Taking the stance of quotidian in talking about pains: resilience and defiance
-
Yoshiko Matsumoto
Abstract
In older Japanese women’s conversational interactions associated with psychologically challenging conditions such as experiences of illness and a husband’s death, there are segments told from a quotidian (or ordinary) perspective, i.e. a perspective that is affectively incongruous with the situation. With this quotidian (re)framing of their “painful” experiences, the participants collaboratively construct a quotidian positioning and stance, rather than the position that may be socially or contextually expected in the event or situation described in the conversation. This paper elaborates on the composition and social meaning of quotidian stance, referring to concepts such as frames, positioning, and stancetaking. The important psychological and social aspects of quotidian stancetaking in verbal interaction will be highlighted. One is that the performance of being quotidian in the context of retelling “painful” stories can index participants’ psychological resilience in difficult and extraordinary situations. This can help the participants regain normality in abnormal situations. Another is that such quotidian performance against the backdrop of the socially-held negative stereotypes of older people can index defiance to such sociocultural expectations.
References
Bamberg, Michael G. W. 1997. Positioning between structure and performance. Journal of Narrative and Live History 7(1–4). 335–342.10.1075/jnlh.7.42posSuche in Google Scholar
Bamberg, Michael. 2010. Who am I? Narration and its contribution to self and identity. Theory & Psychology 21. 3–24.10.1177/0959354309355852Suche in Google Scholar
Bateson, Gregory. 1972/2000. Steps to an ecology of mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226924601.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Coupland, Justine, Nikolas Coupland & Karen Grainger. 1991a. Intergenerational discourse: Contextual versions of ageing and elderliness. Ageing & Society 11. 189–208.10.1017/S0144686X00004001Suche in Google Scholar
Coupland, Justine, Nikolas Coupland, Howard Giles & Karen Henwood. 1991b. Formulating age: Dimensions of age identity in elderly talk. Discourse Processes 14. 87–106.10.1080/01638539109544776Suche in Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas, Justine Coupland & Howard Giles. 1991. Language, society and the elderly: Discourse, identity and ageing. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Inc.Suche in Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas, Justine Coupland, Howard Giles & Karen Henwood. 1988. Accommodating the elderly: Invoking and extending a theory. Language in Society 17. 1–41.10.1017/S0047404500012574Suche in Google Scholar
Davies, B. & Rom Harré. 1990. Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 20. 43–63.10.1111/j.1468-5914.1990.tb00174.xSuche in Google Scholar
Du Bois, J. W. 2007. The stance triangle. In Robert Englebretson (ed.), Stancetaking in discourse, 139–182. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.10.1075/pbns.164.07duSuche in Google Scholar
Englebretson, Robert (ed.). 2007. Stancetaking in discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.10.1075/pbns.164Suche in Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame analysis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Gordon, Cynthia. 2015. Framing and positioning. In Deborah Tannen, Heidi E. Hamilton & Deborah Schiffrin (eds.),The handbook of discourse analysis, Second edition, 324–345. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.10.1002/9781118584194.ch15Suche in Google Scholar
Hummert, M. L., T. A. Garstka, L. T. O’Brien, A. G. Greenwald & D. S. Mellott. 2002. Using the implicit association test to measure age differences in implicit social cognitions. Psychology and Aging 17(3). 482–495.10.1037/0882-7974.17.3.482Suche in Google Scholar
Jaffe, Alexandra (ed.). 2009. Stance: Sociolinguistic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1984. On the organization of laughter in talk about troubles. In J.M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (eds.), Structures of social action, 346–369. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511665868.021Suche in Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 2009. Dealing with changes – Humorous self-disclosure by elderly Japanese women. [Special issue on ‘Discourse, identity and change in mid-to-late life: interdisciplinary perspectives on language and ageing’]. Ageing & Society 29(6). 929–952.10.1017/S0144686X0900885XSuche in Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 2011a. Painful to playful: Quotidian frames in the conversational discourse of older Japanese speakers. Language in Society 40(5). 591–616.10.1017/S0047404511000698Suche in Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 2011b. Reframing to regain identity with humor: What conversations with friends suggest for communication in elderly care. In Peter Backhaus (ed.), Communication in elderly care: Cross-cultural approaches, 145–165. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.Suche in Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 2015. The power of the ordinary: Quotidian framing as a narrative strategy. Journal of Pragmatics 86(Sept). 100–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.06.003.10.1016/j.pragma.2015.06.003Suche in Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor & Lisa Capps. 2001. Living narrative: Creating lives in everyday storytelling. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.10.4159/9780674041592Suche in Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 2007 [1989]. Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse ( Vol. 26). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511618987Suche in Google Scholar
©2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Research articles
- Language and aging research: new insights and perspectives
- Grammaticalization and the linguistic individual: new avenues in lifespan research
- Individual variation in the development of the Western Vowel System of Utah
- [In]stability in the use of a stable variable
- Implicit Causality in younger and older adults
- Processing gender stereotypes in dementia patients and older healthy adults: a self-paced reading study
- Perplexity – a new predictor of cognitive changes in spoken language? – results of the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on Adult Development and Aging (ILSE)
- Repairs and old-age categorisations: interactional and categorisation analysis
- Ageism and interactional (mis)alignment: Using micro-discourse analysis in the interpretation of everyday talk in a hair-salon
- Taking the stance of quotidian in talking about pains: resilience and defiance
- No time to care? Interactional hurriedness in a Japanese nursing home
- Agency and epistemic authority in question-answer sequences between art museum guides and visitors diagnosed with dementia
- Accounting for forgetfulness in dementia interaction
- Embodied care: affective touch as a facilitating resource for interaction between caregivers and residents in a care home for older adults
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Research articles
- Language and aging research: new insights and perspectives
- Grammaticalization and the linguistic individual: new avenues in lifespan research
- Individual variation in the development of the Western Vowel System of Utah
- [In]stability in the use of a stable variable
- Implicit Causality in younger and older adults
- Processing gender stereotypes in dementia patients and older healthy adults: a self-paced reading study
- Perplexity – a new predictor of cognitive changes in spoken language? – results of the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on Adult Development and Aging (ILSE)
- Repairs and old-age categorisations: interactional and categorisation analysis
- Ageism and interactional (mis)alignment: Using micro-discourse analysis in the interpretation of everyday talk in a hair-salon
- Taking the stance of quotidian in talking about pains: resilience and defiance
- No time to care? Interactional hurriedness in a Japanese nursing home
- Agency and epistemic authority in question-answer sequences between art museum guides and visitors diagnosed with dementia
- Accounting for forgetfulness in dementia interaction
- Embodied care: affective touch as a facilitating resource for interaction between caregivers and residents in a care home for older adults
