Participation

What does it take to participate in direct, naturally occurring social interaction? Conversation analytic (CA) studies reveal that “participation”—who participates, when, and how—is dynamic and locally, multimodally achieved by the people involved. Particularly in social situations when people are concurrently accessible to one another’s naked senses (Goffman, 1964), co-participation is enabled and performed through embodied and vocal resources including talk, gaze, facial displays, body orientation/posture, proximity, and gestures (e.g., M. H. Goodwin, 1999; C. Goodwin & M. H. Goodwin, 2005; Pillet-Shore, 2010; Sidnell, 2009). Using a multimodal CA lens, this chapter illuminates how “participation” is achieved in real-time, naturally occurring interaction. I first lay the conceptual foundations, delineating and defining key terms necessary to analyzing participation, particularly during in-person encounters. Then, I exemplify these basic concepts across four thematic, activity-based sections: (i) establishing co-participation; (ii) enabling newcomer co-participation; (iii) discouraging newcomer co-participation; and (iv) dissolving co-participation.