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Running alongside these narrative selves are the second type of
sociable selves mobilised in such contexts, namely, audiential selves. The
conversational work required of such sociable selves is reduced compared to
narrating selves but equally as important to the episode. RP and EP mobilise
and align audiential selves throughout this episode to ratify in the first
instance the narrating selves of KP&I-P. In doing this, RP and EP
demonstrate both their aliveness to the unfolding event and KP&LPs general
handing as narrative conversational players.
In terms of the self as image, KIP and LP posit their narrated and
situated selves as being in a very alien environment and in a state of high
affectiveness - that is, primarily 'scared' (lines 13,17,23, and 26) more than
they ever had been before, to the point of being 'terrified' (line 43). As I noted
in Chapter 7, affected selves are aided in their conversational life by the
treatment accorded them by some participating conversational player. Over
lines 12-27, both LP and KIP invoke the general nature of the scene within
which their replayed selves and those of the other pub customers will be
invoked. The word 'scary' and derivatives thereof is employed several times
over these 15 or so lines to make it unequivocally clear, not only the nature of
the pub, but importantly, the affective states of both KIP and LIP upon contact
with the pub. In line 20, LIP invokes a 1980's horror film 'The Hills have Eyes'
as analogous with the setting, whilst in lines 26-33 KIP states how he was 'less
scared in the Main stand ... at city ... when United', referring to his attendance at
a Manchester United versus Manchester City match he and RP attended
some years previously where they were two of only three 'United' supporters
in amongst thousands of 'City' supporters (a situation carrying some potential
consequences for physical assault if they had been identified). Following this
unequivocal framing of both the nature of the pub and the affective states of
both KIP and LP, the narrative is relayed with the use of salient selves.
How is primary alignment achieved in this episode then, or how is this
sociable made narrative made possible in and through the mobilisation of the
sociable selves identified above? Fundamentally, in terms of the types of
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