14
NEGOTIATING POSITIONS OF AUTHORITY
14.1 KNOWLEDGE SHARING ACCOMPLISHED FROM A SUBJECT POSITION
The concept of identity, like trust, is wrapped in layers of debate and competing definition. The confusion can be seen in the various phenomena theorized and studied under the title of identity: for instance, stance-taking, positioning, and impression management. These can be approached as categories of identity as constructed in discursive social interaction. As noted in Chapter 8, Bronwyn Davies and Rom Harré’s version of positioning theory is useful in offering a basic perspective of identity, and identity work, as the product not the source of linguistic and semiotic practices. This goes back to one of the fundamental points of variation between postmodernist and modernist approaches to language: on one side, social constructionism constitutes language as constructive and action oriented, as the site at which actions are accomplished, and is consequently an appropriate topic for the study of human action and behavior in its own right. The conventional, modernist perspective, on the other side, approaches language as merely a conduit linking the contents of minds to the outer world with its implication of language as a mirror of mental reality. Thus, each of these perspectives would approach the study of identity in very different although perhaps not entirely incompatible ways. Throughout this chapter, these category terms are used as appropriate to the context of the actions of speakers but are collectively considered to constitute “identity.”
Positioning Theory
According to positioning theory, originally developed by Rom Harré, the moment-to-moment constructions of identity are conceptualized as positions brought into being in one’s own talk and that of others and the narratives we construct as part of the process of sensemaking—that is, the practice of making sense of the world and its contents at any given time. From this perspective, “identity” or rather “selfhood,” to use Harré’s term, is a constantly shifting, linguistically orientated phenomenon, which stands in considerable contrast to the conventional view of identity as static, formal, and ritualistic.
Drawing on the discussions in Chapters 6 and 8, identity is approached as socially and relationally accomplished and very much bound to context. Recall Bronwyn Davies and her colleague’s notion of people accomplishing the action of positioning through rhetorical practices. This leads to the speculation that knowledge sharing is accomplished from a subject position in a given context, that such positions influence its direction and outcome, and that most if not all of its thematic categories will emerge relationally when the analytic focus is on identity. It has already been shown, for instance, in Chapter 12, that identity is undoubtedly bound to matters of trust.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, identity, as a phenomenon of interest in relation to knowledge management (KM) theory and practice, has not really been in evidence in the KM domain. It can, however, be regarded as an “implied” factor. Ikujiro Nonaka’s 1994 theory of the dynamic knowledge-creating firm, for instance, emphasizes knowledge creating as a social activity with interaction between actors having a vital role in its development. The theory places an equal emphasis on individual beliefs and commitment. Consequently, it does not require much of a stretch of imagination to see identity, constructed in the moment-by-moment discursive actions of people in social interaction, as an influential factor in knowledge work as it is in almost every other aspect of human life. However, in conventional approaches to knowledge work, including Nonaka’s, for instance, identity is implicitly conceptualized as a static mental state operating behind and influencing what people say rather like Gilbert Ryle’s “ghost in the machine.” In contrast, identity is here conceptualized as a dynamic psychological phenomenon that is invoked in discourse in social interaction. (For a more detailed account, see Bethan Benwell and Elizabeth Stokoe’s excellent and comprehensive book Discourse and Identity.)
This chapter investigates the relationship between identity and knowledge sharing in the context of a meeting between a client (Company B) and a contractor. (Chapter 15 focuses on contributions to an online KM discussion forum from the perspective of identity construction and knowledge sharing.) The present analysis uncovers complex identity work in which the anticipated subject positions become almost reversed and where this reversal leads to a breakdown in knowledge sharing and a breach in client–contractor etiquette. In this action, matters of trust, reputation, and authenticity come to the fore, shown as worked up relationally in discursive actions. Speakers do not just “do identity,” but they work up complex layers of phenomena, which collectively bring a category of identity into being.
The analysis is preceded by a brief discussion of the event’s context, the participants, and expected norms in terms of actions, motivations, and roles. The meeting is split into two parts, with the second marked by the arrival of a new participant. In the first part, the investigation focuses on how unexpected positions are shown to be invoked and the impact this has on the directions of knowledge sharing. In the second part, the arrival of the other actor is shown to have consequences for positioning actions, knowledge sharing transactions, and, in particular, what happens when this actor introduces a “bombshell.” The analysis and discussions conclude with some preliminary reflections.
