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7.4 Positive Selves
I suggested earlier that the self is, by definition, a primarily individuated
entity, based around - albeit to varying degrees (see Chapter 1) - the person as
cultural member and social actor. However, as was implied in my discussion in
Chapter 6, there are moments in talk where the self becomes symbolically more
of a collective thing, not being - conversationally speaking -
distinct from but
rather bound up with co-present other selves. In such moments, selves are
mobilised as positive entities by symbolically taking on the experiences,
viewpoints, and beliefs expressed by other selves. This can be conceived of as,
in effect, a diminishing of the self as an individuated entity in favour of a
collective one, as opposed to the amplification of the self as an individuated
entity as discussed above (see Chapter 8 for more discussion of this).
In considering my own data, I observed that the range of selves available
for positive alignment was not as varied nor as salient as that available for
negative alignment outlined above. Nevertheless, there were some obvious
ways in which members of both sociable milieu normatively achieved positive
alignment via the mobilisation of sociable selves. It is these that I shall now
attempt to illustrate, beginning once again with the English.
7.4.1 The English
As I noted above (7.3.1), English participants rarely turn symbolically on
each other in sociable conversation. Instance of explicit criticism or
confrontational talk between sociable participants - as occurs conversationally
in German - are few and far between, and if these do occur, tend to be quickly
mitigated or reframed as non-serious (see Chapter 6). However, this does not
mean that the English are the amiable and benign conversational animals that it
might suggest. Rather than turn on each other, there appears to be a
preference in English sociable conversation - and this again is well evidenced
in my data - to symbolically turn on and against non-present selves. Such
mobilisation and alignment plays itself out conversationally as what is known in
English as 'gossip'. This joint alignment of ate /she/ them' (essentially a 219
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