The organization of gaze and assessments as resources for stance taking

This paper aims to shed light on the question of how interactants use the concurrent organizations of assessments and three different gaze patterns as resources for stance taking in everyday conversation. The data come from two recordings of everyday conversation. The aim of this paper is two-fold. First, it aims to show that stance taking is an intersubjective and collaborative social activity in which interactants, by relying on various linguistic and interactional resources, construct stances based on stances by prior speakers. Second, it suggests that the investigated three gaze patterns play an important role in the stance-taking activity. The data show that although the interrelationship between gaze and assessments is manifold, certain gaze patterns are interdependent with the making of assessments and therefore gaze and assessments can be seen to function together as resources for interactional stance taking. Additionally, these gaze patterns act as resources for the coparticipants in tracing the meanings of coparticipants' stances. However, it is not claimed that these gaze patterns have meanings in themselves or that they would implicate a speaker stance, but rather that together with language, gaze is an important element in interactants' intersubjective stance taking.