Body Trouble: Some Sources of Difficulty in the Progressive Realization of Manual Action

ABSTRACT This report examines interactional troubles that find their source, not in talk, but in manual action. First, we introduce the intertwined character of two fundamental features of most, if not all emergent human conduct: The ongoing structural projection of an action-in-progress along with its continuing progressive realization. We then identify two sources of body-behavioral trouble that interfere with the action implication of emerging manual action, and result in remedial action by its recipient. Manual actors sometimes 1) foreshorten the “preparation phase” of emerging manual action, or 2) interrupt manual action before it comes to completion. Additionally, we demonstrate how misconstruing the action implication of emerging manual action can also result in body trouble that leads to recipient remediation, even when there is no reduction of its structural projectability or interruption of its progressive realization. For each circumstance, we describe the adjusting actions that remediate such body troubles. [Occasionally, English is spoken.]