Instructional sequences in driving lessons: Mobile participants and the temporal and sequential organization of actions

This paper offers an analysis of instructional sequences in driving lessons. It examines how driving instructors direct learner drivers to perform salient driving actions. On the basis of a video-recorded corpus, the paper looks at the temporal and sequential organization of instructional sequences and analyzes how the participants coordinate their actions with the continuously changing spatiotemporal contingencies. In driving lessons, a first set of instructions project actions that learners have to perform by manipulating car controls or by monitoring the traffic situation. A second set of instructions relate to navigation, requiring the student drivers to turn at intersections, etc. This article describes the turn-constructional features of these instructions and studies their temporal, spatial and praxeological corollaries. Moreover, the paper examines episodes of interaction with multiple instructions, which are regularly found in driving lessons. It analyzes their sequential organization to reveal a recurrent order, with navigational instructions preceding car control instructions. Building on prior research on ordinary driving and on instructions, this paper contributes to our understanding of how mobility both affects and is affected by language use and social interaction.