Palm-up pointing at technical drawings in multilingual workplace interaction

In materially rich workplaces, embodied actions and task-relevant materials play a central role in establishing precise deictic reference. This study focuses on multilingual workplaces where pointing at technical drawings becomes especially relevant in initiating actions, managing disalignment, and recipient-designing talk for participants with asymmetric access to the shared language. Based on four hours of video recordings of interactions involving L1 and L2 speakers of English or German in two manufacturing companies, this multimodal conversation analytic study focuses on the functions of palm-up pointing gestures directed at technical drawings. The analysis shows that palm-up pointing gestures, performed with the open palm, with a pen, and with the extended index finger, serve as resources to present the target as available for uptake across sequential environments within the local ecology of the technical drawings and the participants’ bodies. Participants use palm-up pointing to present the target as available for acceptance in sequence closings, as open for inspection in initiating actions, or for (re)consideration in responsive, predominantly disaligning, actions. In initiations and responsive actions, where competition for the floor becomes relevant, the preparation to point in pre-beginning position and sustaining of the pointing gesture throughout the turn enable speakers to enter and claim the floor. More broadly, the findings demonstrate that palm-up pointing gestures do not merely indicate targets but actively contribute to action formation, sequence organization, and turn-taking. In this way, the study contributes to our understanding of how embodied and material resources contribute to coordination and action formation in multilingual workplaces.