8 Sharing experiences

Question 1

Sharing - Tomasello, 2008

Answer 1

One of three fundamental motivations for communicating is sharing attitudes and feelings

- Sharing is a function of pointing gestures (and of pantomiming and language-based communication)

- Sharing has a social-relational function: establishing and maintaining bonds – see Dunbar’s (1996) theory of grooming and gossiping (gossip is to humans what grooming is to animals)

- Evolutionary function (Tomasello, 2008): building a community that shares social norms and values

Question 2

how do people share?

Answer 2

• Sharing is a type of ‘informing’ (Tomasello, 2008)
  • An important communicative vehicle for sharing is the narrative (or story)

Question 3

How can a story-teller secure extended turn space to tell their story?

Answer 3

people use pre-tells to indicate there is something to share; and that it will take longer than a single-unit turn to complete a story

also can inform the type of story (Sacks, 1974)

In response, recipients can give the speaker the go-ahead

Question 4

Telling a story

Answer 4

establish location time/ place

identifies protagonist

context for and lead-up to climax

(recipients offer recognition, appreciation and continuers)

Question 5

Summary of telling a story

Answer 5

pre-tell > go-ahead > story > continuers > climax > appreciation

Question 6

What is the aimed outcome of a share?

Answer 6

Sharing is an initiating action that makes a response expected: an appreciation

A producer’s problem

A recipient’s problem

Question 7

Sharing: the producers problem

Answer 7

dilemma of sharing vs. avoiding imposing on a recipient

- Prospective tellers and recipients can work together to create a favourable space for the sharing of a trouble
- One practice that prospective tellers use is to pre-signal (foreshadow) the presence of a trouble

Overall:
- People can be uncertain as to whether it is appropriate for them to share a trouble with a certain recipient
- So, they can allude to its presence and leave it to the recipient to ask about it
- There are benefits involved in telling a trouble in response to an invitation (as opposed to volunteering it)
- Sharing becomes the outcome of joint action (a favourable space is collaboratively created for the sharing of a trouble)

Question 8

sharing: the recipients problem

Answer 8

Recipient’s face a dilemma of empathy (Heritage, 2011) without first hand knowledge

- This is particularly the case when people share strong emotions (both negative and positive)
- There is a tension between the expectation of empathy and a social norm whereby we should base our judgments on things we know*
- How can recipients show that they have adequate understanding of the other’s experience without ‘going too far’ and overstating their understanding of it?

Question 9

Heritage (2011) empathy of R: practices that vary along a continuum: from less to more empathic

Answer 9

ancillary questioning

parallel assessments

subjunctive asessments

Observer responses

Response cries

Question 10

Ancillary questioning

Answer 10

asks questions on collateral aspects of the story (can also promote a shift in the focus of the talk)

least empathetic - can avoid showing appreciation

Question 11

Parallel assessments

Answer 11

• Emma reports her own parallel experience, possibly going too far in shifting the focus to herself (5-12)
  
  • Lottie does not respond (13)
  • Emma reframes the experience as a more general, de-particularized assessment
  • Lottie then agrees and continues her story

problem of taking over the convo & so not appreciative of the first shared experience

Question 12

Subjunctive assessment

Answer 12

Subjunctive = not real
appreciates the experience as a general type of experience

‘i bet it’s a dream’

- She communicates the appreciation she would be able to properly express if she had the same experience

In doing so, she shows deference to Lottie’s primary ownership of the experience and her privileged rights to assess it

Question 13

Observer responses

Answer 13

• Emma metaphorically refers to the scene she can ‘picture’ based on Lottie’s description

This allows her to claim vicarious access to the experience, and thereby to support her empathic appreciation of it

“I can see that happening!”

“gosh i wish i could’ve seen their faces!”

Question 14

Response cries

Answer 14

• No lexical meaning - they are designed to mirror the reaction in this situation (e.g. frustration, shock)
  • These response cries circumvent the problem of claiming a basis for the empathy being expressed

‘oooo’

Question 15

Summary

Answer 15

• Sharing: a central activity in social life
  
  • Sharing entails problems and dilemmas (associated with participation and action)
  • People use specific practices to navigate these problems and dilemmas:
    ○ Pre-telling sequences to align a co-participant as a story-recipient;
    ○ Premonitory signs of trouble to promote favourable environments for the telling of a trouble
    ○ Empathic responses that preserve the other’s experience
• The problem: how can a recipient empathise with an experience they do not have?
  • The practices we have examined here help people navigate this problem: expressing some level of emotional understanding whilst avoiding claims about what the other’s experience might be like

Question 16

Complaints - dilemma for recipients

Answer 16

• are initiating actions that make a response needed; however some initiating responses are complex to place constraints on the recipient

dilemma for recipients: how to demonstrate empathy without being heard as taking sides

• by empathising a volunteer complaining may be heard as joining or blaming the absent person; however an impartial response could be heard as cold/ detatched