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<TARGET "jon" DOCINFO AUTHOR "Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman"TITLE "A childs point and the achievement of intentionality"SUBJECT "GESTURE, Volume 3:2"KEYWORDS "pointing, intentionality, child development, language socialization, interaction"SIZE HEIGHT "220"WIDTH "150"VOFFSET "4">

A childs point and

the achievement of intentionality
Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman
Department of Sociology / University of California, Santa Barbara

This paper examines the intentionality of very young childrens communicative action by looking at interactional sequences that are touched o by a
childs point. Young children use points and vocalizations, including proto
words, to orient to some feature of their situation in a manner that makes
relevant a response by the caregiver. These gestures initiate interactional
sequences through which the caregiver locates a candidate specication of the
points target. The childs point is oriented to by caregivers as a recognizable
action directed to some end. We suggest that intentionality, is a feature of
participants production and recognition of actions becomes visible in interaction between the child and the caregiver as it unfolds in a particular situation.
The electronic edition of this article includes audio-visual data.
Keywords: pointing, intentionality, child development, language socialization,
interaction

Introduction
In this paper we will examine the intentionality of a childs communicative
action by looking at interactional sequences that are touched o by a childs
point. In our videotaped data, collected in three infant-toddler daycare centers
servicing children ten to thirty-six months of age (see Appendix A) , we have
found that young children use points and vocalizations, including proto
words, to orient to some feature of their situation in a manner that makes
relevant a response by the caregiver (cf. Wootton, 1997, pp. 2731). The
children whose interactions with adult caregivers we examine in this paper,
Sally and Lester, are approximately twelve months old.
Gesture 3:2 (2003), 155185.
issn 15681475 / e-issn 15699773
John Benjamins Publishing Company

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156 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

Pointing the use of an outstretched arm and hand (with extended nger
or ngers) is often accompanied by vocalizations to initiate a joint activity in
the course of which the caregiver locates a candidate specication of the points
target. In this fashion, caregivers treat the point as an act undertaken by the
child to call the caregivers attention to some feature of the present situation,
and to have her respond in some way. For example, a child initiates an interactional sequence by extending a point and the caregiver responds to the childs
point by identifying an object, fetching an object or commenting on a quality
or state of an object. The childs point is oriented to by caregivers as a recognizable action directed to some end, i.e., as intentional.
Of course, very young children are largely dependent on adult caregivers (or
on older children) to satisfy their needs an obvious aspect of infancy and
early childhood that caregivers in daycare centers such as the ones we studied
have a professional obligation to manage. We explore how what might be
thought to be simply an instrumental act an attempt to satisfy a need
becomes organized as an interactional sequence. It is within interaction that
pointing becomes action, and the intentionality of the point is achieved by both
the child and caregiver, an instance of early, emergent sociality.
In both lay and professional discourse, the concept of intentionality
presupposes an interior, mental state or representation. For the former, to speak
of an individuals intention or purpose provides a way of addressing the reasons
for their actions. For the latter, the concept furnishes issues for theory and
research, such as the criteria for identifying behavior as intentional, the nature
of the relationship between intentional states and representations of them, and
the functions performed by the ability to attribute intentional states to
oneself or others (Olson, Astington & Zelazo, 1999, pp. 34).
Rather than seeing intentionality as an exclusively cognitive process, we ask
how both the caregiver and the child orient to the childs actions (pointing,
gaze, vocalization, etc.) as intentional. It is reasonably clear that children
beginning at the age of nine months can engage in, or are beginning to develop,
joint attention, gaze-following, social referencing and imitative learning, all of
which are critical cognitive and social capacities (Tomasello, 1999, pp. 6176).
This enables young children to participate in a range of interactional engagements with caregivers and peers (Kidwell, 2003; Kidwell & Zimmerman, 2002a,
2002b; Lerner & Zimmerman, 2003).
We assume that the default presupposition guiding social life is that the
actions out of which interaction is constructed are designed to be what they
appear to be, and in that sense, are intentional unless accounted otherwise

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A childs point and the achievement of intentionality

(cf. Heritage, 1984, pp. 260280; Levinson, 1995, pp. 239242). This paper
attempts to trace how this presupposition is actualized in conduct in a setting
where most of the participants are preverbal and cannot articulate their
intentions. We will ask how, by their actions do adult caregivers treat the childs
actions as intentional? And a further, critical question: do children in turn
orient to their own actions in pointing and vocalizing as intending some
outcome, i.e., a response of some sort from the caregiver? This approach to
intentionality locates it in the orderly production and recognizability of actions.
What we suggest in this paper is that intentionality (and other the aspects of
mindedness), usually treated as dwelling in a private mental domain, parades
around in full public view as integral, facilitating practices of interaction, even
among very young children. We suggest that intentionality is a feature of
participants production and recognition of actions, and that the intentionality of
the childs point is accomplished through, and hence becomes visible in, interaction between the child and the caregiver as it unfolds in a particular situation.
To address these questions, we rst provide a framework within which to
examine these child-caregiver interactions. Then we will examine two cases
drawn from a broader collection of 80 episodes and describe how intentionality
emerges as a property of interaction as much as of mind.

A method for looking

Trying to make sense of interactions in which one of the participants does not
use speech can be an extremely challenging task.1 It seems dicult to understand what a child, who does not use speech, is up to, without guessing what
is going on inside his or her head, that is, his or her intentions. One way to
avoid this is by examining how any given action is demonstrably relevant for
the participants involved in the interaction without giving analytic priority to
what is going on in the minds of the participants. In order to do so, we pose
three questions to each interaction we examine.
First, how does the adult caregiver observably orient to a child pointing? That
is, we look to the caregivers response as the determination for all practical
purposes, and in that moment of the specic action embodied in the point
and, if present, the childs vocalization.
Second, how does the caregiver come to select the responding action that they do?
What local and general resources are available to the caregiver (or other adults)
to make a determination of the action enacted in the point?

