The first extract ¹ (“short like this”) shows the beginning of the first self-defense training. The trainer has announced that the students will learn how to mobilize their voice and bodies to protect the territory of the self (Goffman, 1971) against potential aggressors. She decomposes the task into smaller sub-units that are later integrated. We join the group in the course of the first instruction. It is about learning how to make a step forward. The starting point is to stand firmly on the ground. The instruction is addressed at the whole group. In order to be visible to all of them, the trainer has moved to the middle of the gym. The students are arranged around her in full-circle.

The instructional sequence consists of the trainer’s instructing action (l. 1–4) as first pair part (FPP), followed by the instructed action (l. 5) as embodied second pair part (SPP). It is brought to a close by the trainer’s ratification (l. 6) in third position. The trainer’s instruction is delivered as a multi-unit turn. Syntactically, it is built as a conditional construction: The protasis (l. 1–2) formulates and bodily demonstrates the conditions under which the embodied action formulated and performed in the apodosis (l. 4) should be followed. For now, we focus on the multimodal delivery of the first turn constructional unit (TCU), the protasis of the conditional construction. It syntactically projects, first, a subordinate clause that is dependent on the predicate (l. 1: “MERKT”/“realize”, and second, the apodosis.

Our analysis focuses on the successive mobilization of linguistic and embodied resources that the trainer uses to project and highlight focal elements of her instruction. The first important moment occurs at the end of the first intonation phrase when the trainer projects a change in the attentional focus by shifting her gaze from the addressees (Figure 1A) to her feet (Figure 1B). Her gaze points to a new space, invites attention-sharing and projects an embodied activity within that focal space.

Extract 1 is a prime example of how embodied demonstrations are integrated into an unfolding verbal instruction. It demonstrates a key function of gaze in conjunction with modal demonstratives (so/“like this”) and embodied demonstrations. It projects a new space for embodied demonstrations indexed by so. Note that in the extract, the gaze shift precedes the demonstrative, which only comes at l. 2 (see transcript above). As a visible display of human vision, eye-gaze shifts publicly document changes in the attentional focus. In the present case, the gaze shift (l. 1) points to and projects the relevant space for the upcoming demonstration. Before the trainer delivers the demonstrative (l. 2), she thus invites her addressees to follow her line of regard (Stukenbrock, 2020a) and to orient to where the action is going to be. ² In sum, gaze orientation prepares the focal space for an embodied demonstration. As we will see in the next section, the trainer also temporally marks the focal moment of the unfolding demonstration.

After the trainer has gaze-projected the focal space for the upcoming demonstration (extract 1), she uses the modal demonstrative “sO”/“like this” to index the focal moment and element of her demonstration. The demonstrative is part of the second TCU and precedes an adverbially used adjective (l. 2): “ihr steht sO: KURZ da”/“you are standing there short like this”. The demonstrative “sO”/“like this” is deployed in different constructions (Stukenbrock, 2010, 2015) to index the manner of an action (so + VERB), the quality of an object (so + presentative constructions), or the degree to which an attributed quality (so + ADJ./ADV.) applies to a phenomenon (Stukenbrock, 2010, 2015). It is also used in type-indicative referential actions in conjunction with a noun phase and a concurrent pointing gesture (Balantani, 2021). It is to be distinguished from uses as a discourse marker (Barske and Golato, 2010), a quotative (Golato, 2000), and various other functions (cf. Stukenbrock, 2014, for an overview). In our example, the demonstrative so informs the addressees that the local meaning of the gradable adjective “KURZ”/“short” is to be gathered from the trainer’s embodied action. In temporal terms, it indexes the moment in which the trainer repositions her foot (Figure 2A) to reduce the space between her feet.

