On affectivity and preference in responses to rejection
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Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen,
Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen received her doctorate in English philology from the University of Freiburg/Breisgau and her post-doctoral degree in English linguistics from the University of Zurich. She is currently Finland Distinguished Professor at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include prosody, conversation analysis, and interactional linguistics. Her most recent book-length publication is
Sound Patterns in Interaction (with C. E. Ford, Benjamins, 2004). Address for correspondence: Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugric and Scandinavian Studies, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland 〈elizabeth.couper-kuhlen@helsinki.fi〉.
Abstract
This paper explores the conversation-analytic notion of preference as it applies to the set of affect displays made relevant by the unequivocal rejection of a request or proposal in everyday English conversation. Findings so far indicate that different affect displays on rejection finalizers are realized inter alia via different prosodic and paralinguistic vocal features, and that following rejection, speakers have a choice among a set of relevant affects as to which one they make a display of. Following up on Sacks's remark that when affects “go in the same place” it is meaningful to ask what their relationship is to one another preferentially, the paper investigates rejection contexts in which a speaker initially displays one affect, although another one is arguably available and indeed later comes to be displayed in a more covert fashion. It argues that displays of irritation are dispreferred over displays of disappointment in responses to rejection and are also dispreferred over the withholding of a negative affect display altogether.
About the author
Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen received her doctorate in English philology from the University of Freiburg/Breisgau and her post-doctoral degree in English linguistics from the University of Zurich. She is currently Finland Distinguished Professor at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include prosody, conversation analysis, and interactional linguistics. Her most recent book-length publication is Sound Patterns in Interaction (with C. E. Ford, Benjamins, 2004). Address for correspondence: Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugric and Scandinavian Studies, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland 〈elizabeth.couper-kuhlen@helsinki.fi〉.
©[2012] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Taking a stance on emotion: affect, sequence, and intersubjectivity in dialogic interaction
- On affectivity and preference in responses to rejection
- On digressing with a stance and not seeking a recipient response
- Taking a stance and getting on with it: the form and function of the Finnish finite clausal extraposition construction
- Resonance in conversational second stories: a dialogic resource for stance taking
- Prosodic imitation as a means of receiving and displaying a critical stance in classroom interaction
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Taking a stance on emotion: affect, sequence, and intersubjectivity in dialogic interaction
- On affectivity and preference in responses to rejection
- On digressing with a stance and not seeking a recipient response
- Taking a stance and getting on with it: the form and function of the Finnish finite clausal extraposition construction
- Resonance in conversational second stories: a dialogic resource for stance taking
- Prosodic imitation as a means of receiving and displaying a critical stance in classroom interaction