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Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

Third, how does the child orient to his or her own actions and the actions of the
caregiver? Intention-in-action, in this view, is not static it is not simply a
mental event that occurs in a particular moment of time, but rather unfolds and
is made visible in interaction. The child initiates an action and the caregiver
responds, showing her uptake of the childs act. In turn, the child responds to
the caregivers response, treating it as appropriate or pursuing further action by
the caregiver. If, for example, the childs action is ignored, a pursuit may ensue
through a repetition of their initial action and hence, oers evidence that the
expected response is seen to be missing. Indeed, it is in those cases where the
child must pursue a response that we see some the clearest evidence of intent
made interactionally visible.
With these questions in mind, we turn to our rst example to further
explicate our method of examining adult-child interactions.2

Case one: Camera

In this episode there are several children (approximately 12 months of age)
playing on the porch, and two of the children, Sally (S) and Roger (R), are in
view of the camera at the beginning of the clip. Roger shakes the tripod that
houses the video camera that is recording his and Sallys actions. The caregiver
and the cameraperson tell him, that he should stop shaking the tripod. Finally,
Roger stops. Shortly thereafter, Sally produces a point in the direction of the
camera. In the transcripts that follow a point is indicated by punctuation marks.
When the child raises the point we indicate this with a +. When the point
reaches its apex we use a, to indicate this. Finally, when the child lowers his or
her point we use a -. When the point accompanies a childs speech you can
nd the transcription of the point above the childs talk. If, however, the point
does not accompany any talk, it has its own line number. Visible actions that
occur, aside from pointing, are noted in parenthesis in the transcription. To
view this video clip please refer to the clip entitled Camera.

Extract one: Camera

Movie 1. Camera
Tape ID: 971203A2CH1; Time: 12:56:0612:56:36
S=Sally; R=Roger; CP=cameraperson; CG=caregiver

A childs point and the achievement of intentionality 159

01 CG: No Roger [(.) ] Barbara doesnt want you to shake that

02 CP:
[Roger ]
(Roger and Sally turn and move to the right of the screen)

03 CG: Blow your nose

+++++,,,,,,,,,,, ---- (Sally extends point in direction of camera)
04 S: Geh? Gishh

05 CG: SCamra
06 S:

Moves her gaze down.Turns her head to

the left and walks in that direction away from
the camera

160 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

07 CG: Camra camra (sing-song voice)

Adult orientation to a childs point

In order to begin breaking down this interaction, lets consider our rst
question: how does the caregiver orient to Sallys point? In this example Sally
produces a point along with a vocalization with a questioning (rising) intonation. In line 05, the caregiver produces an utterance Scamera which is
positioned as response to Sallys pointing, gaze shift, and vocalization. Moreover, the caregiver treats Sallys actions as the initiation of an identication
sequence, the response to which is the provision of a name.
Note that what the child is doing here may or may not be a request for
identication. Our analysis does not attempt to specify what the childs intent
really is. What is key is that the caregiver treats the childs point as an initiating action, thus setting the caregiver to the task of determining an appropriate
responding action (in this case, an identication). Further, there are at least two
issues implicated in determining a response: (1) the recognition of the point as
an action of a specic sort (in this case, a request) and (2) locating the target of
the request.
It is tempting to say at this point that the adult is ascribing an intention to
the child.

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A childs point and the achievement of intentionality

Here, Levinson s (1995) discussion of intention-ascription is useful (and

keep in mind he is speaking of fully competent adult speakers of a language).
He argues:
human interaction, and thus communication, depends on intention-ascription. Achieving this is a computational miracle: inference must be made way
beyond the available data. It is an abductive process of hypothesis formation,
yet it appears subjectively as fast and certain the inferences seem determinate, though we are happy to revise them when forced to do so. The extraordinary thing is that it seems, for all practical purposes, to work most of the time.
(Levinson, 1995, p. 241)

The computational miracle has to do with the problem of reverse inference.

That is, while going from a given intent to a behavior is fairly straightforward,
going from behavior to intent is not. A may know what he intends, and B may
know what she intends, but how do each know, from their respective behaviors
(including the use of language), what intent animates them and hence, what
their implications are for further action and inference? As Levinson (1995)
points out, however, language is ordinarily thought to be the basis for the
communication of intent, i.e., it functions as an independent channel of
information about the others plans and desires, which then makes coordinated
interaction possible (p. 19). However, for this to work, one must assume that
language involves the encoding of an intention as a linguistic signal drawn
from, in eect, a shared dictionary, with meaning decoded by recipients by
recourse to some sort of a look-up algorithm. A similar kind of algorithm would
seemingly have to be assumed for communication eected through body movements, e.g., the meaning and interactional import of a wink or a wave or a
turning away, or in the present case, a point. Levinsons argument is that this
paradigm does not adequately come to terms with actual communicative activities.
Levinson (1995, pp. 233238) provides his solution to this communicative
conundrum in terms of two sets of what he calls non-logical heuristics. The
rst set is based not on dictionary look-up but utterance type. At play in this
case is the use of what he terms normal expressions, ordinary ways of saying
things, an unmarked form (pp. 233234). Perhaps of more immediate relevance
to this paper, the second set of heuristics involve conversational and more
specically, sequential inferences (pp. 234238) Levinson likens conversational inference to solving a slot in a crossword puzzle: such inferences have
the rather special property of having been designed to be solved and the clues have
been designed to be just sucient to yield such a determinate solution. (p.238)

161

162 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

To stretch Levinson a bit, while the interactional import of any given point
does not have a look up dictionary solution, and is not an utterance type,
it is a recognizable gestural form with a normal, if broad, attention recruiting
function. And it poses a puzzle designed to be solved: what is the intended
object of attention, and for what purpose is attention being called to it? Further,
actions congregate in sequences or at least in temporal relationship to one other,
such that the placement of a given action relative to others can be inferentially
rich. And to this we add another heuristic, participants knowledge of and
orientation to the activity system in which they act and in which they have a role.
These considerations set up our second question: how the caregiver determined
the appropriate responding action. In this regard, we need to consider what
Goodwin (in press) refers to as the participation framework.3

