How do we talk in table cooking?: Overlaps and silence appearing in embodied interaction

Abstract

Cooking and eating on a table is known as a Japanese dining style. As we cook “monja-yaki” on a table, how do we communicate with others? This paper indicates that cooking acts cause utterances to overlap and generate silence more frequently than when not cooking. The order of overlaps in table cooking is shown in two aspects: (1) accidental overlaps are not always repaired in cooking, and (2) co-telling of how to cook sometimes allows utterances to overlap. Besides, while cooking, there occur some kinds of sequence organization with bodily actions: (1) adjacency pairs are organized not only by language but also bodily actions, and (2) even if adjacency pairs are not sufficiently organized with language, bodily actions could complement the absence or insufficiency. Such orders of sequence organization of actions may make silence occur more frequently. Repeated occurrences of overlaps and silence in cooking may result from embodied interaction.