Grammatically, “sO”/“like this” marks the informational focus of utterance and embodied demonstration; it thus “incorporate[s] the work of the [feet] into the grammatical structure of the talk” (Streeck, 2002: 582). A moment later, the trainer also mobilizes a gesture to point to the space between her feet (Figure 2B). Gaze, demonstrative, body movement, and pointing gesture all work together to highlight (Goodwin, 1994: 606) the crucial moment of her demonstration. Before the trainer continues the syntactic construction (i.e., the projected apodosis of the conditional construction), a pause ensues (l. 3). With frozen body posture, the trainer shifts gaze to the students to monitor their attention (Figure 2C).

At the beginning of the next TCU (the apodosis, l. 4), the trainer shifts gaze once more to her feet (Figure 3A) thus projecting another embodied action to come. The students engage in self-monitoring by looking down at their feet to assess their own spatial position. While describing the corrective body movement that deals with the problematic position demonstrated before, the trainer makes a step forward, and then reorients her gaze to monitor her students (Figure 3B).

By following the trainer’s example and correcting their position (l. 5), the students deliver an embodied display of understanding, which is ratified by the trainer (l. 6: “geNAU”/“right”).

In the data, we find temporally variable orders in which demonstratives, gaze shift, and embodied demonstration are mobilized in the local context. Temporal flexibility is not counter-evidence against the claim that couplings of demonstratives and embodied practices are contextually independent, multimodal constructions. On the contrary, flexibility has been from the outset an interactional prerequisite without which the core function of demonstratives would not have emerged: to establish joint attention on phenomena in the shared surroundings of copresent participants. The cross-context distribution (Ningelgen and Auer, 2017; Stukenbrock, 2010, 2014, 2015) of these temporally flexible, yet firmly established multimodal constructions has emerged from, and fueled the process of grammaticalization out of which demonstratives emerged as a unique class in linguistic history (Diessel, 2006; 2009; Diessel and Coventry, 2020).

The following extract exemplifies how temporal flexibility allows for variations within the multimodal construction. It documents a local, recipient-designed temporal ordering of gaze, modal demonstrative, and bodily action. It is delivered with respect to the participants’ attention and activities. As in extract 1, “SO”/“like this” is coupled with embodied demonstrations and speaker gaze shift from the addressees to the floor. The gaze shift indexes a new focal space to attend to. However, unlike in extract 1, gaze, demonstrative, and bodily demonstration are mobilized in a different temporal order. The trainer shifts her gaze only after the first delivery of the demonstrative, and concurrent with its repetition (l. 3). The trainer’s body posture is already in place before the extract starts. She has remained in the stepping position that she assumed before and upholds it throughout the instruction.

The trainer starts a new instruction with a modal deontic (l. 1: “ihr sollt”/“you must”), moves her arms back and forth along her body, but then breaks off and pauses (l. 2) as some students are still involved in the previous exercise. She restarts with the modal demonstrative “SO”/“like this”, which is followed by a gradable adjective (“WEIT”/“wide”, l. 3). Instead of projecting a new space of attention by visibly reorienting her gaze to it, the trainer continues to monitor her addressees (Figure 4). Since some of the students are not looking at her, the gaze shift would not be seen and hence interactionally useless.

Up to this point, the demonstrative, instead of being preceded by a gaze shift, precedes the gaze shift. By this temporal ordering, the (first use of the) demonstrative serves as an audible request for addressee gaze (Stukenbrock, 2018b) at a moment when focused interaction and visual coorientation need to be re-established. The demonstrative hearably indexes that visible information is to be gathered from the trainer’s embodied action. In order to understand the local meaning of “SO” with respect to the gradable adjective “WEIT”/“wide like this“, the addressees will have to look at the trainer.

After the first, multimodally “lean” occurrence of the demonstrative, the trainer shifts gaze from the students to the floor and performs two gestures to delineate the space projected by her body (Figure 5A). Concurrent with her embodied actions, she repeats the modal demonstrative “SO”/“like this” (l. 2), freezes her body posture, and shifts gaze back to the students to monitor their attention (Figure 5B).

In contrast to the first extract, where the trainer’s gaze shift to a new domain preceded demonstrative and embodied action, it is now the demonstrative (its first delivery) that precedes the gaze shift to the new domain: It implements a summons for addressee gaze (Stukenbrock, 2018b). This use is made contingent on the trainer’s perception that some students are still engaged in finishing the previous exercise and not yet ready to look at her.