Adult formulation of a response

According to Goodwin (in press) we need to think of language as being made
up of a layering of semiotic systems. In other words, it is not just talk that the
participants orient to, but such interactionally relevant features as gaze, body
position, gesture, within an activity framework.4 It is with this in mind that we
can begin to see pointing as a practice that is situated within a larger activity
context, i.e., a participation framework. Thus, participants may use gaze,
body position, gesture, and current circumstances as resources for guring out
what a point is doing and how it is doing it. Goodwin writes:
Pointing is not a simple act, a way of picking things out in the world that
avoids the complexities of formulating a scene through language or other
semiotic systems, but is instead an action that can only be successfully performed by tying the point to the construals of entities and events provided by
other meaning making resources
A central locus for the act of pointing is a situation that contains at least two
participants, one of whom is attempting to establish a particular space as a
shared focus for the organization of cognition and action. Within such a eld
pointing is constituted as a meaningful act through the mutual contextualization of a range of semiotic resources including at least 1) a body visibly
performing an act of pointing; 2) talk which both elaborates and is elaborated
by the act of pointing; 3) the properties of the space that is the target of the
point; 4) the orientation of relevant participants toward both each other and
the space that is the locus of the point; and 5) the larger activity within which
the act of pointing is embedded. (Goodwin, in press, p. 2)

A childs point and the achievement of intentionality 163

Given that the majority of the children in our collection of episodes do not use
speech when they point, we utilize Goodwins denition of a participation
framework with a slight modication. Goodwin suggests that we look to the talk
that accompanies a point to better understand the points context, which aids
in understanding its meaning. We wish to include the childrens vocalizations,
which, while not well-formed speech or talk, appear to play a role in establishing a context for the point. By this move, we are able to consider vocalizations
that are produced by children who are not yet able to speak as well as the talk
produced by the adult caregivers, which apart from their verbally constructed
actions, often articulates the childs intentions. Thus, by taking Goodwins
framework, with a minor modication, into consideration, we can eliminate
some of the mystery of how adult caregivers come to understand what a
preverbal child wants. In order to see how the participation framework may
aid our analysis, lets re-examine the camera example.
Example 1A: Camera
Tape ID: 971203A2CH1 Time: 12:56:0612:56:36
S=Sally; R=Roger; CP=cameraperson; CG=caregiver
01 CG: No Roger [(.) ] Barbara doesnt want you to
shake that.
02 CP:[
Roger ]
(Roger and Sally turn and move to the right of the screen)
03 CG: Blow your nose
+++++,,,,,,,,,,, ---- (Sally extends point in direction of camera)
04 S: Geh? Gishh
--05 CG: SCamra
06 S:

Moves her gaze down.Turns her head to

the left and walks in that direction away from
the camera

07 CG: Camra camra (sing-song voice)

In our discussion of this example just above, we suggested that the adult
caregiver designs her utterance in such a way that it shows her to be treating
Sallys point as an initiating action; a request for identication. The question
that remains is how the caregiver comes to take Sallys point as a request for
identication? In Levinsons terms (1995), it is a puzzle to be solved. As
previously mentioned, Goodwin suggests that two resources that individuals
may use to determine the meaning of a point are the vocalizations that accompany it and the properties of the space that are the target of the point.

164 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

When Sally produces her point in line 04, she does so in the direction of the
camera. Once she begins to raise her point, she makes a vocalization with a
rising intonation. The combination of a point and vocalization with a rising
intonation are resources which allow the caregiver to treat Sally as doing some
sort of questioning related to the camera. Because the target of Sallys point is
understood by the caregiver to be the camera (see below), and because it is
accompanied by a questioning vocalization, there are a limited number of
responses that the caregiver may appropriately produce, given the nature of the
setting and its participants. For example, handing Sally the camera to play with
would be an unlikely response. Furthermore, because the point is accompanied
by a vocalization with a rising intonation, it can be taken as doing questioning
rather than as a noticing. Therefore, given the production of the point, producing an identication appears to be an appropriate responding action.5 Though
an identication may be tting here, we still need to consider how it comes to
be that the camera is identied. We next look at the larger activity within which
the act of pointing is embedded (Goodwin, in press), as well as its position with
respect to the components of that activity.
At the beginning of this episode Sally is o to the side and Roger is shaking
the tripod, which holds the camera. The caregiver then admonishes Roger by
stating, No Roger, Barbara doesnt want you to shake that. Because both the
caregiver and Sally are already oriented towards the camera, from the immediately prior sequence, the caregiver has a context from which she can infer the
referent of Sallys point. Thus, rather than identifying the cameraperson, or
something behind the camera, or rather than asking Sally to clarify what she is
pointing out, the caregiver identies the camera, the focus of the prior talk and
action.6 Clearly, by drawing from the activity context in which the point occurs,
we are able to see the possible basis of the caregivers understanding of Sallys
point. Specically, we can begin to see how participants employ the overall
activity context of a point to design an appropriate responding action.