14.2 CONTEXT, PARTICIPANTS, AND EXPECTATIONS
The meeting in the client company’s (Company B) offices is a prearranged appointment and has the purpose of discussing a brief for the design and installation of a promotional exhibition stand. The first part of the meeting involves two people: the client representative (Elaine) and the contractor (Mike). We can reasonably assume that the contractor has already been contracted to do the stand work: he makes references to a preexisting quotation already being accepted. Consequently, the meeting is not a “sales” occasion but rather a “brief-taking” exercise. Part way through the meeting, a third person (Peter), a director of the client company, joins in. His arrival considerably changes the meeting’s dynamics. Unlike the meetings featured in Chapters 12 and 13, there is little evidence of preexisting familiarity between the contractor and his clients, and although the two employees of Company B are obviously familiar to one another, the hierarchical nature of this familiarity is far stronger than that seen in other chapters.
A second reasonable assumption that we can make is that all participants have a vested interest (stake and interest) in sharing knowledge: the client representatives as owners of the client’s requirements and possessors of the project budget and the contractor as the possessor of knowledge and experience of exhibition work. The meeting’s purpose requires both parties to share knowledge to accomplish a mutually shared understanding of the business at hand. Thus, a mutually shared and implicit understanding of the client–contractor relationship can be speculated as motivating joint interest in ensuring that the client’s requirements are satisfactorily met, that all (potential) issues are addressed, and that a favorable outcome is assured.
Developing this latter point, the categories of “client” and “contractor” invoke a number of taken-for-granted norms, collectively described as the “client–contractor etiquette”: the client is in charge, makes decisions on what is to be done, knows what they want and need, and will disclose authentic information that can be trusted. The category of contractor invokes notions of compliance, trusted expertise allied to reputation, and the provider of solutions. It is the contractor who has been selected for the project with the client as the agent of selection. The anticipated actions are that the client will list their requirements, with the contractor suggesting ways in which these may be realized. But, in the first meeting part, the analysis reveals an anomaly to this, causing a shift in the normatively expected positions. This has an impact on the anticipated directions for knowledge sharing leading to a breach in client–contractor etiquette, which becomes activated in the second part of the meeting.
14.3 PROBLEMS, COMPLEXITIES, AND APPEALS TO COMMON SENSE
The first extract is chosen because it does not comply with the expected sequential pattern of accounting. As the analysis shows, role positions become the subject of delicate interactional negotiation, with the categories of “client” and “contractor” becoming blurred and the expected primary direction of knowledge sharing (client to contractor, setting the agenda for the contractor’s response) being all but reversed.
At the meeting’s outset, the client (Elaine) and the contractor (Mike) swap mundane pleasantries before jointly agreeing that, despite a lack of information from the exhibition organizer, they may still proceed with their discussions for which Elaine confirms she has “a brief.” The brief does not exist in written form. The possession of a brief nonetheless occasions an agenda for the meeting, and as we have seen in previous analysis work, this possession (in theory) casts its owner in a dominant position with rights to set the discussion directions, topic transitions, and so forth. No mention is made of a third participant yet to arrive. Getting down to the business at hand, Elaine informs Mike of a set of circumstances concerning the stand of which he is unaware: the stand will not just feature the client but will also include up to three of its partners. She predicts a forthcoming “huge meeting” involving all parties at which expectations for the stand—branding, collateral, and staffing—are to be discussed and agreed. This future meeting will not involve Mike. The first extract comes immediately following this disclosure:
14.3.1 Invoking Positions of Authority
The evolving subject position discourse (Davies and Harré, 1990 ) is characterized by three features: Mike’s (i) repertoire of bad news, (ii) persuasion and trust, and (iii) scripting of professionalism and claims to epistemic superiority (Clifton, 2012b). All of these features work up Mike’s position as authoritative and authentic, with a stake in both his client’s and his own reputation, and as guardian of what the client wants. All of this sounds suspiciously like the concerns and features of what would be expected to be the hallmark of the meeting’s dominant actor—the client. We have already encountered many of these features in the previous discussions on trust and risk, which are shown to punctuate the repertoires of meeting leaders. An important consequential feature of Mike’s version of affairs is how this reflexively works to cast Elaine in the role of “amateur” in need of strong advice and to which Elaine is shown to display resistance. Each of these three features is considered in turn.
Negative Repertoire
The negative repertoire can be seen in Mike’s description of “too many screens” (Line 46), “too many people” (Line 47), “four different names” (Line 65), and “loads of screens” (Line 77), all of which conspire to a confused message with visitors not being attracted to the stand. This is a version of a projected future worked up as something to be obviously avoided. When people predict versions of future events, they are displaying their knowledge of cause and effect (Chilton, 2004 ) drawn from experience. Note the use of quantification rhetoric. As we saw in the chapters on trust and risk, quantification accounts are not only designed to argue but also serve to formulate accounts as immune from the speaker’s stake or interest (Potter et al., 1991). Thus, Mike scripts commonsense facts indexed as obvious (Thompson, 2004), which are not influenced by his own agenda of “clutter avoidance”—his stake and interest. The upshot is to formulate an account that would be difficult for anyone to dispute without appearing incapable of seeing the obvious and fond of mess. This is all indexical and consequent to how Elaine proposes to deal with the involvement of the client’s partners in the stand, which is clearly constructed by Mike as a problem in the making.
