Article published In: Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 30:2 (2020) ► pp.364–380
Rendering the untellable, tellable
The cooperative work of face in conversational storytelling
Published online: 19 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.18055.tho
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.18055.tho
Abstract
Goffman’s concepts of face and face work, and his assertion that talk in face-to-face interaction is cooperative,
are undertheorized and often critiqued. In an attempt to expand on these concepts, excerpts are analyzed from a single-teller narrative which evolves into a 13-minute conversational story about the relationship troubles of an absent third
party. Analyzed for the verbal and nonverbal disruptions and subsequent adjustments and remedial actions manifested by
participants, Conversation Analysis (CA) is employed to capture how threats to face surface and how they are recognized,
cooperatively managed, and made tellable. Through the analysis, this paper addresses the perceived incommensurability between CA
and Goffman’s notion of face, demonstrating the ways in which face is (1) a doing a doing, a situated presentation of self that serves
narrative-advancing functions and renders talk tellable as threats to face arise and (2) an achievement comprised of moves that are
tacitly cooperative, ambiguously cooperative, or uncooperatively cooperative.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Unpacking Goffman’s Face
- Rendering the untellable, tellable
- Tacitly cooperative moves
- Ambiguously cooperative moves
- Cooperatively, uncooperative moves
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Transcription notation
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