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concepts of alignments (Nofsinger 1991) and equilibrium (Goffman 1967)
may be employed to accommodate the inherent dynamics of sociable
conversation and, more importantly, be seen to provide some analytical
purchase on the self in sociable conversation as a concept directly linked
to both positive and negative face needs. I shall then present a framework
of the analysis of facework as a matter not of utterances per se, but of
selves, what I shall term a facework as alignment approach to the analysis
of facework in conversation. Based on these theoretical propositions, I
shall then point to certain questions which might need to be pursued if an
understanding of English and German differences in conversational style
as facework as alignment were to be arrived at. The propositions set out in
this chapter shall be fundamental to the following analysis and he thesis
as a whole.
In Chapter 41 shall briefly spell out my methodology for the
gathering and initial analysis of conversational data, one guided by the
analytical and empirical parameters determined by the facework as
alignment approach outlined in Chapter 3. Here I shall also address the
nature of conducting data gathering and ethnographic observations in a
sociable milieu -what I have referred to elsewhere as socia(b)l(e) science
(Philburn 2003). Issues addressed here shall include ethical ones, and my
particular role as both researcher and bona fide participant in sociable
gatherings.
Chapters 5 to 8 will be analytical in nature and shall be organised
around the presentation and analysis of observational and conversational
data. In Chapter 51 shall demonstrate how sociability can be seen to be
delineated as particular form on interaction by identifying how participants
in both cultures align at a general level to sociable gatherings. The aim of
this chapter is to point out and emphasise two things: First, in drawing on
ethnographic observations, I shall show how participants in both cultural
milieu normatively orient to sociable gatherings and sociability as
particular situated activity, evidenced in what I shall term aligning for
sociability-, second, and more specifically, I shall demonstrate how
participants in sociable gatherings - at a very general level - orient to the
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