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of mutual interest, the respect of others views by avoiding contradiction, the use
of humour, and the chance for equal participation.
These characteristics were borne out in the conversational data
analysed. American conversations for example clearly displayed a preference
for the telling of personal stories in the form of narratives, serving variously to
'entertain, to make a more serious or abstract point, to display one's verbal
talents, to reveal a moral or other self, or any combination of these or more'
(Straehle 1997,333). German conversations on the other hand displayed far
fewer examples of such extended narratives, and where these did occur they
tended to be quickly dispensed with. Rather - in line with comments obtained
from informant data - German conversation was characterised by what Tannen
(1994) termed 'agonistic' discussion, that is, talk characterised by extended,
animated dispute around a common conversational topic. As with the German
relative scarcity of memorable narratives, US conversations showed a marked
absence of such agonistic topic development. Thus, conversational styles
clearly reflected participants' understandings of for example, what was required
of them in terms of their contributions to make the talk'good talk'.
Straehle identified not only differing ways of handling conversation (i. e.
'how' topic talk was managed), but also differences in the sort of topics routinely
drawn upon as conversational resources for either style (i. e. 'what' got talk
about. German conversationalists for example were shown to orient more
towards 'heavier' topics such as those 'socio-political' in nature. US
conversationalists on the other hand oriented by and large to more personal
topics. Indeed, if and when more serious topics did arise in the US
conversations, participants tended to 'personalise' them by developing them
within a wider context of personal experience rather than subsuming such
experience within a dominant frame of objective discussion, as did German
speakers. Finally, not only was conversational topic shown to differ in terms of
what got talked about and how it was framed (as part of narrative or objective
discussion), but also the extent to which each topic was developed. For
example, US conversational ists treated any given topic superficially and often
switched between numerous topics, what was termed 'topic-surfing'.
Conversely, German conversationalists on the whole developed topics more
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