Research

Multimodality
Selected publications
Jürgen Streeck conducts micro-ethnographic research on human action and understanding in real-life settings. He is particularly interested in “multimodality”, i.e. the ways in which people employ and coordinate multiple media and symbolic and technological resources, including language and their bodies, for example in the context of work-ativities. His studies are influenced by the new field known as cognition as practice or socially shared cognition.

to appear
J. Streeck & Siri Mehus. Microethnography: The Study of Practices. Handbook of Language and Social Interaction. Ed. by K. Fitch & R. Sanders. Lawrence Erlbaum

2000 J. Streeck & W. Kallmeyer. Interaction by inscription. Journal of Pragmatics. 33, 4, 465-490 (April 2001)

1997 C. LeBaron & J. Streeck. Built space and the interactional framing of experience during a murder interrogation. Human Studies, 20, 1-25.

1996 How to do things with things: Objets trouvés and symbolization. Human Studies, 19, 365-384.

Gesture  

Central to Jürgen's research is the study of hand-gestures. He has conducted research on gesture since 1986. This research began in the context of classes on conversation analysis that he taught at the Freie Universität Berlin, in collaboration with Cornelia Müller, who is now, with Adam Kendon, editor of the journal Gesture.

Streeck's research on gesture is influenced by the work of Charles Goodwin and Adam Kendon, as well by many discussions with Curt LeBaron and David McNeill.

He seeks to identify the exact roles that hand gestures play in human understanding, their semiotic structure, as well as their origins in physical action in the material world. The work presupposes that no distinction is made between body and mind: gesture is bodily communication, but it is mindful and rich in cognitive content; conversely, the way we move and experience our bodies is to an extent shaped by the way we think. Body and mind are ultimately the same: personhood.

to appear
Leo Steinberg’s Leonardo’s Last Supper. Review article. Gesture

2002 A body and its gestures. Gesture, 2, 1, 2002, 19-44.

2000 C. LeBaron & J. Streeck. Gestures, knowledge, and the world. In D. McNeill (Ed.). Language and Gesture: Window into Thought and Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 118-138.

1995 On Projection. E. Goody (ed.). Interaction and Social Intelligence (pp.84-110). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

1994 Gesture as communication II: The audience as co-author. Research on Language and Social Interaction. 27 (3), (Special Issue: Is Gesture Communicative? Ed. by A.Kendon), 239-267.

1993 Gesture as communication I: Its coordination with gaze and speech. Communication Monographs, 60 (December 1993), 275-299.

1992 J.Streeck & U. Hartge. Previews: Gestures at the Transition Place. In The Contextualization of Language. P.Auer & A.di Luzio (eds.). Amsterdam: Benjamins B.V., 135-158

1992 J.Streeck & M. L.Knapp. The Relationship between Visual and Verbal Features in Human Communication. Advances in Nonverbal Communication. F. Poyatos (ed.). Amsterdam: Benjamins B.V., 3-24

 

Intercultural communication  

A related area of research is intercultural communication. In contrast to the prevailing view that intercultural communication is inherently difficult, e.g. because of differences in cultural styles of body motion, and therefore prone to failure (a view which is largely a convenient myth promoted by the consulting industry), Streeck analyzes how people manage to cross cultural and linguistic boundaries in their intercultural communication at work. His collaborator in this endeavor is Izumi Funayama (Kumamoto University, Japan). While Funayama’s ‘case in point’ is a Chinese-Japanese advertising agency in Shanghai, Streeck's is a multiethnic, Lebanese-owned car-repair shop in South Austin.

Jürgen Streeck has supervised several dissertations on intercultural communication.

 1985 Kulturelle Kodes und ethnische Grenzen. Drei Theorien über Fehlschläge in der interethnischen Kommunikation. In Interkulturelle Kommunikation. J.Rehbein (ed.). Tübingen: Narr, 103-120

Embodiment, expression, and the human psyche  

A special application of Streeck's research on body-motion is the study of bodily expression in the context of psychotherapy and emotional disorders. This work is done in collaboration with his brother, Ulrich Streeck, a psychoanalyst and professor of psychosomatic medicine in Göttingen/Germany (and founder and editor of the journal Psychotherapie und Sozialwissenschaft). In 2004 they both willparticipate in a research group studying the expression of fear in patients with anxiety and panic disorders, at the University of Bielefeld, Germany.

 2002 Jürgen Streeck & Ulrich Streeck. Mikroanalyse sprachlichen und körperlichen Interaktionsverhaltens in psychotherapeutischen Beziehungen (“Microanalysis of verbal and embodied interaction behavior in psychotherapeutic relationships”). Zeitschrift für Psychotherapie und Sozialwissenschaft, 5, 1, 2002

Grammar and interaction  
On the basis of his research on the Philippine language Ilokano, Streeck has conducted a certain amount of linguistic-typological research that conceives of grammar as an interactional phenomenon: as an organization that has evolved in the context of talk-in-interaction and must be understood not only in cognitive, but also interactional terms. Important in this regard is the fact that, in contrast to written language, spoken language “happens”--is produced and understood--over time: it is a dynamic process, not a static structure.

2002 Grammars, words, and embodied meanings. On the evolution and uses of so and like. Journal of Communication, 52, 3, September 2002, 581-596.

1996 A little Ilokano grammar as it appears in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 26, 189-213.

 

Field work
Field-work among African-American children; elderly women of the German working-class; in Luzon (Philippines); Bali (Indonesia); and in U.S. auto-shops, architecture firms, and classrooms.

1998 Ilokano Songlines. A Journey into a Language. CD-ROM. The University of Texas at Austin.

1995 Small world democracy. In W. de Graaf & C. van Nijnatten (Eds.). Children as Citizens. The Social and Juridical Constitution of Children’s Rights. Utrecht: Onderzoekschool AWSB.

1983b Social Order in Child Communication. Pragmatics and Beyond. Amsterdam: Benjamins, B.V.

1994b Leichte Muse im Gespräch. (Über die Unterhaltungskunst älterer Frauen in der Filsbach). W.Kallmeyer (Ed.). Kommunikation in der Stadt. Vol.1 (pp. 578-610). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.


Methodology  
Streeck has published a number of articles and chapters on methodology and on theoretical foundations of linguistic and interaction research.

2002 Culture, meaning, and interpersonal communication. (revised) M. L. Knapp & J. Daly (Eds.), Handbook of Interpersonal Communication (pp. 286-319). Beverly Hills: Sage. 3rd Edition, 300-335.

1991 Sprachanalyse als empirische Geisteswissenschaft. Von der “philosophy of mind” zur “kognitiven Linguistik”. Handbuch Qualitative Sozialforschung. U.Flick, L.v.Rosenstiel & S.Wolff (eds.). München: Psychologie Verlags Union, 1991, 90-100.

1983 Konversationsanalyse. Ein Reparaturversuch. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 3, 72-104

1980 Speech Acts in Interaction. A Critique of Searle. Discourse Processes, 3, 133-154

 


Jürgen Streeck's most important academic mentors were Aaron V. Cicourel and Hugh Mehan at the University of California, San Diego. He also owes a great deal, both personallly and intellectually, to the the late Robert Hopper, who brought him to the University of Texas (and rescued him from imminent unemployment in Germany).