The extract documents that the resources are recipient-designed to fit the addressees’ situated activities. Thus, while the resources (first and second use of modal demonstrative, embodied demonstration, gaze shift) are temporally calibrated to the addressees’ diverging foci of attention, they are still converging to “embody” the same kind of multimodal construction. The first, “lean” delivery of the format, which requested visual attention from unattending participants, is followed by a full multimodal delivery of the grammar-body construction in the course of the trainer’s self-repair.

To sum up, the analysis in part I has shown that modal demonstratives (“so”/“like this”) are closely coupled with embodied actions. These constitute indispensable components without which the demonstrative would not be understood. The speaker’s embodied actions have to be seen by the addressees in order for them to understand the local, indexical meaning of the demonstrative. Participants orient towards this need as a joint endeavor: The trainer designs and times her actions with respect to the addressees’ attention and availability. Evidence for this was given in extract 2, where the trainer deployed a modal demonstrative to summon the visual attention of non-attending addressees before she recycled the demonstrative as part of a full-fledged multimodal construction. Conversely, addressees consistently orient to exophorically used demonstratives as requests for visual attention by allocating their gaze to the speaker and attending to her embodied actions.

By default, requests for gaze are formulated by perceptual imperatives. However, they are also delivered by less specialized means, such as restarts and pauses (Goodwin, 1980), prospective indexicals (Goodwin, 1996), response cries (Goffman, 1981), noticings (Keisanen, 2012; Stukenbrock and Dao, 2019), and by combinations of those means (Goodwin and Goodwin, 2012). As we have seen, summons for gaze are also implemented by demonstratives. What is more, this is constitutive for the primordial function of demonstratives in phylo- and ontogenesis. The gaze-summoning property of demonstratives is inherently linked to speakers’ embodied actions and to the need of addressees to perceive those actions. Demonstratives are therefore “by nature” embodied—i.e., multimodal constructions (Ningelgen and Auer, 2017; Stukenbrock, 2010, 2017, 2018a, 2020a).

We begin with the most elaborate format and subsequently examine how the format is becoming leaner over time as components are gradually being abandoned. It consists of a request ‘to X something “like this” + gaze to focal space + embodied demonstration’. Extract 3 shows the full format. The trainer requests the students to place their hands on their hips in a particular way. The instructional action (l. 1–2) is followed by an instructed action (l. 3) delivered by students. The sequence is closed as the trainer comments on the practice in third position (l. 4).

The instructional action (l. 1–2) is delivered multimodally. At turn-beginning, the trainer is looking at her addressees (Figure 6A). She lifts her hands, bends her head, and visibly shifts gaze to her hands (Figure 6B), thus gaze-flagging (Streeck, 2002) her embodied demonstration as it emerges. She continues to gaze down as she moves her hands to her hips in a palm-away position (Figure 6C).

In the course of the second intonation phrase, which contains the demonstrative “SO”/“like this” (l. 2), the trainer produces a gestural stroke by quickly moving her hands sideways and hitting her hips (l. 1), palms away (Figure 7A). The demonstrative is prosodically marked by a focal accent, and concurrently, the position of the hands is emphasized by a gestural beat, or baton (Kendon, 2004). A second, laterally performed baton occurs concurrently with the delivery of “SO” (l. 2).

After the multimodal gestalt is fulfilled and the turn completed, the trainer shifts gaze to the students (Figure 7B). In conjunction with the high-rising intonation at the end (l. 2), the gaze shift mobilizes an embodied response (Stivers and Rossano, 2010). With a scrutinizing look (Figure 7C), the trainer turns in a semi-circle to check how the students perform the instructed action.

In line with our previous analysis, we can observe a temporally fine-tuned mobilization of resources: While gaze projects the focal space for the embodied performance (cf. Projecting the focal space for embodied action by gaze), the demonstrative marks the focal moment of the performance (cf. Marking the focal moment of the bodily performance with “so”/“like this”). Gaze, demonstrative, and gestural baton are assembled to co-index, by multimodal densification, the key moment of the trainer’s instruction.

