The Embodied Turn in Research on Language and Social Interaction

I use the term the embodied turn to mean the point when interest in the body became established among researchers on language and social interaction, exploiting the greater ease of video recording. This review article tracks the growth of “embodiment” in over 400 articles published in Research on Language and Social Interaction from 1987 to 2013. I consider closely two areas where analysts have confronted challenges and how they have responded: settling on precise and analytically helpful terminology for the body, and transcribing and representing the body, particularly its temporality and manner.