Interactional competence and co-construction of meanings

An analysis of the verbal and non-verbal behaviors of participants in an electoral debate

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the verbal and non-verbal behaviors adopted by participants of an electoral debate. To carry out this study, we adopted the theoretical and analytical principles of a theoretical-methodological approach developed by the Interaction & Formation Group, based at the University of Geneva. For this approach, language is an instrument for coordinating actions and a resource that allows interlocutors to communicate and negotiate knowledge, establish social links and transform the environment they are in, jointly building identity images and developing their interactional competence. Adopting the concepts, theoretical articulations and methods proposed by the group, this study analyzed an excerpt from the last electoral debate of the 2018 campaign for the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil. With the analysis, it was possible to observe that the interlocutors use verbal and non-verbal language to reveal expectations related to the context, showing its ruled, social and historical character, and to negotiate these same expectations, revealing that the meanings and the interaction itself are emerging, flexible and highly contextualised.