Plenary abstract:   My starting point is the work of Erving Goffman. Elaborating on some of his ideas, I will suggest  ways in which different kinds of occasions of interaction in co-presence are organized and show how multiple systems of behaviour are articulated in complex nested and overlapping heirarchies. I will show different ways in which occasions of interaction relate to and make use of the spaces in which they occur, discuss the importance of spatial and orientational organization and examine what is involved in the creation of contexts in which participants exchange 'explicit  acts' and show something of how such exchanges are themselves organized using multiple communicative modalities simultaneously.  

This strand/parallel session is provisionally divided into:
a) first day: to be decided
b) second day: to be decided

The strand/parallel session covers the following sectors:
The role of body semiotics in social interaction e.g. children’s play and development; relationships between gesture, gaze, movement, oral discourse and other semiotic modalities in semiosis; the role of gesture and other semiotic modalities in ritual interactions of all kinds, such as greetings, religious, civic or legal rituals; gesture and other semiotic modalities in multimodal human-machine interaction; gesture and cognition; gesture in  the theatre, theatrical and other studies (…..and many others). 
 
Strand organisation and presentation: Anthony Baldry, Patti Grunther (other strand organisers to be decided)