The childs orientation to action

Now that we have seen how the caregiver comes to formulate the response that
she does, lets take a look at how and if Sally orients to her own actions and the
actions of the caregiver. Sallys eye gaze is an important indicator of how she
orients to her own actions. As Sally is pointing in the direction of the camera in
line 04, she shifts her gaze from the object of her point (the camera), to the

A childs point and the achievement of intentionality 165

caregiver and/or the cameraperson,7 then back to the camera. Sallys gaze shift
here indicates that she is orienting to either the cameraperson or the caregiver
as a possible recipient of her point and vocalization. In this way Sally is showing
through her visible actions that she is aligns to her own point as designed for
someone else, calling their attention to some feature of the situation. We suggest
that the action of recruiting anothers attention projects some sort of response,
e.g., to the target feature or to implications of it having been targeted by the
pointer. Furthermore, once the caregiver provides a response in line 05, Sally
turns and walks away, suggesting that she found the caregivers response
satisfactory. That is, Sally does not repeat the point and accompanying vocalization as is the case with the boy in the next example, but treats the sequence as
complete by leaving the scene. By this, we are not implying that what Sally was
specically looking for was an identication; rather, she was looking for a
responding action, and in fact received one that was satisfactory for her. In
summary then, we can see that not only the caregiver, but the child also orient
to her point as calling for a response. We wish to emphasize that the issue here
is not whether Sally formulated a prior intention to elicit an identication of
a targeted object, but rather that a sequence of recognizable action was initiated
and responded to, and was treated by participants as appropriate and complete.
We now turn to a second example that is a little more complex. Unlike the
camera example, in the next example (Telephone) the caregivers responding
action is not immediately forthcoming.

Case two: Telephone

In this episode the interaction opens with a group of children gathered on the
oor around the caregiver, who is sitting with them.

166 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

While sitting on the oor the caregiver points out the location of a new play
telephone that the center has just acquired. The caregiver (CG) has an exchange
with one of the children, Randy (R), who crosses the room to locate the phone.
The caregiver then crosses the room to assist Randy with the telephone.

As the caregiver is helping Randy, two other children, Lester (L) and Amy (A)
cross the room and begin to make attempts to gain possession of the phone.8

A childs point and the achievement of intentionality 167

The focus of our analysis in this example is on Lesters actions and the caregivers treatment of those actions. To view go to the video clip entitled Telephone. This portion of the clip occurs between 1:57:40 through 1:58:13.

Extract two: Telephone

Movie 2. Telephone
Tape ID: 980401A1LC1; Time: 1:57:401:58:13
CG=caregiver; A=Amy; L=Lester; R=Randy; CG2= second caregiver
38
39
40
41

CG:
A:
L:
L:

Can you say hello?

[Mammy eh dat eh dat
[ehhh
++++++,,,,,,,( L reaching for phone),,,,

168 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

42 R:
43 A:
A:
CG:
44 L:

Pulls phone away

[Eh dat eh dat eh DAT EH DAT
pointing at phone while her pleas become more intense
Gaze is on Amy
+++,,,,,,,,,(L pointing at Randys phone and gazing at the caregiver),,,,
[eh huh eh huh eh

A childs point and the achievement of intentionality 169

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, --------Yo[u want that you want that you want that (CG addressing Amy)
[ehh
+++++,,,,(L pointing to phone),,,,,,,
47 CG2:
Uh oh Jim [I dont think that is too safe
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
48 L:
[Eh huh he
CG:
Shifts gaze in direction of CG2
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
49 L:
Eh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ---- (point falls fast)
50 R:
Sets phone down in front of Lester

45 CG:
L:

170 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

51 L:
52 L:
A:

He huh
Reaches to touch telephone
Squats down to touch phone too

A childs point and the achievement of intentionality

53 CG:

54
55
56
57
58
59

CG:
L:
R:
CG:
R:
A:
L:

Here Ill go get my telephone and then you guys

can listen to that.
Walks away
Turns his head in the direction of the CG
Stands up, picks up phone and turn to CG
go this way
walks away from Amy and Lester
Muh[may
[eehh

Because the caregivers response is not immediate in this example, lets begin by
examining Lesters orientation to his own actions. In line 41 Lester makes an
initial reach for the telephone which Randy is holding, and as he does so, Randy
stands up, removing the telephone from Lesters immediate reach. Lesters
reach here (and possible attempt to take) displays his desire for the phone. Once
the phone is no longer in his reach, in line 44 Lester produces his rst point,
accompanied by a whining vocalization and a gaze shift in the direction of the
caregiver. The point, vocalization, and gaze shift as well as a look of distress on
Lesters face suggest that Lester is initiating a request, asking the caregiver to
give him the phone. However, unlike the Camera example, the caregiver does
not immediately attend to Lesters pointing.9 When Lester does not get a
response to his initiating actions he tries a second time to initiate a sequence when
he re-extends his point in line 47. A whining sound and a gaze in the direction of
the caregiver also accompany this point. As he does with his rst point, Lester
holds his point for approximately 3.5 seconds. In fact, Lester does not lower the

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172 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

point until Randy sets the phone down directly in front of him in line 50.
Several things are happening here that are important in understanding the
signicance of Lesters actions, and are important in seeing if Lester treats his
own point as deserving of a response. First, a gaze shift and a vocalization
accompany each of the points that Lester produces. By shifting his gaze towards
the caregiver, Lester shows that his points are being produced for someone, and
that they are not just an extension of what he is noticing or a reach. Specically,
Lesters point shows that he is addressing the caregiver as a possible recipient.
The vocalization also has the potential of playing an important role. As we
mentioned in our analysis of the previous example, Camera, the caregiver may
make use of all sorts of resources when responding to a childs point. Thus, the
whining vocalization Lester makes may be taken by the caregiver as an expression of desire.10 Also, as we can see, the caregivers attention (eye gaze) is not on
Lester. Thus, his vocalization may also be an attempt to elicit the caregivers
attention. By shifting his gaze and vocalizing we suggest that Lester is designing
his point for another individual. This suggests that Lesters actions are designed to
draw a response from the caregiver. However, we must also take into consideration
the sequential position of Lesters points to understand their design.
As we mentioned, Lesters point follows a reach and what might be seen as
a potential take. Thus, we can see his point as an attempt at gaining possession
of the telephone that he failed to take earlier. Next, when Lester does not receive
a response to his initial point in lines 4445, he reinitiates his point in line 47.
If Lester had only pointed once it might have been coincidental, or even
accidental. However, a subsequent point has dierent implications. By pointing
a second time, it shows a response to be either unsatisfactory or missing (in this
case it is missing), and more importantly, that the initial point was an initiating
action. Furthermore, when Randy sets the phone down in front of him, Lester
immediately drops his second point and reaches for the phone. This demonstrates, rst, that he was seeking to gain possession of the phone, and second,
that although the caregiver did not respond to his point, the fact that Randy put
the phone in close proximity to Lester is consonant with his desire to acquire it,
potentially satisfying the intent of his request. Clearly, Lester is orienting to his
points as initiating actions that call for a very specic type of response. (Note,
however, that Randy subsequently takes the phone and moves away from Lester
and also Amy, who is also interested in this object.)
As of yet, we have not seen if the caregiver treats Lesters point as an
initiating action, and how she responds if she does in fact orient to the point as
a request. This will be the focus of the next section. For this part of the paper we

