RoboDoc: Semiotic resources for achieving face-to-screenface formation with a telepresence robot
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Face-to-face interaction is a primordial site for human activity and intersubjectivity. Empirical studies have shown how people reflexively exhibit a face orientation and work to establish a formation in which everyone is facing each other in local participation frameworks. The Face has also been described by, e.g., Levinas as the basis for a first ethical philosophy. Humans have established these Face-formations when interacting since time immemorial, but what happens when one of the participants is present through a telepresence robot? Based on ethnomethodology, Peircean/Goodwinian semiotics, multimodal conversation analysis and video data from a Danish residential rehabilitation center, the article shows the ways in which participants manage to interactively, cooperatively, and moment by moment achieve an F-formation in situ. The article contributes a detailed analysis and discussion of the kind of participant a telepresence robot is, in and through situated interactions: I propose that we term this participant the RoboDoc, given that it is an assemblage of a doctor who controls a robot. By focusing on the affordances of mobility, the article contributes to a renewed understanding of the importance and relevance of establishing Face-orientations in an increasingly technofied telepresence world.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Semiotica |
Volume | 2021 |
Issue number | 238 |
Pages (from-to) | 253-278 |
ISSN | 0037-1998 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2021 |
ID: 255997838