Extract 4 documents the first repetition after the initial instruction in extract 3. Its turn-design differs from that in extract 3, and its multimodal delivery is significantly reduced. First, the trainer has to reorganize the students’ positions and manage the transition to the next round. While the discourse marker okay at turn-beginning (l. 1) marks the transition, the organizational instruction “nochmal zuRÜCK”/“back again” realigns the students in interactional space and brings them back to the by now familiar starting position. This is indicated by the temporal adverb “nochmal”/“again” (l. 1). It contrasts with the temporal marker “erstmal”/“for a start” in extract 3, and projects a second go. It is repeated with focal accent as part of the instruction proper (l. 3) and indicates familiarity to the students. The verbal instruction (l. 4) is accompanied by a hands-to-hips-movement and followed by the students’ performance of the instructed action (l. 4).

Before the trainer delivers the instruction, she publicly displays that she is monitoring the students’ activities (l. 2, Figure 8A). In contrast to extract 3, where she projected the focal space of the instruction by gaze, she now consistently looks at the students (Figure 8A,B,C). By turning her head and visibly letting her gaze wander across the group (Figure 8C), she documents that she is closely monitoring the students’ embodied response.

Further reductions are observable: In extract 3, the instructing action was delivered in two intonation phrases (l. 1–2). In contrast, it is compressed into a single one in extract 4 (l. 3). Whereas the trainer used a proposition with a deictic address term (“ihr”/“you”) and an inflected verb phrase (“nehmt”/“take”) in extract 3, she now uses a truncated deontic infinitive instead (on deontic infinitives cf. Deppermann, 2006). Moreover, she omits the gaze shift to the focal space (spatial projection), and downgrades the prosodic design of the demonstrative ³ by shifting the focal accent to the adverb (l. 3: “NOCHmal”/“again”). By repeatedly indexing that the instruction is already part of the common ground, the trainer accounts for a scaled-down version of the instruction: Visibly projecting the focal space by gaze and audibly emphasizing the crucial moment by a prosodically marked demonstrative is less important when these are already known to the participants. The reduction is summarized in Table 1.

The short excursus in the next section contrasts our analysis of repetition, routinization, and reduction with the opposite case. When the trainer introduces new elements, the instruction becomes more complex again. Against this background, the eroding effect of multiple repetitions (cf. sub-section Local routinization and sedimentation through repetition and reduction) will become even more apparent. Furthermore, we can also see from the contrasting example how incipient routinization can be stopped or blocked.

In this short excursus, it is argued that while multiple repetitions lead to routinization, simplification, and reduction, the opposite—introducing new elements—motivates the use of extended, more complex formats. The choice and design of the format thus reflexively indexes familiarity and routinization or lack thereof.

The extract occurs after repetitions have already yielded initial reductions. However, it does not exhibit those reductions. On the contrary, it is more complex than the previous extract. The reason for this is that the trainer introduces a new element. She delivers a meta-instruction to announce that element. The meta-instruction establishes a hand clap as a timing signal for choric practicing.

Meta-instructions add a layer of reflexivity to the reflexivity and indexicality of situated social interaction by explicitly formulating an instruction about instructions. They establish local practices of co-orientation and co-ordination, and request attention to and alignment with those practices of practicing. They formulate practices for the local organization of instructions-in-interaction. Relevant for my argument is that meta-instructions, and more generally, meta-formulations (re-)increase the complexity of formats that may have begun to undergo reduction.

The trainer starts with an announcement (l. 1–3). She uses a pre-construction with “SO”/“like this” (l. 1) (“Vorlaufkonstruktion mit so”, cf. Auer, 2006), which projects a prosodically and syntactically complex turn. The subsequent bipartite turn delivers the meta-instruction (l. 2–3) and fulfills the syntactic projection. It introduces the hand clap as a timing device for choric practicing. While the instructional object (stepping forward) is referred to as already known (l. 3: “diesen schritt”/“this step”), the method of choric practicing according to the hand clap is introduced as something new. It is defined as go-ahead for the students’ performance of the instructed action. In grammatical terms, it functions like a gesturally used temporal demonstrative that points to the moment of its utterance (Fillmore, 1997; Levinson, 2005).

