Complaining and Arguing in Everyday Conversation

283 Pages·2008·12.97 MB·English

To C. Jane and David A. Robinson, Harty L. Dersley and to the memory of
Henry A. Dersley.
vi
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to a number of people for the help, support and encouragement that I
have received from them during this project.
I would like to begin by thanking my supervisor, Tony Wootton, who could not
possibly have been more generous, both with his advice and time. This thesis
would not have developed in the way that it has without his vigilant attention to
detail and, at times, startlingly clear insights into the data. His patient and good-
humoured guidance has made what I have, at times, found to be a frustrating and
perplexing undertaking, an enjoyable, illuminating and valuable experience.
There are several other members of the Sociology Department to whom I would like
to express my gratitude. These include Paul Drew, for his advice and guidance,
particularly in the early stages of the project; Colin Campbell, who has been most
helpful in his role as head of the department; Richard Wrightson, for his patient
assistance in curing my initial computer-phobia; and Betty Vickers for her unfailing
logistical support.
I would also like to thank Robin Smith and Peter French for providing and helping to
locate some of the data that I have consulted during this research.
In addition to the people mentioned above, there are a number of other individuals
to whom I am particularly grateful. Firstly, my principal thanks must be reserved for
Jane Robinson, whose tireless support, understanding and tolerance have been
manifested in innumerable ways. As well as providing an intellectual environment
within which many of the themes developed in this thesis could be discussed before
they were exposed to the rigours of Tony's professional evaluation, she has also
endured, with fortitude, countless readings of versions of the following chapters.
Above all, I would like to thank her for keeping her nerve on those many occasions
upon which I almost lost mine. Without her this project would certainly not have
come to fruition.
Secondly, I would like to thank'my mother, Lilian Dersley, and Jane's parents, Lilian
and Duncan Gray, for their generous financial assistance. Finally, I would like to
express my gratitude to Mavis Witcherley for the child-care responsibilities that she
has enthusiastically and expertly undertaken, and also for teaching me everything
that she knows about the more practical applications of argumentative talk.
VII
Author's Declaration
This thesis represents original work in which the analysis of its materials was
performed solely by the author.
From the start the "spirit" is afflicted with the curse of being "burdened" with
matter, which here makes its appearance in the form of agitated layers of
air, sounds, in short, of language. Language is as old as consciousness,
language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men, and for
that reason alone it really exists for me personally as well; language, like
consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity, of intercourse with
other men.
(Marx and Engels, 1974 [18461:51)
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Chapter One
Introduction
1. Research into everyday argumentation
In recent years a small but growing number of studies has sought, like the
present work, to examine the organisation and construction of argumentative
interaction. A sizeable proportion of this body of literature uses or, in the case of
some sociolinguistic studies, is significantly informed, by the analytical methodology
of conversation analysis (hereafter 'CA') (see, for example, Goodwin and Goodwin,
1987; Schegloff, 1988; Whalen, Zimmerman and Whalen, 1988; Coulter, 1990;
Vuchinich, 1984, 1990; Garcia, 1991; Hutchby, 1996; Horowitz, 1996; Al-Khatib,
1997). Various topics have been investigated within this literature. Some studies, for
example, consider disputatious talk as it is formulated by children (e.g. Goodwin, M.,
1982, 1983, 1990; Goodwin and Goodwin, 1987; Maynard, 1985a, 1985b). Other
research has investigated the termination of adult argumentative conversation and
the ways in which non-disputatious interaction may be resumed subsequently
(Vuchinich 1990). Still further CA research has focused on disputatious talk in
various types of institutional and/or formal setting. Instances of these 'context-
specific' studies include Garcia (1991), which examines a particular type of turn pre-
allocation system and its use in some forms of dispute mediation session, and
Hutchby (1996), which examines disputes as they occur in radio 'phone-in'
programmes. This is an environment in which argumentation is sometimes implicitly
encouraged. Other potentially disputatious settings that have been investigated
include 'candid camera' type television programmes (Al-Khatib, 1997) and intra-
familial conflicts (Horowitz, 1996).
Studies such as these have had much to tell us about the ways in which
conversation is organised in differing types of interactional context. More
importantly, they have also revealed that social contexts can actually be shaped
and constituted by the forms of interactional organisation that are used within them.
