Phrasal or clausal grammatical formats of instructions in a boxing ‘mitt-hitting’ activity

Abstract

This paper shows how short or longer formats of instruction (i.e. phrases, clauses, or multi-unit turns) emerge in the face-to-face boxing activity of ‘mitt-hitting’: a coach presents a mitt as a target with verbal instructions and the instructed boxer hits it, as they practice one type of punch after another. In this activity, different turn-sizes in the coach's verbal instruction, (e.g. phrases, clauses, or multi-unit turns) are tied to whether or not the participants orient to immediate initiation of the targeted punch proper around when the coach's mitt position is complete and ready. When the participants orient to immediate initiation of the targeted punch proper upon the completed target, the coach's verbal instructions are often short, e.g. noun phrases. In contrast, the instruction formats can be clauses or multi-unit turns, in addition to phrases, when the participant(s) walk or step before the initiation of the punch proper and thus orient to the non-immediacy of initiation of the punch proper vis-à-vis the completed targets. Their walking or stepping allows the coach to produce those longer formats before the punch initiation. Thus, based on multimodal analyses of embodied activity, this study shows that grammatical units are inseparable from the multiple participants' moving bodies, which are directed as a gestalt toward the local implementation of punch initiations.