Talking the cat: Footing lamination in a Korean livestream of cats mukbang

Abstract

Bringing together Goffman's (1974, 1981) notions of footing, lamination, and frames, Gordon's (2009) identification of different frame laminations, and Tannen's (1986, 2004, 2007) idea of constructed dialogue, I examine the complexity of footing dynamics where different footings interact with each other, creating “footing lamination”, in cats mukbang. Cats mukbang is a Korean livestream where people watch stray cats eating, while communicating with each other through a text-based live chatroom. Footing lamination occurs as participants: 1) shift their footings with the use of exclamations like oh when cats show up (reframing) and when a cat successfully catches a fish (rekeying), 2) multimodally co-construct a joint footing through recruitments, made up of chat messages and the host's spoken and bodily actions, creating “constructed action”, 3) embed one footing into another through pretend-play where people type not only as and to cats but also as sports commentators for a cat catching fish, and 4) humorously blend two simultaneous emotive footings when either a dog or cicada suddenly appears on the screen and breaks the general frame of cats mukbang. The study examines footing dynamics through four types of footing lamination, thus extending the literature on frame lamination within interactive online multimodal discourse. (199/200 words)