Hutchby (1996), for example, demonstrates that certain types of talk radio
programme rely heavily upon the ability of their 'hosts' to employ conversational
strategies that are designed to create and maintain a disputatious conversational
environment. They may, for instance, reformulate or 'misrepresent' claims or
assertions made by callers. They also sometimes employ 'validity challenges' like
'so' or 'what's that got to do with if by means of which they 'oppose a claim on the
grounds of its relevance to the matter in question' (op cit:50 - 51). By using
strategies such as these, the hosts are enabled to maximise the probability that
argumentation will occur. Whalen et al (1988), on the other hand, examine an
encounter that occurs in a context within which argument is far less desirable. This
study is concerned with identifying the ways in which a dispute develops during a
conversation between a nurse/ ambulance dispatcher, who is staffing an
emergency telephone line, and a caller who is seeking assistance for his
stepmother, who is seriously ill. By studying this telephone call in detail, the
researchers are able to demonstrate that the dispute arises as a consequence of a
series of misalignments between the conversational actions that each of the
interactants attempts to perform. In particular, attempts by the nurse to elicit
information about the nature of the problem for which assistance is required are
interpreted by the caller as requests for diagnostic information, which he does not
have the professional competence to provide. When the nurse insists that the caller
must provide the requested information, he becomes irritated and abusive. It is at
this point in the conversation that the interaction becomes disputatious. It becomes
evident from their talk that, as far as the nurse is concerned, the caller is acting in
an uncooperative way while, for the caller, the nurse is delaying the provision of a
service that he urgently requires. Here, then, a discrepancy occurs between the
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interactional roles that each of the speakers perceives themselves and the other
party to occupy. The nurse constructs her talk in a way that is fitted, in the particular
conversational environment 'emergency call', to the role of interrogator. By failing to
answer her questions, the caller, as far as she is concerned, also fails to occupy the
role that is fitted to him in this setting - that of 'information provider'. The caller, by
contrast, constructs his talk in a way that is appropriate to the interactional role
'service requester'. It becomes evident that, for him, the nurse is failing to respond
in a way that is appropriate to the corresponding role of 'service provider'. As a
consequence of the delay that is caused by the resulting argument, the sick woman
dies. This study reveals that the orientation of speakers to the forms of talk by
means of which particular interactional settings may be constituted can be
fundamental for the successful organisation of social action.
Amongst the literature mentioned above, Vuchinich's (1990) study has had a
significant bearing on aspects of the present research. Vuchinich identifies a
number of interactional structures by means of which disputants are able
collaboratively to terminate sequences of argumentative talk. These structures
consist of adjacently positioned utterances the first of which proposes, and the
second of which assents to the termination. These exchanges usually also facilitate
the resumption of non-argumentative conversation subsequently. Although I will
refer to this study on several occasions in the course of this discussion, it is of
particular relevance to chapter four. Here, I focus on sequences of disputatious talk
that are terminated in less collaborative ways than those described by Vuchinich,
and which do not lead to a resumption of non-argumentative talk. These are
conversations that culminate with one of the disputants unilaterally 'walking out'.
This research project was initially conceived, in part, as a result of my interest in
investigating the differing forms of interactional organisation that can lead to such
widely disparate types of outcome.
In addition to the CA and sociolinguistic studies that have been referred to, quite
a wide variety of research into forms of argumentative talk has also been
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undertaken within a range of other specialisms. Such research includes a
substantial body of work that has emanated, over the past several decades, from
within the fields of social psychology and psycholinguistics. Here, a primary focus of
study has been the types of response that are performed by speakers when the
legitimacy or acceptability of actions that they have taken is questioned. This is a
particular area of concern within what Antaki (1994) refers to as the 'accounts
literature' (see, for example, Sykes and Matza, 1957; Scott and Lyman, 1968;
Harre, 1977; SchOnbach, 1980; Antaki, 1981, 1994; Hale, 1987; Riordan, Marlin
and Kellogg, 1983; Semin and Manstead, 1983; Cody and McLaughlin, 1990;
Tedeschi and Reiss, 1981; Schlenker and Darby, 1981). The 'accounts' that are
referred to here generally consist of such things as self-justifications, explanations,
excuses, apologies and the like. Some of these studies (e.g. Sykes and Matza,
1957; Scott and Lyman, 1968; SchOnbach, 1980) are essentially taxonomic in
nature. SchOnbach (1980), for example, lists almost fifty types of account under just
four headings - 'concessions', 'excuses', 'justifications' and 'refusals'. Other studies
(e.g. Riordan eta!, 1983; Hale, 1987; Semin and Manstead, 1983) are concerned
with what is described as the 'honouring' of accounts. That is, they attempt to
identify the extent to which accounts are accepted as legitimate explications of, or
for, actions that have been treated as accountable. These are concerns that I, too,
will address in the course of this thesis.
