Interpersonal activities in conversational storytelling

1989/08/01 by Jenny Mandelbaum · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · #Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies #Language, Metaphor, and Cognition #Discourse Analysis in Language Studies

paper · doi:10.1080/10570318909374295

openalex publication_date 1989/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of a conversational storytelling in which a recipient redirects an ongoing storytelling. The storytelling begins as one which threatens to make another recipient its “butt.” In redirecting the storytelling, the “butt” is rescued. The account of how these activities are achieved indicates, first, that storytelling may be a way of accomplishing interpersonal activities, both for teller and recipients. Secondly, it demonstrates that recipient is an active participant in the storytelling, both in determining what the storytelling comes to be “about,” and in working out the interpersonal activities it performs. Conclusions are drawn about the work of storytelling in the interactive construction of experience.

Citations

• Narration as a human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument
• A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation
• The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation

Cited by

• Avoiding Catastrophe: The Interactional Production of Possibility during the Cuban Missile Crisis
• Homo narrans [wikipedia]