A childs point and the achievement of intentionality

will be focusing on lines 6275 of the Telephone Example. This portion of the
video clip, Telephone occurs from 1:58:15 to 1:58:52.

Extract 2A: Telephone

Tape ID: 980401A1LC1 Time: 1:58:151:58:52
CG=caregiver; A=Amy; L=Lester; R=Randy; CG2= second caregiver
60 CG: up Cindys on the phone (hear this from other room)
61 CG: CIndys on the telephone
+++,,,,,,, --- (L points in the direction where R and CG went)
62 L:
ehh

63 A:
A:
L:

Eh duh duh.
Says this while standing up
Begins crawling towards Randy

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174 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

64 A:
65 L:

+++,,,,,,(L extends point towards Randy),,,,,,

duh duh [duh duh (A turns away from Randy)
[EEhhh

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
66 CG: You want [the phone too I know
67 R:
[ L e m i m what dat?
,,,,,,,,,, ----68 L: Heh huh huh
69 A:

Bebi

A childs point and the achievement of intentionality

70 CG: Did you see this Lester? Did you see this?
CG: Oers Lester another toy

71 CG: Randys on the phone right now

A: Comes over to see Lesters toy
R: Comes over to see Lesters toy
++,,, -- (Caregvier pointing to Randy)
72 CG: Randys on the phone

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176 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

+++,,,,,,,,,,,
Ehh huh=
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,(Lester pointing in direction of phone)
74 L: =e_eh
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ---------75 CG: [kay Im gunna see if Cindys o
73 L:

In line 62 Lester points in Randys direction, who has, as noted above, removed
the phone from Lesters immediate grasp. He then drops his point and crawls
towards Randy and the direction the caregiver has gone. He stops, points again,
and nally, as Lester is holding his point, the caregiver specically responds to
Lesters actions (line 66). She says, You want the phone too, I know. By
stating this, the caregiver articulates that she sees Lesters actions as expressing
a desire for the phone, displaying her understanding of Lesters unclear visible
and vocal action. By acknowledging Lesters desire she displays recipiency of his
request. However, she does not give him the phone. Instead she provides him
with an alternative toy to play with in line 70; Did you see this Lester? Did you
see this? Following this oer, she then justies her provision of an alternative
by giving an account for why she is not giving Lester the phone, Randys on the
phone right now, (line 71).
What is interesting here is that although the caregiver acknowledges Lesters
actions as a request she does not grant or deny his request, but rather, she
produces an oer of an alternative toy to play with. There are several reasons
why this oer is important. First, by oering Lester an alternative toy, we can
visibly see that a granting of the request is missing. Because a granting is
missing, the oer of an alternative may be an implicit way of doing a denial.
Another important point related to this oer is connected to an action that
occurs at the beginning of this sequence. As we mentioned earlier, in lines
4142 Lester attempts to take the phone from Randy. This potential take
provides an important context that may be relevant to the formulation of the
caregivers response. As Lerner and Zimmerman (2003) argue:
The possibility of object transfer is a commonplace circumstance among
toddlers in a group care setting. Moreover, the mere availability of a play object
can provide an occasion for a take attempt whether it is being oered by
another child or not, whether it is in use or not. The looming possibility of
object transfer is a source of both cooperation and conict(p. 2)

Because object transfer, both takes and potential takes, is such a salient activity
in child-child interactions, and because it can be a place of potential conict, it
is an activity of which caregivers have a heightened awareness. Thus, it may be

A childs point and the achievement of intentionality 177

the case that by providing an alternative toy for Lester to play with, the caregiver
is trying to thwart a potential conict as well as denying his request.
All of the actions here are extremely important in seeing that the caregiver
treats Lesters actions as the initiation of a request sequence. First, the fact that
the caregiver responds to Lesters actions implies that she takes them as an
initiating action that deserves a response. Furthermore, the caregiver designs
her utterance in such a way that she is treating Lesters actions as a request (line
66). Second, the caregiver oers Lester an alternative toy to play with (line 70).
This not only does the work of an implicit denial, but it also orients to Lester as
attempting to gain possession of the phone, and that that attempt may result in
a take. Finally, the caregiver provides an account for why Lesters request is not
granted (lines 71 and 72). Clearly, both Lester and the caregiver orient to
Lesters point as an initiating action that works to gain possession of the phone
that he desires.

Concluding remarks: The intentionality of pointing

In this paper we have we have introduced a method for examining points that
preverbal children produce. By examining: (1) the manner in which the
caregiver treats the childs actions (responding action); (2) the way the caregiver
comes up with the response that they do (the context of the responding action);
and (3) the way in which the child treats his or her own actions, and the actions
of the caregiver, we can gain an understanding of the interactional import of a
childs point, that is, its treatment as an action element calling for a response.
This approach was addressed to the question of how, by their actions, do
caregivers treat the childs actions as intentional? And a further, critical question: do children in turn orient to their own actions in pointing and vocalizing
as intending some outcome, i.e., a response of some sort from the caregiver?
To the extent that the childs point is treated as second action implicative,
then a scaolding of intentionality is erected: the caregiver nds the sense of
the point as an intentional act, and the child nds that such actions lead to
responses. A childs point appears to be oriented to by both the caregiver and
the child as an initiating action. For example in the Camera Excerpt (Example
1 and 1A), both the caregiver and the child design their actions in a particular
manner. The child, Sally, does several things. First, she designs her point with a
gaze shift in the direction of a possible recipient. Thus, showing her actions as
being designed for someone in particular. Furthermore, once the caregiver