Amongst these studies, that by Schlenker and Darby (1981) is particularly
worthy of note. Here, it is observed that the utterances that speakers construct
when their actions have been treated in this way are commonly designed to fulfil
more than one interactional function. The authors note, for example, that the
performance of an apology may:
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Allow an actor to admit blameworthiness for an undesirable event but also
to attempt to obtain a pardon from the audience by convincing the latter
that the event should not be considered a fair representation of what the
actor is really like as a person.
(op cit:272)
Because such utterances may seek to achieve a range of interactional 'goals' they
are often composed of a number of components. Schlenker and Darby observe
that apologies may consist of up to five such component parts including:
(1) a statement of apologetic intent' such as 'I'm sorry', (2) expressions of
remorse, sorrow, embarrassment, etc., to indicate the actor knows he or
she has transgressed and feels badly about it, (3) offers to help the injured
party or make restitution in an attempt to redress the damage, (4) self-
castigation, in which the actor disparages the "bad" self that misbehaved,
and (5) direct attempts to obtain forgiveness, such as saying, 'please
forgive me'.
(ibicf)
The authors also note that a correlation exists between the number of such
components that may be incorporated within a given apology (i.e. its 'fullness'), and
the seriousness of the offence by which it is instigated. Although apologies occur
very rarely within the corpus of data that has been consulted during the current
research, it will be noted, particularly in chapter two of this discussion, that other
types of complaint response, such as justifications, are also commonly designed to
fulfil more than one interactional function. These utterances, too, are most typically
composed of multiple components.
While the data focused upon in many of the sociolinguistic studies and all of the
CA investigations that have been referred to are naturally occurring, those that are
addressed within the accounts literature tend not to be. Rather, the data that are
concentrated upon here range from contrived 'vignettes', within which potentially
disputatious social encounters are either acted out or described, and upon which
observers are invited to comment by means of questionnaires, to examinations of
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the formal pleas entered by defendants in legal proceedings. However, although the
types of argumentative data that have been examined within these various fields
are fairly wide-ranging, it is noticeable that very few studies have undertaken
detailed and sustained investigations of naturally occurring, ongoing, adult,
argumentation as it appears in everyday, mundane interaction. Where CA research
is concerned this has been the case because, although many investigators have
'touched upon' interaction of this type, they have done so for comparative purposes
whilst in pursuit of a variety of other analytical goals. An exception, here, is Coulter's
(1990) study which, although somewhat brief and schematic, describes an
'elementary form' of argument sequence. Such sequences, the author claims, are
composed of pairs of utterances. The first of these is the 'declarative assertion'.
These are utterances that are 'designed to make some point to be addressed by
one or more interlocutors' (op cit.185). In response, a second speaker then
performs a counter-assertion. This type of sequence, Coulter observes, may be
expanded into a four part structure consisting of 1), a declarative assertion, 2), a
disagreement, 3), a solicit (in which the first speaker seeks some form of explication
for the disagreement) and, 4) a counter-assertion. It is noticeable that within such
sequences, disagreements, for Coulter, typically pre-figure counter-assertive moves
at fourth position. This type of construction, however, has not been found to be
typical where complaints are followed by disagreement components in the data that
have been consulted in the present study. As we shall see in chapter two, in my
data disagreement components are more commonly followed by utterances within
which the disagreement is mitigated. Such mitigation may be achieved in a number
of ways but usually consists of some form of concession that aspects, at least, of
the initial complaint are valid.
Investigations of naturally occurring argumentative talk are also noticeably
absent within the 'accounts literature'. Indeed, here, many of the studies are not
concerned with conversation at all, or they focus on talk that is produced in the
context of role play experimentation of the type described above. In asking,