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CHAPTER
7
GERMAN AND ENGLISH SOCIABLE SELVES
7.0 Introduction
In the previous chapter I attempted to do two things. First I aimed to
demonstrate how the alignment model presented in Chapter 3 could be applied
to naturally occurring ongoing conversational data. Second, I attempted to draw
out some of the salient differences between English and German sociable
conversation in terms of its general alignment features. Throughout the
discussion I employed the term 'claim' to refer to conversational stances taken
up by participants in various sociable episodes in each milieu. Both sets of
participants were shown to make what I argued were positive and negative
conversational claims in the conversational achievement sociable interaction. It
was argued that such claims commonly received ratification and support from
co-participants in each culture in and through the alignments they could be seen
to have taken vis-6-vis such claims. The question of alignment was then
extended to illustrate the various conversational contingencies provided for in
the model presented in Chapter 3. Thus, alongside equilibric ratification and
support of conversational claims (what I have argued throughout is the working
conversational norm in sociable gatherings) instances of non-ratification and
non-support of positive and negative clams were briefly touched on, as well as
what I identified as actual disequilibric claims and alignments and the
subsequent repair and remedial work done by co-participants in talk..
I now want to focus more specifically a concept introduced in Chapter 3-
one that will allow us to move from a linguistic reading on alignment practices to
a more sociological one - namely, the concept of the 'self.
As I noted in Chapters 3 and 5, my disciplinary grounding for this 190