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Laurier, E., Muñoz, D., Miller, R. & Brown, B. (2020). A Bip, a Beeeep, and a Beep Beep: How Horns Are Sounded in Chennai Traffic. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 53(3), 341-356
Open this publication in new window or tab >>A Bip, a Beeeep, and a Beep Beep: How Horns Are Sounded in Chennai Traffic
2020 (English)In: Research on Language and Social Interaction, ISSN 0835-1813, E-ISSN 1532-7973, Vol. 53, no 3, p. 341-356Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Although the vehicle horn is a minimal audible unit for communication, we will show that its uses are impressively varied. Drawing upon a corpus of video recordings from dashcams, we show how drivers use the horn for creating awareness; how they target particular vehicles; and how they use it for warnings, for complaints, and in instructing the seeing of an aspect of an ambiguous traffic object. Drivers' use of the horn involves, first, their sounding it in recognizable relations to past, current, and projected configurations of traffic on the road. Second, it involves drivers manipulating the vehicle horn to create sounds of shorter and longer durations that can then produce hearably distinct actions. Third, and finally, the driver can use the horn as an initiating or responsive action in relation to the actions of other members of traffic. The data are from road users in Chennai, India.

National Category
Civil Engineering Media and Communication Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-184474 (URN)10.1080/08351813.2020.1785775 (DOI)000548945700001 ()
Available from: 2020-09-21 Created: 2020-09-21 Last updated: 2025-02-17Bibliographically approved
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0003-0886-8915

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