Embodied empathy (Kidwell, 2013)

Kidwell, Mardi (2013). Interaction among children. In J. Sidnell and T.Stivers (Eds.) The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 511-532) Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Mardi Kidwell (2013) explains that studying young children's interactions bring to the foreground CA's central concern with social action, rather than conversation per se. We see that young, pre-verbal children are able to achieve a range of social actions (requests, directions etc) using gesture, eye gaze, and vocalizations. By focusing on the actions of young children in this chapter (ie what is achieved or done through inter-action), Kidwell is able to show us  the ingenuity and resourcefulness of children exploiting a finite set of resources (ie embodiment or language) for a range of purposes. In this chapter Kidwell details how three 20-month-old children comfort a 13-month-old boy who is crying; the detailed attention afforded by conversation analysis shows how the children are orienting to the younger boy’s distress, by offering contingently refined attempts at comfort and distraction.