Talking without a Voice: Virtual Co-Speakership in an Educational Webinar

Abstract

The following paper analyzes the interactional shifts precipitated by the pandemic induced turn to telepresence. Using the framework of multimodal conversation analysis, we analyze a videorecording of a webinar organized by The Psychological Service of Moscow. In this specific case, webinar participants had unequally distributed interactional resources; only one participant was able to speak, while all other participants could only participate through a text-based chat. We focus on a change of the course of action where the instructor's monologic presentation transitions to a question-answer interaction. We highlight the way the single speaker organizes the transition from these structurally dissimilar participation frameworks. A key feature of the move from monologue to question-response is a self-initiated interruption: another participant's diachronic chat message is deployed as a synchronic overlap by orienting to a virtual second speaker. Thus, we document a case where one speaker chooses to give a voice to a voiceless participant. The work contributes to studies of educational interaction by providing insights on the work that goes into the transition between interactional formats in telemediated asymmetrical ecologies. Our work opens up discussions about the interfacing between different modalities as a locally emergent phenomenon, and how new interactional ecologies create a fertile substrate for hitherto unfamiliar forms of talking, embodiment, and local sequential ordering. The work thus also contributes to research that highlights the non-passive role of the 'listener', which is reflected in the active speaker's orientation to the listener's active contribution to ongoing talk.