1. Self-description in everyday interaction: Generalizations about oneself as accounts of behavior
- Author
-
Laura Visapää, Finnish Language, Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies, and Helsinki Inequality Initiative (INEQ)
- Subjects
050101 languages & linguistics ,Linguistics and Language ,conversation analysis ,first person ,Social Psychology ,SOCIAL-INTERACTION ,Generalization ,Identity (social science) ,050109 social psychology ,Self description ,assessing ,Language and Linguistics ,ACHIEVEMENT ,self ,Accounting ,indexicality ,6121 Languages ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,epistemic primacy ,generalization ,identity ,Communication ,05 social sciences ,Social relation ,Epistemology ,Conversation analysis ,First person ,Anthropology ,Psychology ,Indexicality - Abstract
This article suggests that there are systematic ways in which the identity of the ‘self’, as created and performed through first-person markers, can be made relevant and consequential in particular episodes of interaction. More specifically, the study looks at generalizations that people present about themselves in local interactional contexts: displays of the types of people they are and the ways in which they always or never behave (‘I am this kind of person’, ‘I never do this’). It will be shown that such self-generalizations are typically used to account for one’s behavior, and that this tendency is tied to the epistemic and moral rights provided by the first-person perspective, having the primary rights to one’s own experience. The study suggests that speakers’ personal characteristics or habitual behavior can be offered as a locally produced micro-identity, which can come to have interactional significance.
- Published
- 2021