Hør dog hvad de siger - Note-to-Self: Trials & Errors

or ‘reasonable’ persons, its being a linguistic events raises awareness of certain conversational
rules that apply for interviews no less than more mundane conversations.
To treat the first and more abstract of these issues first. In the interview two different sets of
rationality, two different ‘interpretative repertoires’ (Potter & Wetherell 1987) collide. On the
one hand is the interviewee’s everyday, common-sense interpretation of right and wrong,
good and bad, let us call this the maxim of being reasonable. On the other hand is the scienti-
fic community’s wish to abstract, extrapolate, categorize and generalize from these judge-
ments, let us call this the maxim of being rational. ‘Reasonability’ is all to do with choosing
the ‘sensible’ of two alternatives. ‘Rationality’ is all to do with making the unique choice one
that can be generalized to a universal rule.
The excerpt above shows nicely the troubles of trying to combine the two repertoires.
It is plain to see how the monologue is constructed around ‘reasonability’, and about rejecting
what is unreasonable. If we were in any way in doubt, then just look at the ‘extreme case for-
mulations’ (Pomerantz 1986). The extreme formulations, ‘completely’, ‘every’, ‘all of…’ etc.,
are used rhetorically to mark ‘the other’ position as radical, indeed ridiculous. In opposition,
the informant’s own solution, unremarkable as it is, comes across as the reasonable choice. As
a nice touch, notice how his solution is even marked with a minimizer, a little.
It would appear that being reasonable involves a certain amount of lenience, allowing
room for the odd exception and being less than rigorist. Being rational involves exactly the
opposite, viz. setting up a parameter and sticking to it irrespectively of impulsive tendencies.
In the excerpt, the informant aims to meet both ends in trying to generalize his ‘reasonable’
judgements. Measured by the standard of rationality, he has been less than consistent, which
the interactants negotiate as a strike of ‘change of mind’. From a ‘reasonable’ point of view
he has been far more consistent, maintaining on the one hand that there should not be allowed
too many English loanwords (and arguing that there sometimes is), which is not in conflict
with proposing that already adopted loanwords can be accepted.
A somewhat related social constraint is that given two choices, informants will usually opt for
the most common, the unmarked.
I prefer [the word] ’bodyguard’ [as opposed to the Danish neologism]. You know that’s
the one you’re used to seeing. [Inf45, 3.45].
218