Learning how to talk: Co-producing action with and around voice agents

Abstract

The domestication of voice interfaces, made accessible in consumer devices such as the Apple HomePod, Google Home or the Amazon Echo, has led to everyday talk becoming intertwined with—as well as acting as—device input. Whether intending to interact with voice interfaces or not, conversationalists must learn ‘how to talk’ to and around them as a matter of this domestication work. Taking an ethnomethodological conversation analysis approach, this paper interrogates some of the ways in which conversationalists deploy a variety of methods so as to manage and design input in line with the strictures of voice interface capabilities and collaboratively accomplish—co-produce—actions with and around such devices.