The purpose of this colloquium is to investigate how different stances are displayed and negotiated in interactional contexts. Our specific goals are to investigate how a range of differences including generational differences, multiple social identities, and a contrast between participants’ opinions are identified and how such differences are used as communicative resources in the course of interaction. To achieve these goals, presenters analyse data from a video-recorded conversational corpus where 56 Japanese participants, aged between 20s and 70s, completed a story making task in pairs. First, the pair, who were close in age, were given eight illustrations, each of which represents a snapshot of an ordinary social life such as a man and a woman communicating by using digital devices including smartphones. Then, the pair created a story by arranging the pictures. Completing the task, they met another pair along with researchers and shared the stories. At the end of the session, participants filled in a questionnaire that asked about their experiences using digital tools. We video-recorded all of the activities without pausing video cameras because we consider both story making processes and transitions of activities to be a significant locus of analysing discursive negotiations.
This colloquium draws on a wide range of sociolinguistic approaches including discourse analyses, multimodal analysis, and conversation analysis. First paper illustrates how the idea of “generation” emerges in the course of interaction. Through turn-by-turn multimodal analyses, s/he argues that the display of a generational difference becomes an effective resource for collaborative decision making. The research of second presentation focuses on positioning related to generational identities. Using discourse analysis approaches, s/he clarifies how participants are attuned to identifying appropriate attitudes in various interactional situations. In the last paper, the presenter examines how problem-solving is achieved in a goal-oriented activity. Applying approaches from conversation analysis, s/he describes how identifying a problem is embedded in a context where the participants claim their shared agreement on a story plot. Although approaches vary, the presenters illustrate how using and talking about digital devices offers a context for negotiating identities, social norms, and metacommunicative knowledge.
