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suddenly'freak out'), but to mobilise a self which is receptive to the affective
nature of the speaker claim. Such alignment of selves may lead to what is
known in English as joint gossiping whereby the negative self becomes
transformed into a more positively charged entity (see 7.4.1).
These emotive bases for negative alignment commonly drawn upon by
affected selves - disgust, heightened amusement, contempt - are common in
English sociable conversation. They occur far less frequently in my German
data set, where such emotive talk seems to be conversationally capped, lest I
would argue it signal a loss of control or demeanour on the part of the speaker
as player or image. Indeed, there was one particular participant in my German
cohort who regularly - and by German norms quite unusually - proffered
affected selves in conversational episodes. This person, although often
supported temporarily in her sudden outburst of amusement or disgust, often
led to collusive 'knowing looks' on the part of other participants, who appeared
at these moments to be working hard to avoid the conversation becoming for
example'too silly'.
The final English negative sociable self that I have identified in table 7.1
is what I have termed the abased self. In English sociable conversation,
participants regularly mobilise abased selves. What I am referring to here is
what plays itself out conversationally as the routine (both in situ and as invoked
figures) downplaying, diminishing, casting negatively, or positing as morally
questionable the self as player or image, albeit temporarily and for the duration
of any particular period of alignment. For example, English speakers will
frequently invoke some abased figure in a narrative. A recurrent example of an
abased self is one embedded as the central figure in tales of getting drunk,
being embarrassed over some gaffe or faux pas, or engaging in some morally
questionable or regrettable activity (see Goffman 1967). In the following
excerpt, JUAL proffer abased selves in provide an account of being drunk on
the way to Stockport one night.
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