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Narratives of vicarious experience in conversation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2013

Neal R. Norrick
Neal R. Norrick*
Affiliation:
Saarland University, FR 4.3 English Linguistics Im Stadtwald, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germanyn.norrick@mx.uni-saarland.de
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Abstract

Stories of personal experience have been a staple of research on narrative, while stories of vicarious experience have remained largely ignored, though they offer special insights into issues of epistemic authority, telling rights, and evaluation. This article seeks to show that stories of vicarious experience can fulfill the same functions as stories of personal experience in conversation, illustrating a point in an argument, sharing news, and for their entertainment value. Discrepancies between stories of vicarious experience and stories of personal experience follow from the distinction between third person and first person narrative along with corresponding differences in their participation frameworks in the sense of Goffman (1981): conversationalists cannot deploy third person stories of vicarious experience in functions such as mutual self-disclosure or to display resistance to troubles; conversely, stories of vicarious experience offer greater opportunities for co-narration. (Epistemic authority, evaluation, identity, narrative, participation frameworks, telling rights, vicarious experience)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , September 2013 , pp. 385 - 406
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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