What it means to change lanes: Actions, emotions and wayfinding in the family car

Abstract

In this paper we investigate how the sequential organization and settlement of disagreements comes to shape, and be shaped by, navigation. Using extracts of in-car interaction, we examine the gestalt of projectable aspects of road travel, car movements, and driver-navigator talk. Navigation when accomplished without maps relies on making sense of streets, landmarks, and signs, activities that are displayed through passengers and drivers giving directions to each other, alongside embodied references to passing roadside features and the movement of the vehicle. More broadly, “finding the way” is bound up with the social relationships between passengers — in particular families caring for one another and showing their epistemic and emotional stance on particular matters. To examine this we draw on existing conversation analytic work on epistemics, stance, and emotion to explore the potentially argumentative character of direction-giving and direction-receiving and how this comes to be combined with the task at hand.

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