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Table 8.1 Sociable Episodes and the Positive and Negative Alignment of
Sociable Selves
Episode Cookie'sParty TommyFields Intemationale
Arbeitsiosigkeit
Studierien als
Hobby
Topic type Reminiscence Reponable Agoniser Biographical
Primary selves
mobilised:
Primary
Reinvoking-
Reinvoking (s)
Narrating-
Audiential (a)
alignment + +
(a) asymmetrical alignment
(S) symmetdcal alignment
Agonised-
Agonised (s)
As well as evidencing the analytical purchase provided by an
Examining-
Demeaned (a)
essentially Goffmanian (1967; 1969) reading of the self (see Chapter 7), 1
would argue that the second conceptual isation - that posited as the
tconversational-construal' at the beginning of this chapter - might also have
been evidenced in the preceding analysis. That is, in both negative and
positive alignments over the course of and at various points within the
episodes considered, participants have mobilised effectively individuated and
collective selves. Importantly, these self 'statuses' - which refer not to in the
first instance players mobilised or images invoked but rather the status of
persons vis-6-vis one another - in this sense, have been shown to be, not
fixed and stable (as in a cultural reading of the 'self-construal'), but rather fluid
and contingent on the flow of conversation.
These comments may appear prima facie somewhat conjectural, but I
would argue that, taken in a heuristic sense, the alignment practices in both
cultures attest to some degree to their legitimacy.
In the light of the preceding analysis then, what statements might we
make about English - German variations in sociable style. If we take the
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