Learning “How to Mean”

This chapter is about learning “how to mean”—how to construct meaningful embodied and spoken expressions—through participation in the context of cultural practices. Our aim is to provide a synopsis of fundamental aspects—the expressive media of the body, of eye gaze, of bodily orientation, of gesture, and of doing things with spoken words—by which people learn how to mean and to read meanings with others in their host culture(s). We first summarize how infants develop an attentional machinery for engaging in social life, and then examine such developments in use among three adults meeting and greeting each other in an ordinary interaction in Tokyo, Japan. The chapter’s primary focus is on the use of pointing as a lightning rod for sociability and attention across persons in each other’s presence.