178 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

provides a response, Sally turns and walks away from the camera. We can now
observe that Sally may be orienting to her point + vocalization as an initiation
that calls for a response, i.e., as the rst member of a set of initiating and responding actions. Further, upon occurrence of the response, she disengages, perhaps
marking the completion of the sequence. Sally thus displays orientation to paired,
adjacent actions, that is, to certain features of adjacency pair organization.11
In the examples we have provided in this paper, including the camera
example, the initiating action is a point produced by the child, accompanied by
a vocalization, single word or protoword, or multiple words. The responding
action, on the other hand, is provided by the adult caregiver. In the Camera
example, we can also see how the caregiver orients to this feature of adjacency
pairs. For example, we can see that the caregiver designs her utterance in such
a way as to show it as response to Sallys point. She does this by identifying an
object that is in the direction of Sallys point. Therefore we can see that the
caregiver treats Sallys point as an initiating action, and designs her actions as a
response to Sallys initiating action. The responding action that the caregiver
provides here is also quite interesting. We see that she has chosen the response
she has from various factors, such as how Sallys point is produced, the vocalization that accompanies it, and the overall activity context. This shows that the
caregiver is orienting to another feature of the adjacency pair. That feature is
that not any responding action can properly follow any initiating action. In
other words, they are pair-type related. Clearly what we have here is adult and
child orientation to some of the of the adjacency pair, despite the fact that the
childs point is not accompanied by formalized talk.
It would be premature on the basis of the evidence presented claim that the
point/request response sequence is an adjacency pair, but it is perhaps a
proto-adjacency pair in the same way that toddler vocalizations are protowords that are given determinate meanings and responded to by adults. Both
have interactional and communicative force, scaolded by adult competence.
This analysis was extended in our examination of the more complex
episode we called Telephone. First, we showed that Lester designed his actions
is such a way that addressed the caregiver as a possible recipient. One way that
he did this was to shift his gaze in her direction as he pointed. Second, by
repeating his point, we showed that Lester oriented to his rst point as an
initiating action, and that a response to this point was missing. We also showed
that the caregiver treated Lesters actions as a specic type of initiating action.
Further, the caregiver designed her response as a responding action, acknowledging Lesters desire for the phone. She treated Lesters pointing not just as any

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A childs point and the achievement of intentionality 179

initiating action, but as a request, which she subsequently denies. Her denial
comes in the form of an oer of an alternative toy for Lester to play with. This
not only does the work of an implicit denial, but also orients to Lester as
attempting to gain possession of the phone. Clearly, both Lester and the
caregiver orient to Lesters point as an initiating action that works to gain
possession of the phone.
By showing that both the caregiver and the child orient to the childs
actions as being produced in the service of eliciting a specic type of response,
we would like to argue, that the participants are orienting to Lesters actions as
intentional and communicative actions. In the telephone example we see Lester
doing being intentional by showing he expects a specic response to his point
through his gaze shift, his re-initiation of the point with an upgrade in intensity
on several occasions and through the sequential positioning of the point.
Furthermore we can see the caregiver treat Lester point as an intentionally
communicative by responding to it. In this way, intentionality is not a notion
that we, as analysts, have invoked to understand what is going on. Rather, it is
something that is consequential for the participants within the interaction (and
not just inside their heads). Thus, we cannot only see intentionality as a
cognitive and psychological process, but also, and perhaps in the rst place, as
a social and interactional phenomenon.

Notes
1. See Goodwins work on a man with Aphasia (1995).
2. Transcription conventions are located in appendix B.
3. See also Levinsons (1992) notion of activity type.
4. The term is drawn from Goodwins (1998) article Pointing as a Situated Practice. By
activity framework Goodwin is referring to the overall activities that are taking place in which
the point is embedded.
5. This may not be the only appropriate response. What is important to note is that it is an
appropriate response given its context.
6. The fact that the caregiver identies the camera and not the lens of the camera, the video
screen, or the buttons on the camera, may be part of a larger phenomenon in which one
identies the whole object before identifying the objects parts. For example if a child was
pointing to the forehead of another child, the caregiver may name the child before saying
head or forehead.
7. Unfortunately neither the caregiver nor the cameraperson are in view of the camera.
Therefore, it isnt entirely clear to what or to whom Sally is directing her gaze.

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180 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

8. For a full transcript of all of the activities that take place in this instance, including those
that precede our analysis, refer to Appendix C.
9. It is possible that the caregiver does not attend to Lesters actions because she is currently
preoccupied with Amy, who is also requesting the phone.
10. It is dicult to say how Lesters vocalization may be interpreted without looking at the
actions of the caregiver. Our focus in this section is on how Lester orients to his own actions;
we will discuss the caregivers uptake of Lesters actions shortly.
11. For more on the features of adjacency pairs see Scheglo and Sacks (1973) and Scheglo
(1995).

