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CHAPTER
8
ALIGNING SELVES IN THE ACHIEVEMENT OF
8.0 Introduction
SOCIABILITY
In Chapter 61 drew on conversational data to illustrate both positive and
negative alignment possibilities in sociable conversation. Following this, In
Chapter 7,1 identified certain sociable selves regularly mobilised in sociable
conversation by English and German conversational ists in their respective
settings. Here I want to essentially put the two together - the notion of
conversational alignment and the conceptual isation of the conversational self -
to show how facework in sociable conversation can be demonstrated to be
contingent upon the mobilisation and alignment of sociable selves.
I shall begin this chapter by briefly consolidating comments made in the
previous two chapters about conversational alignment and sociable selves. I
shall also draw on the second of the two conceptual i sati ons of the self guiding
this study - that of the self-construal - to illustrate the positive and negative
status of the self in terms of what I shall refer to as the conversational construal
(8.1). 1 shall then move on to consider specific conversational excerpts drawn
from sociable episodes in both milieu, focusing in each case on one of the topic
type categories identified in Chapter 5, that is, an example of a reminiscence
(excerpt 'Cookie's Party), a reportable (excerpt'Tommy Fields), an agoniser
(excerpt 'Internationale Arbeitslosigkeit' ['International Unemployment'], and a
biographical (excerpt 'Studieren als Hobby' [Studying as a Hobby]) (8.2).
Following this central analytical section, I shall summarise and discuss the
findings presented (8.3), before moving on to conclude the chapter (8.4).
The emphasis of this chapter will be on the comparative analysis of
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