With reference to the previous empirical works on applause, we explore the roles it plays during the first birthday celebration using multimodal analysis. Particularly, we focus on modes of its initiation and collaborative enactment. The empirical material includes 25 videos from different Polish families. The analysis demonstrates that applause works in interaction as a ritual anchor that allows the participants to move to either the end or the next sequence of the ritual, as an appreciative assessment of the previous action, (...) as a device for focusing joint attention, which coordinates the interaction of participants and focuses the attention on the most important actor/recipient of the ritual. (shrink)

In the article, the author responds to Krzysztof Jaworski’s (2023) polemic, maintaining the thesis that, in relation to the methodological criteria of science, theology should be considered a formal science. The author argues that theology does not meet the criteria of empirical science due to the impossibility of treating God as a public subject of study. The author also addresses Jaworski’s objections and points to the need for a more precise definition of his earlier position, emphasizing the importance of formal (...) methods and rules of text transformation in theology. (shrink)