The trainer delays the delivery of the hand clap and thereby holds back the students’ response. She inserts instructional details on how the step forward should (not) be done (l. 4–7), and announces an assessment of trouble sources that the students may be exhibiting in the course of the performance (l. 8–9). The trainer projects and designs an action trajectory that is composed of her hand clap as FPP, the students’ performance as SPP, and subsequently, further assessment and training phases that target the students’ problems as they become visible to the trainer’s professional vision (Goodwin, 1994). By publicly anticipating problems, the trainer prospectively accounts for the need for future correction and repetition.

The trainer performs the hand clap with a large, sweeping movement, which prepares the stage for the audible go-ahead. Additionally, the hand clap is projected by a pre-positioned, prosodically marked verbal item: the conjunction “UND”/“and” (l. 10). The students respond by stepping forward after the hand clap. ⁴ The trainer acknowledges the performance and prepares the transition to the next round with “oKAY” (l. 12).

The trainer uses the hand clap as a device to structure the instructing action, insert details, anticipate problems, and delay the students’ performance by withholding the clap and making its delivery contingent on the ongoing activities. The sequential structure can be summarized as follows:

I. position: complex multi-unit turn of the trainer composed of

The analysis shows that complex, multi-unit turns with pre-positioned announcements and meta-instructions reflexively constitute and index the additional effort to formulate changes in the instructional format. The complex format used to formulate new and unfamiliar elements contrasts with reductions exhibited as the result of repeating the familiar. Multiple repetitions and reductions may ultimately lead to the local emergence of a new format. This is studied in the next sub-section.

Previously, we have seen how first repetitions already exhibit reductions. The short excursus on meta-instructions, in contrast, showed how the introduction of new elements leads to increased complexity, which may eventually counteract routinization and reduction. In this sub-section, we study how the complex, multi-unit turn format is once again changed and reduced in the course of multiple repetitions. The analysis focuses on reductions that emerge from progressive routinization of first and second actions, and on the concurrent temporal compression that reflects and constitutes initial automatization.

Extract 6 occurs right after extract 5. It exemplifies how subsequent repetitions allow for further reductions. The reductions concern both the meta-instruction and the instruction proper. The hand clap has already been put to practice as a timing signal and is reused as a go-ahead in the subsequent instruction.

The first reduction concerns the meta-instruction. Whereas in extract 5 it was delivered in a syntactically, prosodically, and pragmatically complete TCU and followed by the instructing action, it is now boiled down to a prepositional phrase (l. 04: “auf_s klatschen”/“to the clap”) and integrated into the instructing action (l. 04: “und JETZT geht ihr auf_s klatschen mit dem Andern bein vor”/“and nowyou step forward to the clap with the other leg”). Although the clap is already established as a go-ahead, the trainer recycles the meta-instruction as part of a modified instruction: She now requests the students to step forward with the other leg (l. 04).

As in extract 5, the trainer projects the hand clap by a prosodically marked and-preface (l. 05). In contrast to extract 5, however, she no longer visibly puts the hand clap on stage. Instead, it is latched to the and-preface and done very quickly. The students subsequently perform the instructed action, and the sequence is closed when the trainer, after turning around to monitor the students (l. 07), utters a ratification (l. 08: “oKAY;”).

The next extract documents further reductions. Again, the trainer uses a meta-pragmatic announcement, but marks the practice as already familiar by the modal adverb “wieder”/“again” (l. 01). While the practice of clapping and most of the instructed action are treated as known, a new element is introduced: raising the arm when stepping forward (l. 02). In contrast to extract 6 where the announcement of the clap and the instruction were delivered in a single TCU, the trainer now constructs two TCUs and thus foregrounds the arm raise as an instructional novelty.