References
Goodwin, Charles (1995). Co-constructing meaning in conversation with an aphasic man.
Research on Language and Social Interaction. 28(3): 233260.
Goodwin, Charles (in press). Pointing as a situated practice. Ms.
Heritage, John (1984). Garnkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kidwell, Mardi J. (2003). Organizing Trouble: Gaze in interactions between very young
children and caregivers. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology,
University of California, Santa Barbara.
Kidwell, Mardi J. & Don H. Zimmerman (2002a). Communication, interaction and the
Theory of Mind in activities of very young children. Paper presented at the annual
meeting of the Western States Communication Association, Long Beach, CA.
Kidwell, Mardi J. & Don H. Zimmerman (2002b). Practices of mind and the emergence of
sociality in the interaction of very young children. Paper presented at the International
Conference on Conversation Analysis, Copenhagen, Denmark, May 1621.
Lerner, Gene H. & Don H. Zimmerman (2003). Action and the appearance of action In the
conduct of very young children. In P. Glenn, J. Mandelbaum & C. LeBaron (Eds.),
Studies in language and social interaction (pp. 441458). Lawrence Earlbaum and
Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
Levinson, Steven C. (1992). Activity types and language. In Paul Drew & John Heritage
(Eds.), Talk at work: Interaction in institutional setting (pp. 66100). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Levinson, Steven C. (1995). Interactional biases in human thinking. In Esther N. Goody
(Ed.), Social intelligence and interaction: Expressions and implications of the social bias in
human intelligence (pp. 221260). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Olson, David R., Janet Wilde Astington, & Philip David Zelazo (1999). Introduction:
Actions, intentions, and attributions. In Philip David Zelazo, Janet Wilde Astington, &
David R. Olson (Eds.), Developing theories of intention: Social understanding and selfcontrol (pp. 114). Lawrence Earlbuam, Mahwah NJ.
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Scheglo, & Gail Jeerson (1974). A simplest systematics for the
organization of turn taking for conversation. Language, 54(4): 696735.
Scheglo, Emanuel A. & Harvey Sacks (1973). Opening up closings. Semiotica 8: 289327.

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A childs point and the achievement of intentionality

Scheglo, Emanuel A. (1995). Sequence organization. Unpublished Ms: UCLA Department

of Sociology (mimeo).
Tomasello, Michael (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, MA.
Wootton, Anthony J. (1997). Interaction and the development of the mind. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Appendix A
The data employed in this paper were collected by the Very Young Children Project at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, Gene Lerner (Sociology), Amy Kyratzis (Education), Pat
Clancy (Linguistics), Daphne Bugental (Psychology) and Don H. Zimmerman (Sociology) coinvestigators. Sarah Jones, Mardi Kidwell, Lars Linton, and Michele Wakin staed the cameras.
The project was funded by the Vice Chancellor for Research France Cordovas Research
Across Discipline initiative. Its primary focus was on the origins of sociality among very
young children, that is, understanding the emergence and early development of the
interactional skills and communicative action, including both verbal and non-verbal
behavior central to research on the rule-governed, sequential organization of social interaction and talk among young children. Communicative action is at the heart of the development of social relationships, and the acquisition of strategies for gaining the attention of
peers and engaging in persuasion, agreement.
The project, with the scope and quality of its naturalistic data collection provides a
comprehensive peer-research archive that now numbers 462 HI8 and Digital videotapes
collected from 1997 through the fall of 1999. Three dierent daycare centers located in the
Santa Barbara, California area were taped for varying periods of time. Children in the project
range from approximately 8 months to 3 years old
The tapes are indexed minute by minute, using a set of broad categories that enable a
researcher to employ Boolean searches on the database to identify specic minutes on
specic tapes where activities of possible interest can be found. These categories are not
analytic codes but merely devices for locating sites for possible analysis. Over 25,000 minutes
have been indexed.

Appendix B
Transcript Conventions
1. (.)
2. (.5)
3. [ ]
4. oh::
5. OKAY

-Micropause less than two tenths of a second

-Length of a pause
-Brackets overlapping talk by speakers
-Extension of a syllable beyond a tenth of a second. Each : indicates a tenth of
a second.
-Any words capitalized are spoken in a louder than normal voice.

181

182 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

6. .
-a downward terminal intonation
7. ?
-an upward terminal intonation
8. (
-downward intonation in the following syllable
9. (
-upward intonation in the following syllable
10. (( )) -notes made by transcriber that are untranscribable but relevant to talk
11. Heh -indicates laughter
12. (h)
-laughter within a word
13. .hh
-audible in-breath
14. hhh -audible aspiration
15. ,
-continuing intonation
16. =
-Start of an utterance by one speaker directly tied to the end of another
speakers utterance.
17. -broken o word or syllable
18. ((
-words or groups of words spoken at an accelerated rate.
19. (bye(
-words spoken softer than surrounding speech
20. ( )
-transcriptionist doubt about a word (s)

Transcribing Points:
The following is the conventions for the transcription of points.
++++ is the raising of a point
,,,,,,,,,,, is the holding of a point
is the fall of a point
The transcription of the point is above the talk that it accompanies, even if the speaker and
the person doing the pointing are not the same person. We have noted who produces the
point in parentheses next to the transcription of the point. Visible actions other than
pointing are written in Italics.

Appendix C
1:56:402:00:23
CG= Caregiver
CG2= Second Caregiver
L=Lester
A=Amy
R=Randy
01 CG:
CG:
02 CG:
03 CG:
04 L:
05 CG:

Wheres the telephone?

Eyegaze is on Lester
Wheres th- the new telephone we gottuhday?
+++++,,,,( CG pointing in direction of phone),,,
Look up there,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Looks at CGs nger
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
See the telephone

A childs point and the achievement of intentionality 183

CG:
L:
06 R:
07 CG:
CG:
08 R:
R:
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

CG:
R:
CG:
R:
CG:
R:
CG:

38
39
40
41
42
43

CG:
A:
L:
L:
R:
A:
A:
CG:

CG:
CG:
CG:
19 CG:
20 CG:
21 R:
22
23 CG:
24 R:
25 CG:
26 CG:
28 CG:
CG:
A:
29 A:
30 CG:
31 R:
R:
A:
32 CG;
33 A:
34 A:
35 A/R:
36 R:
R:
37 CG:
CG:
L:

