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noted throughout my discussion, a salient and routinely mobilised entity in
German sociable conversation. Conversationally, this is manifest in the close
attention paid by a recipient of one or the other conversational claim to a
speakers followed by repeated and direct close questioning, request for
clarification, identification of flaws, or even unmitigated correction of that
speaker's claims. A salient function of what were termed demeaned selves
was to respond and align to such examining selves. Conversationally, as
players, demeaned selves are conversationally manifest in behaviour ranging
from defensive to counter-examining stances as speakers mobilise them to
clarify or justify prior claims, or refute those made by examining selves. in
terms of alignment, both sets of selves provide a routine resource for negative
alignment. Alongside these primary sociable selves there is also
conversational evidence for the mobilisation of knowledgeable selves, albeit
serving essentially to support examining and demeaned selves.
Although this conversational activity marks 'Studierien als Hobby' as
primarily negatively aligned, as with both the German and English data
considered in the preceding discussion, selves are mobilised - specifically
confirmative ones - in a way which allows for some degree of positive
alignment. As with the preceding data though, such positive mobilisation of
selves within a primarily negatively aligned conversational environment does
not undermine that alignment but rather supports it.
Throughout the duration of the talk, examining selves are mobilised by
both KH and SH, whilst HB and GIB generally reciprocate with demeaned
selves. Thus, whereas 'Internationale Arbeitslosigkeit' and 'Cookie's Party'
were marked by a symmetrical distribution of conversational selves, similar to
'Tommy Fields'then, participants here (also as inTommy Fields' as married
couples) enjoy an asymmetrical distribution of selves, with one couple
mobilising a different but equally ratificatory set of conversational selves than
the other. This distribution of sociable selves adds further to make 'Studieren
asl Hobby' primarily negatively aligned.
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