Writing-in-interaction. Studying writing as a multimodal phenomenon in social interaction

This article, introducing the special issue, aims at sketching the emerging field of studies on writing-in-interaction within an ethnomethodological (EM) and conversation analytic (CA) perspective. It does so by situating research carried out in this perspective within the existing literature and by offering some larger input on how the field could be developed. Writing-in-interaction is here approached by considering writing in social interaction as a multimodal phenomenon, with a special emphasis on handwriting. The paper presents current studies and further possible developments of writing in interaction, including the detailed analysis of video fragments. It shows how it is possible to finely analyze the moment-by-moment organization of writing as a multimodal social practice, demonstrating its embodied projectability, its material and multimodal graphic achievement, and its embeddedness in sequential organization and in multiactivity.