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extant approaches seemed particularly suitable for this, literature addressing
sociability (Simmel 1949 [1911 ]), particularly the dynamics of sociable (Riesman
and Watson 1964; Watson 1958; Watson and Potter 1962; Tannen 1984; Schiffrin
1984; Blum-Kulka 1997) or casual conversation (Eggins and Slade 1997) might
help in taking a more heuristic stance to facework in conversation as advocated
by scholars noting these problems associated with discourse analysis for
facework practices. I moved on to suggest how the sociological concepts of
alignments and equilibrium could be employed to accommodate the inherent
dynamics of sociable conversation and, more importantly, could be seen to
provide some analytical purchase on the self in sociable conversation as a
concept directly linked to both positive and negative face needs. I then
presented a framework of the analysis of facework as a matter not of utterances
per se, but of selves, what I termed a facework as alignment approach to the
analysis of facework in conversation. Based on these theoretical propositions, I
pointed to certain questions which would need to be pursued if an
understanding of English and German differences in conversational style as
facework as alignment was to be arrived at.
In Chapter 41 briefly spelled out my methodology for the gathering and
initial analysis of conversational data guided by the analytical and empirical
parameters arising from the development of the facework as alignment
approach outlined in Chapter 3. Here I also addressed the nature of conducting
data gathering and ethnographic observations in a sociable milieu - what I
referred to as social(b)l(e) science. Issues addressed here included ethical
ones, and my particular role as both researcher and bona fide participant in
sociable gatherings.
Chapters 5 to 8 were analytical in nature and were organised around the
presentation and analysis of observational and conversational data. In Chapter
51 attempted to delineate sociability as particular form on interaction by
identifying how participants in both cultures aligned at a general level to
sociable gatherings. This was stressed as important as it was within this
normative milieu that sociable conversation developed and participants were
seen to align for alignment as I had termed it. In this chapter I also pointed at
quite a general level to how participants in each respective milieu variously
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