Book review: Dominique Legallois, Thierry Charnois and Meri Larjavaara (eds), The Grammar of Genres and Styles: From Discrete to Non-discrete Units

Abstract

co-participant, they frequently will avert their gaze in anticipation of the expected response, thereby demonstrating receptiveness to whatever the response may be. In this context, Korkiakangas reiterates her position that this and other multimodal interactions should be considered valid communicative cues and not neurological impairments. In Chapter 8, Korkiakangas concludes the book by summarizing and reflecting upon the project’s findings, and by considering the possible directions and implications for using a multimodal-interactive approach in future studies of autistic behavior. Until now, relatively few researchers have focused on the unique multimodal communicative acts of autistic children in naturalistic settings, and this book opens up new avenues for exploring the meaning of gaze as well as other significant nonverbal cues in social interactions. In the process of compiling and analyzing the rich corpus of empirical data obtained from video recordings made at the Finnish school, which specializes in the education of autistic children, Korkiakangas makes an invaluable contribution to the body of existing academic works that compare neurotypical and autistic behaviors. Rooted in the interactional tradition of conversation analysis, Korkiakangas demonstrates how the multimodal interaction framework can provide new insight into gaze: what an instance of gaze does, who uses it and when, why and for whom the eye contact matters, from both children on the autism spectrum and their social partners’ perspective, including peers, teachers and parents. Meanwhile, by regarding mutual gaze and gaze aversion as part of lived social experiences, Korkiakangas also encourages readers to adopt this positive attitude. The same applies to the closely related acts of smiling, gesturing and other bodily movements. To emphasize the significance of her findings, she writes, ‘This means respecting the ways in which autistic persons choose to communicate, rather than changing them’ (p. 253). The book’s overall organization is cohesive and effective. Also, the reference pages and reading list provided at the end of the book are useful resources for both students and teachers. Other reader-friendly features include the in-text highlighting of keywords, an excellent glossary and an index. In conclusion, Terhi Korkiakangas’ innovative perspective effectively demystifies the phenomenon of gaze as a communicative act between autistic children. This book will therefore be of great interest to graduate students, researchers and practitioners in the fields of psychology and the neurosciences who wish to learn more about the considerable array of multimodal features which characterize the social interactions of persons with ASD.