A formal reduction and temporal acceleration occurs in the adjacency pair of trainer’s gestural go-ahead and students’ embodied response (l. 3–4). The trainer now omits the and-preface, which formerly projected the hand clap and gave the students time to prepare. Instead, she claps immediately after the delivery of the instruction (l. 3). Subsequently, the students step forward and raise their arms (l. 4). The trainer uses the same item for ratification (l. 5: “oKAY”), but now latches an organizational instruction that projects a next go. A double acceleration is thus accomplished: Omitting the and-preface temporally compresses verbal instruction and gestural go-ahead; latching the organizational instruction to the ratification speeds up the succession of training rounds.

The next extract starts with a correction (l. 1) and an organizational instruction (l. 02). It implicates repetition and is marked as part of the interactional history by the temporal adverb “NOCHmal”/“once more” (l. 2).

For the first time, the trainer now leaves out the meta-pragmatic announcement. Instead, she re-introduces the and-preface (l. 04) to project the hand clap, and adds a new element: the vocalization “ZACK” (l. 04: “U:ND ZACK”/“and zack”). The interjection zack onomatopoetically indexes a sharp and violent movement (DWDS; GRIMM, Bd. 31, Sp. 10). In the context of self-defense trainings, it not only depicts these movement qualities, but mobilizes the students to perform the instructed action with utmost force and velocity. By synchronizing the delivery of vocalization and hand clap, the trainer performs a very short and sharp go-ahead signal. In contrast to the concise, synchronized delivery of hand clap and vocalization, she lengthens the pre-positioned conjunction “U:ND”/“and” (l. 04). The delay contrasts with and thus highlights the subsequent acceleration of the go-ahead, which invites a fast and forceful response.

This exercise is repeated two more times, with an explanatory sequence in between. The two repetitions are delivered in the reduced format with an and-preface to project the clap and a synchronized performance of clap and vocalization as go-ahead for the embodied response.

After the arm raise has been repeated several times, the trainer announces the last element to be integrated. The students will now also have to perform a scream. The scream has been practiced separately before. The trainer delivers the instruction in a more complex format. This choice is in line with our observations in the excursus on the increased complexity and length of instructions that introduce additions or changes.

First, the trainer returns to the meta-pragmatic announcement (l. 1) that she had left out before; second, she delivers the instruction in two intonation phrases (l. 2–3). These are separated by a small pause. The syntactic gestalt of the first intonation phrase (l. 2) is incomplete and projects more to come. The pause between first and second intonation phrase becomes hearable as a turn-holding device, which slightly delays the second intonation phrase (l. 3), summons the students’ attention, and brings the new instructional component, the “no-scream” (l. 3), into focus. Next, the trainer uses the reduced format of and-preface, simultaneous vocalization, and clap (l. 4). After the students have integrated the new element (l. 5), the trainer formulates a positive assessment (l. 6: “SUper”/“great”). Subsequently, she requests the students to step back and projects a repetition (l. 7).

After a brief comment on the scream, the trainer recurs to the lean format. The lean version documents progressive reductions of the instructing FPP and concomitantly, a temporal compression between FPP and embodied SPP.

While the and-prefaced coupling of vocalization and hand clap projects the temporal slot for the students’ embodied response, they have to infer from the interactional history how to design their action. In the present case, they understand the trainer’s minimal signal as a go-ahead to repeat the previous action (l. 2). No explicit instruction tells them that they are requested to repeat the integration of the three elements they have practiced separately before.

The next extract attests to the local adaptability and temporal flexibility of the format once it has been established. These variations do not constitute counter-evidence to the observed integrity of the format as an oriented-to, recognizable gestalt. They are recipient-designed temporal calibrations. The local variations reflect and orient to the addressees’ attention and participation. The fact that the reduced format can be lengthened without being fragmentized is evidence to its beginning sedimentation in the local context. The formal and functional sedimentation of the format is the result of the participants’ joint routinization.

