Download (23MB) - University of Salford Institutional Repository

claimed on the part of the participants (Byrnes 1986, Straehle 1997, Watts
1989). Thus, focusing on topic would give some access to the conversational
reality that I was interested in. Further, focusing on episodes of topic talk from
both speech communities would, I hope, provide in effect a standardised
procedure for eliciting a 'sample frame'. Topic would seem then to add both
validity (topic can be taken as a valid indicator of conversational style) and
reliability (topic occurs ubiquitously throughout talk and may therefore be drawn
upon consistently across studies addressing other cultures) to the study as a
whole. Third, there were analytical considerations. As demonstrated by scholars
such as Tannen (1984) topic can provide a basis for deriving an initial unit of
analysis of conversational activity, particularly for the close inspection of the
type and manner of self-presentation, which, as I suggested in Chapter 3, is a
primary concern here. More specifically, the way topic is drawn upon and
managed has been shown to be informed by face concerns of interlocutors. The
classic example of face influenced topic choice and development, cited by both
Goffman (1967) and Brown and Levinson (1987) is that of the idea of 'safe
topics' (e. g. the weather). Potentially face-threatening topics are usually
avoided, or, handled in their development in a way that will avoid threatening
any of the faces of the participants. Aside from the risk to face that guide
conversational ists in their choice and development of topic, scholars such as
Tannen have also identified topic as a site for presentation of self. Thus,
conversational topic appeared to be an ideal site to examine the interplay of
both presentational practices and face-concerns.
I outlined in Chapter 1 that facework could be conceived of as occurring
within episodes. In Chapter 31 further drew on the notion of episodes within
sociable gatherings to arrive at the term 'sociable episodes'. The concept of
episode has been employed frequently in studies addressing ongoing
discourse (e. g. Katriel 1986; Malone 1997; Tannen 1984; Watson and Potter
1962) as well as those more specifically concerned with facework (e. g. Penman
1990; Wood and Kroger 1991). The term however is quite a fuzzy one, and
implies an objective and bounded period of interaction which is normally ill
defined in studies applying the term. I will not attempt a formal definition here
beyond treating an episode as a period of interaction where participants are
'doing' some common conversational topic together whereby they share a
127