Being in Two Spaces at Once: Virtual Meetings and Their Representation

This article examines the meetings of virtual teams in a corporate workplace. I explore how these meetings are different from the face-to-face meetings that have historically been analyzed by linguistic anthropologists. In particular, I investigate the ramifications of team members' ability to participate in two interactional spaces at the same time. Goffman's writings are used to develop an analytical framework that accommodates the new possibilities and constraints afforded to participants in virtual meetings. The development of a transcription system to visually represent these encounters is also described as an integral part of the analysis process. This research contributes to an emerging focus in linguistic anthropology on technology-mediated communication.