In extract 10, the trainer’s action was designed and understood as a repetition of her action in extract 9. In the same way, her action in extract 11 is delivered and understood as a repetition of her actions in extracts 9 and 10. However, extract 11 exhibits a significant temporal variation: The and-preface is extremely lengthened and followed by a long pause before the go-ahead is delivered (l. 01). As some students are laughing among themselves (l. 01), the trainer delays her action by adapting it to the students’ activities and attentional focus.

Originally, the hand clap was introduced as a go-ahead only, and later coupled with a vocalization. In order to project the occurrence of the go-ahead, the trainer used a prepositioned conjunction, the and-preface. The format “and + [clap + vocalization]“ was used in two sequential contexts: 1) after an instructing action with a new component to initiate and time the students’ performance of the new practice, 2) to invite and time repetitions of an established practice. After several alternations between 1) and 2), the format began to index, even after insertions, by inference alone, the most recent practice. In other words, it has progressively assumed the meaning and function of what has been left out, and has finally become a shibboleth for the instructing action.

Although both devices, the and-preface and the clap, project and time what comes in the subsequent slot, their function developed along different paths in the course of the participants’ interactional history. Whereas the trainer explicitly established the timing function of the clap by a meta-pragmatic announcement, the projecting function of the and-preface emerged in practice. ⁵ It is, moreover, based on the projective properties of syntax in German (Auer, 2015). This can neither be claimed for the clap nor for the vocalization, notwithstanding the fact that they also project what comes next. However, their projective force is grounded in interaction, and not in grammar (Auer, 2005).

The and-preface is combined with the clap to form a syntagma of progressively projecting timing resources. The same holds for the vocalization, which was introduced and routinized by practice and which inherited the function of the meta-pragmatically established and synchronously performed clap (Figure 9).

After the format has been repeated several times, the trainer returns to the minimal version even after insertion sequences. She no longer goes back to a more complex format in order to redesign the FPP. This is further evidence to an increased sedimentation of the format “and + [clap + vocalization]”.

The last extract documents that in the course of multiple repetitions, the format undergoes still further reduction. Extreme reduction and acceleration finally transform routinization into automatization. Note that this not only constitutes a qualitative change, but once more raises the question of grammaticalization, if grammaticalization is automatization (Bybee, 2014) and grammar “nothing other than […] automated motor action” (Streeck, 2018: 31). This question will be discussed in the final section.

Extract 12 shows the maximally reduced format. The trainer now simply claps, and the students subsequently perform the instructed action.

This extreme reduction enables an even faster transition between first and second action, between clap and step. At the same time, it significantly accelerates the succession of repetitive goes at the same action. In order to accelerate and automatize students’ motor actions, the trainer progressively shortens her action, accelerates, routinizes, and finally automatizes the temporal succession of FPP and SPP. Training units that are repeated over and over again undergo acceleration, dynamization, and automatization. These features reflect not only a quantitative, but also a qualitative change in the participants’ exercising practice: It is ultimately transformed into drill. Drill as a practice in military and in sports serves routinization and automatization of motor actions performed innumerable times at high velocity.

The phenomena described in this sub-section exhibit striking parallels with processes of grammaticalization (cf. Grammaticalization and embodied action: (when and how) do they go together?). On the one hand, the extracts testify to progressive routinization and acceleration of motor actions that the students repeat multiple times in order to automatize and incarnate them as part of their repertoire of self-defense techniques. On the other hand, the extracts document a process of routinization, sedimentation, and even automatization that takes place on a different plane: communication. Embodied resources are used and coupled with speech in order to communicate, to deliver verbal actions; they are not repeated in order to learn and automatize language—as in old-school language teaching –, but in order to deliver and structure verbal actions, and to project and time addressees’ embodied responses. In the activities under investigation, the latter—reducing and accelerating communicative actions—is in the service of the former—accelerating and routinizing motor actions. These processes are not separate, but intertwined, they reflexively constitute and index co-emerging properties. The communicative practices used to teach self-defense practices inherit properties of the latter while the latter are shaped by the communicative practices of the former.