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Fig. 3.3 The Interactional Motor of Casual Conversation
Movement d
comemeboraWsms v*my %
trom e 'coi " Kw conim
Difference
Different/ autonomous selves
I It
=
%%
%
=1
+
Realisation of
-
Sameness
Similar / soliclaric selves
(I
SI
4.
Progression of conversation episodes
Other work on sociable conversation further echoes these opposing
moveftwm
of
convefsabonalists
tDwards o'coff~
centre
alignments taken by conversationalists. For example, drawing on Goffman's (1974)
concept of 'frame', Schiffrin noted that Jewish speakers shifted suddenly from
consensual to argumentative frames and back again during sociable conversation -
what she termed sociable argumentation. Conversations essentially flitted
unpredictably to and fro between these two opposing frames as part and parcel of
sociable interaction. Finally, this work bears resemblances to conversational
dynamics such as independence-involvement
(e. g. Tannen 1984) and affiliative-
idividuating styles (e. g. Malone 1997)'B.
What this work might be boiled down to then is the fact that sociable
conversation might be characterised by, indeed normatively
require, a certain
symbolic 'to-ing' and 'fro-ing' of participants, evidenced in their varying
conversational expression of sameness and difference. Importantly, what has been
alluded to is that these styles have a relationship to the self in talk as it is perceived
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