that, and how, rehearsing is a longitudinal process of collaborative creativity, in which the production team together, and moment by moment, develop the performance. Multimodal resources are used in different ways at different points in the process, and there is a shared authorship behind the theatrical performance. The results challenge previous research on theatre and theatre work, in which rehearsing has often been described as an asymmetric interaction between a director and an ensemble. Linguists’ interest in theatre has mainly focused on written scripts, also when the subject has been the relationship between scripts and performances. This thesis argues that the situated and collaborative process of rehearsing should be considered in order to understand the relationship between scripts and performances.

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• To stage an overlap – The longitudinal, collaborative and embodied process of staging eight lines in a professional theatre rehearsal process

  2019. Stefan Norrthon. Journal of Pragmatics 142, 171-184

  Article

  The theatrical rehearsal is to date a scarcely investigated institutional setting. This longitudinal, video-ethnographic study follows two actors' work with eight lines in a quarrel scene, from the first day of rehearsals to opening night. The rehearsal is regarded as a transformation process in which the production team laminate (Goodwin, 2018) the script with multimodal resources (Mondada, 2014). The script contains conventional signs for marking overlapping and loudness, and the aim of this study is to document longitudinally how the actors develop, use and coordinate these and other multimodal resources during the rehearsal process. The analysis shows that the actors laminate the script from the first day, and that overlapping and loudness function as mutually developing resources in the performance. Also, different kinds of resources are prominent at different stages of the process: overlap and loudness first increase during the process, but decrease later, as additional embodied resources become more prominent. The transformation process is thus not a linear development. The micro-analysis also shows that the performance on opening night is an emergent interaction, that is, a process. The data and the results challenge dominant theoretical models of participation in fictional discourse.

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• Greetings as social action in Finland Swedish and Sweden Swedish service encounters - a pluricentric perspective

  2018. Jenny Nilsson (et al.). Intercultural Pragmatics 15 (1), 57-88

  Article

  While greetings are performed in all cultures and open most conversations, previous studies suggest that there are cross-cultural differences between different languages in greeting behavior. But do speakers of different national varieties of the same language organize and perform their greeting behavior in similar ways? In this study, we investigate the sequential organization of greetings in relation to gaze behavior in the two national varieties of Swedish: Sweden Swedish spoken in Sweden and Finland Swedish spoken in Finland. In recent years, the importance of studying pluricentric languages from a pragmatic perspective has been foregrounded, not least within the framework of variational pragmatics. To date, most studies have focused on structural differences between national varieties of pluricentric languages. With this study, we extend the scope of variational pragmatics through adding an interactional, micro perspective to the broader macro analysis typical of this field. For this study, we have analyzed patterns for greetings in 297 videorecorded service encounters, where staff and customers interact at theatre box offices and event booking venues in Sweden and Finland. The study shows that there are similarities and differences in greeting behavior between varieties. There is a strong preference for exchanging reciprocal verbal greetings, one at a time, in both. There is also a similar organization of the greeting sequence, where customer and staff establish mutual gaze prior to the verbal greetings, thus signaling availability for interaction. The duration of mutual gaze and the timing of the greeting, however, differ between the two varieties. We have also conducted a multi modal analysis of gaze behavior in correlation to the greeting. We found that the customers and staff in the Finland Swedish data share mutual gaze before and during the verbal greeting, and often avert gaze after the verbal greetings. However, in the Sweden Swedish data, the participants often avert gaze before the verbal greetings. Our results thus indicate that both similarities and differences in pragmatic routines and bodily behavior exist between the two national varieties of Swedish. The present study on greeting practices in Finland Swedish and Sweden Swedish should contribute to the field of variational pragmatics and to the development of pluricentric theory.

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Show all publications by Stefan Norrthon at Stockholm University