CLIC Speaker Abstracts

John Heritage (Sociology, UCLA): "Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: (Not so) Empathic Moments in Interaction " February 2, 2005, 5pm.

Much work within linguistics and conversation analysis has been devoted to examining how shared knowledge and mutual understanding are managed. Much less effort has been focused on how the sharing of personal experience is managed as a communicative process. Yet this kind of sharing involves some of the most intimate forms of mutuality between persons, and may be central in the formation and management of social bonds. This paper offers a sketch of some of the ways in which recipients of talk about personal experiences can manage (or fail to manage) moments of empathic connection with their interlocutors.