Description
Considering customer services at shop counters, it is common sense that
when the approximation of a client occurs, the responsible shop assistant orients to
help the consumer, seen that the selection of the desired product(s) requires
assistance. During the process of choosing products, which are placed and visually
accessible at the shop counter and/or in its surroundings, (co)constructions of
references are frequent (MONDADA, 2015). These (co)constructed referencing
processes result in the copresence of the referred item through physical or linguistic
resources (CLARK; MARSHALL, 1981). However, what are the actions (performed
through linguistic and embodied resources) involved in the referencing processes
and how are they organized? These are the questions that mobilize this study,
supported by the Multimodal Conversation Analysis (CA) (SACKS; SCHEGLOFF;
JEFFERSON, 1974; MONDADA, 2014) and Interactional Linguistics (IL) (COUPER KUHLEN; SELTING, 2017) theoretical-analytical approaches. Referencing, in the
analyzed context, requires the achievement of intersubjectivity between the
participants for the facilitation of the progressivity of the service. Looking forward to
analyzing and describing the distinct trajectories in which the referencing projects are
(co)constructed, 54 video recorded naturalistic interactions that took place at a
butcher’s counter of a supermarket were analyzed. The results show that (1)
speakers reformulate their turns of talk as well as perform embodied actions with the
purpose of facilitating the mutual orientation to the referent; (2) the orientation of the
costumers to the visual field that is available (or unavailable) in the interactional
space influences the referencing trajectory; (3) when needed, reference repairs
accomplished by the speakers include the provision of additional information or the
revision and modification of descriptions previously provided. The referencing
processes in the context studied also interactionally evidence when client and
attendant know each other, through the frequency in which the consumer realizes
purchases on the commercial establishment and/or through sharing other spaces of
interaction. Considering the absence of studies that investigate the services at shop
counters in spoken Brazilian Portuguese from a linguistic-interactional multimodal
perspective, the findings of this research can enlighten and enlarge our
understanding of the complexities involved in the (co)construction of references.
