Units in interaction are emergent real-time phenomena that can be accomplished by the coordinated deployment of language and the body. Focusing mostly on data from dance classes, this study looks at how incomplete syntax projects a continuation realized by the body, and systematically accounts for clausal syntax that can incorporate an embodied demonstration. It is argued that the classic list of types of turn-constructional units by Sacks et al. (1974) needs to be expanded with a syntactic-bodily one, and that the syntax of embodied demonstrations has to be included in the grammatical description of language.
Conversation analysis has established that the smooth progression of interaction and the accomplishment of action rest on joint understanding, which is implicitly built by a next turn of talk. In this article we examine explicit claims to intersubjective understanding from a range of settings from the institutional to the mundane. Our target expressions have the general form; I + understand + YOU + PSYCHOLOGICAL FORMULATION such as I understand your concern and I see that this is frustrating you. We propose these expressions do pro forma affiliationthat is, they make a show of affiliating, even if in fact there is no affiliation. By explicitly claiming and demonstrating an understanding of the other speakers subjectivity, our target expression orients to misalignment between the parties, makes a show of other-attentiveness and bridges a shift that advances a speakers interactional agenda. Our contribution is to show the strategic function of a previously undocumented pro-social grammatical-conversational structure. Data are in English, and in Estonian and Swedish with English translation.