Abstract for Commentary on Stivers & Rossano: "Mobilizing Response"
My engagement with Stivers and Rossano’s
“Mobilizing Response” (henceforth S&R and MR,
2010/this issue) has led me in many directions,
of which space limitations confine me to four.
1. The first is focused on the relationship
between two conceptions of the calling of conver-
sation analysis (CA): One is centered on the
organization of action in interaction, the
organizations of practices for accomplishing
those actions and courses of action, and the
basic infrastructure for the whole domain—turns
and their form and distribution; actions and
their trajectories; troubles and their
resolution; language as an interface with the
physical, social, cultural, emotional, and other
worlds that humans live in, grasp and navigate,
etc. The other conception is centered on embodied
actors, bringing the elements of the organization
of human sociality just mentioned into being
moment by moment in a particular place, with
particular others, vying with or yielding to one
another, etc. Both are important, but for me the
former is the crux of our undertaking; the title
“Mobilizing Response” suggests that for S&R the
latter is the target.
2. The second direction was dominated by a
recurrent sense that the analyses of the data
extracts that were to supply the empirical
grounding of the argument were too often wide or
shy of the mark, particularly with respect (a) to
the claim that the targeted utterances were
sequence initial and (b) to the assignment of
action terms to characterize them — these short-
comings being especially worrisome since the
focus of their claims was on other aspects of
these utterances.
3. The third direction concerned a persistent
uneasiness with several of the arguments being
put forward and the gap between them and the data
analyses. The most problematic of these was (for
me, at least) the notion of differentials in
“pressure on a recipient to respond,” and what
(sort of) evidence could be brought to bear in
support of such a claim that might also undermine
it.
4. The fourth direction dawned gradually on me
as I tried to formulate an alternative to S&R’s
undertaking; when I got it under some control, I
found myself wondering whether S&R’s project
might after all be a good way to proceed, if only
they would forego the critical grounding of their
project (which I think to be for the most part
ill considered) in favor of the affirmative
grounds for pursuing it.
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