44 L:

Shifts gaze to Randy then to phone then to Randy

Looks in the direction of CGs point
Eyes meets gaze of CG
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
See the telephone
smiling at Randy
,,,,,,,, - (drops point fast)
Mnyea Woo oo oo=
Pushes up o of CG leg and turns to begin
walking in direction of the telephone
=Wheres a telephone?
Ehh hu:h (whiney voice)
Huh?
Eh e:h eh
There it is. Should we go answer it?
E[eh
[Les see whos on the phone
(1.2)
No no not the door&#xF0D8; the telephone.
Here Ill show you
grasping onto Lester to set him down.
LesterI need to (.) get up.
Uu[hu h huh&#xF0F9; oo (Struggle sound as she gets up)
[Eh eh eh&#xF0FB;
All the kids watch as she stands up and walks to phone
Heres the telephone
eh heh
heres the telephone right here. (huh). Ring Ring
Huh (.5) [ Hell:o:?
hu:: okay its for you Randy,
Handing phone to Randy
[Walks towards CG and Randy
ahh eh eh
Teleph[one
[ehh
Sets phone on oor
Hovering over and looking down at Randy and phone
Telephone
uh eh eh
squats down by Randy and reaches for the phone
Having a sort-of tug-of-war over the phone
Eeheh
Gazes up at CG
Now Amy the telephone is for Randy right now
Pulls phone away from Amy and gives it to Randy
Has crawled over and stops and looks up at CG when she
begins to speak
Can you say hello?
[Mammy eh dat eh dat
[ehhh
++++++,,,,,,,( L reaching for phone),,,,
Pulls phone away
[Eh dat eh dat eh DAT EH DAT
pointing at phone while her pleas become more intense
Gaze is on Amy
+++,,,,,,,,,(L pointing at Randys phone),,,,
[eh huh eh huh eh

184 Sarah E. Jones and Don H. Zimmerman

45 CG:
46 L:
47 CG2:
48 L:
CG:
49 L:
50 R:
51 L:
52 L:
A:
53 CG:

54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61

CG:
L:
R:
CG:
R:
A:
L:
CG:
CG:

62 L:
63 A:
A:
L:
64 A:
A:
65 L:
66 CG:
67 R:
68 L:
69 A:
70 CG:
CG:
71 CG:
A:
R:
72 CG:
73 L:
74 L:
75 CG:
76 L:
77 CG:
78 L:

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Yo[u want that you want that you want that<
[ehh
+++++,,,,(L pointing to phone),,,,,,,
Uh oh Jim [I dont think that is too safe
[Eh huh he
Shifts gaze in direction of CG2
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Eh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, (point falls fast)
Sets phone down in front of Lester
He huh
Reaches to touch telephone
Squats down to touch phone too
Here Ill go get my telephone and then you guys
can listen to that.
Walks away
Turns his head in the direction of the CG
Stands up, picks up phone and turn to CG
go this way
walks away from Amy and Lester
Muh[may
[eehh
up Cindys on the phone (hear this from other room)
CIndys on the telephone.
+++,,,,,,, - (L points in the direction where R went)
ehh
Eh duh duh.
Says this while standing up
Begins crawling towards Randy
+++,,,,,,(L extends point towards Randy),,,,,,
duh duh [duh duh
turns away from Randy
[EEhhh
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
You want [the phone too I know
[ L e m i m what dat?
,,,,,,,,,, Heh huh huh
Bebi
Did you see this Lester? Did you see this?
O ers Lester another toy
Randys on the phone right now
Comes over to see Lesters toy
Comes over to see Lesters toy
++,,, (Caregvier pointing to Randy)
Randys on the phone
+++,,,,,,,,,,,
Ehh huh=
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,(Lester pointing in direction of phone)
=e[eh
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
[kay Im gunna see if Cindys o
Gaze follows CG
Could you hand it to me?
++,,, (L quickly points to R)
Eh huh huh huh

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A childs point and the achievement of intentionality

79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88

A:
L:
CG:
CG:
L:
A:
L:
A:
A:
L:
CG:
L:
L:

Whaaaaaaa[aaaaahhhhhhhh
[aaaaahhhhhhhh huh
Thank you
Heres another telephone
Eh he
Begins waving arms up and down in excitement
Heh heh heh heh
Ah hahhehehhhe
Waving hands up and down
Ee[hh heehh
[Here Im gunna talk on this telephone
Uhh huh heh heh heh
Crawls towards her as he continues to cry

Authors addresses
Sarah E. Jones
Email: SEJonesey@aol.com
Don H. Zimmerman
Email: dzimmerman@soc.ucsb.edu

About the authors

Sarah Edith Jones, Doctoral Candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. Sarah is currently working on a dissertation project entitled, Studying Success at
an Eective School: How a Nationally Recognized Public School Overcomes Racial, Ethnic
and Social Boundaries and Creates a Culture of Success. She examines the culture of the
school, the denition of success as well as the formation of the racial identity of the schools
students. This project is funded by the University of California Linguistic Minority Dissertation Grant. Sarahs interests include: sociology of education, culture, qualitative methods,
conversation analysis, race and ethnicity (inequality and identity), human development,
educational policy and reform.
Don H. Zimmerman, PhD, Professor of Sociology and Aliated Faculty in Communication at
the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has served as Department Chair and Dean of the
Division of Social Sciences. He has served as Associate Editor of Sociological Methodology and
American Sociological Review and served on the editorial board for Symbolic Interaction, Human
Studies, Language and Society and Research on Language and Social Interaction, of which he is
currently editor. His research interests are in conversation analysis, talk in institutional settings,
and the social life of very young children. Recent publications include Action and the
Appearance of Action in the Conduct of Very Young Children (with Gene Lerner) (2003),
in Glenn et al. (Eds.) Excavating the taken for granted. Lawrence Erlbaum; Reduction and
specialization in emergency and directory Assistance Calls (with Michele Wakin) (1999),
Research on Language and Social Interaction 32; Identity, context and interaction (1998), in
Antaki & Widdicombe (Eds.) Identities in talk. Sage; and Observations on the display and
managment of emotion in naturally occurring activities: The case of hysteria in calls to
911 (with Jack Whalen) (1998) Social Psychological Quarterly 61: 141159.

185

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