We are having two data sessions and, perhaps, one small presentation.
Pomerantz (1984) famously demonstrated that agreements are systematically preferred to disagreements in interaction: agreements tend to be produced without a delay or mitigation while disagreements are recurrently delayed and mitigated. One exception to this is responses to self-deprecations. For instance, in responding to a comment "I'm so dumb", the preferred response is a disagreement, not agreement. However, we do not have a systematic description of what makes an utterance recognizable as self-deprecating. This study investigates the recognizability of self-deprecations in Japanese interaction.
The paper reports two key features that make a comment recognizable as a self-deprecation: the referent and the valence of the comment. The referent of the comment needs to be the speaker her/himself or an object or a person that belongs to her/him in some way. Second, the valence of the comment has to be hearable as negative and undesirable. These seemingly straightforward features of self-deprecations are by no means self-evident. The analysis reveals participants' shared but tacit orientation to what/who belongs to whom and what is considered to be an undesirable feature of a person or an object. For instance, in the example below, Masa makes a comment about the wine she brought to a dinner party hosted by Ken. Ken produces a disagreement without a delay or mitigation, which suggests that Ken hears Masa's comment as self-deprecating.
Through this exchange, the participants reflexively index and establish shared understanding that 1) a gift that one brings is her responsibility, and therefore, 2) a gift is a possible object of self-deprecation, and 3) a "Japanese taste" is not a desirable feature of wine.
Based on the findings, I argue that through sequences of self-deprecations and disagreements, participants (re)construct their consensus regarding who has the ownership of or a close relationship to a referred object or person and (re)establish shared values.
The aim of this study is to explore an aspect of the organization of participation, that is, the organization of the appropriate distribution of parties' orientations, through the analysis of 32 video-recordings of prenatal ultrasound examinations. Ultrasound examinations are distinctive in that the major orientational fields are spatially distanced and modally distinct. In this environment, it is very rare for healthcare providers to look at the pregnant woman's face. I elucidate the procedural grounds for the production of this rare conduct by healthcare providers, and argue that the conduct is a practice of specifically responding to the pregnant woman's actual or virtual move, and is usable to change the constellations of participation identities, form "examiner/examinee" to "teller/told", for example. Ultrasound examinations are a "perspicuous site" for the investigation of the organization of participation.
If anybody is interested in bringing their own data, analyses, observations, arguments, or whatever, to a next meeting to discuss together, please contact Aug Nishizaka at augnish(a)soc.meijigakuin.ac.jp.