When the Mess Is the Message: Simultaneous Signing in an ASL Multiparty Interaction

Abstract: This article presents the results of a microanalysis of sequences when two or more deaf signers overlap. This contribution focuses on cooperative overlap —which consists of extended moments of turn-exchanges that move along the unfolding discourse while cohering interlocutors in relation to each other. This aspect of signed interaction has received little scholarly attention but appears to be one crucial part of the "enchronic glue" (Enfield 2022) of language binding interactions (and interactants) together. Little is known about the specific underpinnings of these seemingly messy interactive moments. We seek here to understand how such extended overlaps are achieved by deaf coparticipants where the outcome results in a forward move of the interaction. A total of thirty-three instances of collaborative overlapping signing were identified, accounting for approximately seven out of the seventy-five minute multiparty interaction between four American Sign Language (ASL) signers. Out of these, specific interactional sequences were analyzed using techniques from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to answer the following question: What embodied practices are used to negotiate overlaps while maintaining interactional synchrony? In addition to lexical repetition strategies identified in earlier work, these closely timed sequences of overlap are successful because they engage multiple articulators coordinated across signers. Further, it appears that these practices that are symbolic of the joint coordination of co-constructed discourse are a behavior that signers both willingly engage in to achieve specific interactive tasks, namely clarification-seeking, confirmation, and coordinated depiction. Results do not only account for how deaf signers achieve collaborative overlaps but also reveal the interactive reasons why signers engage in these seemingly messy moments of interaction.