Kenan Hochuli was a member of the URPP Language and Space from 2014 to 2019.

Trade has played a fundamental role in the emergence of cities (cf. Kostof 1993, Bahrdt 2006). Markets and, above all, market stalls are essential to the process of exchanging goods for goods or good for money. In my dissertation project I contrast Zurich's weekly markets with street and neighborhood markets in Istanbul. My focus is on interaction at fruit and vegetable stalls, which play a central role in both cities. Moreover, in their reduced basic structure - goods on the table, seller behind it, buyers in front of it – they offer a comparable setting.
In the theoretical and methodological framework of conversation analysis and ethnomethodological videography, I am concerned with the question of how interactive contributions are achieved, especially at the beginning and end of sales interactions, and how these contributions fit into the general interaction order at the market stall. Specifically, my focus is on the comparison of interactive configurations, the question of their emergence and their significance for social encounters in both cities.
In a hitherto unconsidered way, my work bridges recent findings from the study of space and interaction (cf. Hausendorf et al. 2016) and cross-cultural studies on the multimodal behavior of participants in comparable settings (cf. Mondada/Sorjonen 2016 i.a.) while taking into account the fundamental role of configurative structures for social experience.

References

Bahrdt, Hans-Paul (2006): Die moderne Großstadt. Soziologische Überlegungen zum Städtebau. Herausgegeben von Ulfert Herleyn. 2. Aufl. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

Hausendorf, Heiko; Schmitt, Reinhold; Kesselheim, Wolfgang (Hg.) (2016): Interaktionsarchitektur, Sozialtopographie und Interaktionsraum. 1. Auflage. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto (Studien zur deutschen Sprache, 72).

Kostof, Spiro (1993): Die Anatomie der Stadt. Geschichte städtischer Strukturen. Frankfurt: Campus-Verl.

Mondada, Lorenza; Sorjonen, Marja-Leena (2016): Making multiple requests in French and Finnish convenience stores. In: Lang. Soc. 45 (05).

Supervisors

Angelika Linke, Wolfgang Kesselheim, Heiko Hausendorf

Funding source

URPP Language and Space / Forschungskredit Candoc