Across the trajectory of the extract, Mike escalates the “problem” from the inference that the stand’s size is not appropriate for “yourselves and three other companies” (Line 10) to a problem that Elaine “might have” and then “probably will have” (Line 63/64), which is rounded up as leading to a “really, really confusing” message (Line 69). The repeat of “really” works as an extreme case formulation that scripts his case as cut and dried and not open to negotiation (Edwards and Potter, 1992). One can readily see this if one thinks of the conventional alternative to “really” in such a phrase—“very, very confusing”: the use of “really” brings the added sense of reality, concreteness, and unavoidability, if his advice is not heeded. Interestingly, when used as a stand-alone utterance, say, in response to some account given by another speaker, the term “really” invokes a charge against the truthfulness of what the other speaker has said (Silverman, 2007). Context is everything.
This negative repertoire works so effectively that it causes Elaine to almost “beg” for “one computer screen” (Line 79). This is charged and comes armed with a warrant (Silverman, 2007)—a Director is launching a new product and needs to be able to demonstrate it (Lines 81/82). The emphasis on “our Director” works to call attention to the title of the person needing the screen—this is not Elaine wanting a screen, but a Director. She uses the title to emphasize her argument for having a screen, with the associated implication that Directors are not to be denied. The addition of the inclusion pronoun (“our”) effectively implicates (Abell and Stokoe, 2001) Mike in the business of not denying Directors. There are three repairs in this one utterance suggesting that Elaine is treading very carefully (Hepburn and Wiggins, 2005). There is a sense here that Mike may have taken his rhetoric too far. He is also explicitly driving the agenda, and setting the direction for knowledge sharing, in opposition to that expected.
Repairs
“Repair” is the term used to identify a part of an utterance (or a whole utterance) in which the speaker has, for instance, started to say one thing and then produces something else. Everyday talk is quite literally littered with repairs. They can also appear in written text. Particularly in talk, words uttered cannot be erased—we cannot “wind the clock back”—so repairs are seen as accomplishing significant actions worthy of the analyst’s close attention.
Candidate Solutions
When a speaker formulates a question or indicates a problem, for instance, he or she is described as offering a candidate solution when the utterance contains a prospective solution, similarly to a “candidate answer.” In accomplishing such actions, speakers can be seen to orient to two extremes: either the candidate solution is conjured as their preferred solution or framed as ironic or sarcastic, for instance.
Accountability of Descriptions
Descriptions are said to be accountable when the speaker offers a warrant—a justification—for their claim, account, or report. If a speaker orients to the accountability of their description, they are signaling their often tacit understanding that descriptions may be open to criticism, counterclaims, or alternative versions.
Persuasion and Trust
Despite scripting what can be seen as a robust, noncontestable argument, Mike’s tone of voice is friendly, concerned, and warm. This seems at odds with the apparent warning work that he is doing with, for instance, his prediction of dire future events (Lines 46–53). Note, however, that the candidate solutions (Hepburn and Wiggins, 2005 ) to these problems are contained in the warnings: avoid too many screens, avoid too many people, and the message becomes decomplicated. This display of epistemic superiority (Clifton, 2012b) is served as the warrant for the “warning” work being done: that is, the display of possession of knowledge in how to avoid future disasters works as the justification for issuing warning. Such actions index the accountability of descriptions (Silverman, 2007) and an awareness of the potential for criticism (Antaki et al., 2006). So superficial analysis would suggest that he is orienting to the client–contractor etiquette in providing the advice and solutions—required of contractors in such situations—as factual descriptions that are accountable. However, closer investigation of his claims to professionalism and superior knowledge suggest a different understanding.
If there is potential for criticism, the mitigating action is persuasion. Everything about Mike’s discursive actions orient to persuasion, displaying knowledge of these problems based on previous experience, as we saw earlier with his prediction of future events. This can be seen more directly in Lines 52 and 53 in which Mike’s utterance is initiated with a marked drop in tone and volume to the level of near whisper. This can be understood in two ways: first, as a sharing of confidence and second, as an appeal to common sense. Sharing confidences invokes trust work while conjuring the self-evident nature of common sense (Thompson, 2004) as unproblematic and obvious to everyone. The cleverness of these types of action lies in their effect of issuing a version of affairs to which every reasonable person would subscribe, but which is nonetheless his version of affairs. In appealing to common knowledge that reasonable people would have, Mike is thus managing his own stake and interest in the account through the actions of persuasion linked to trust. Elaine’s orienting to the trustworthiness of his account can be seen in Lines 67 and 79, for instance, in her speech mirrors of Mike’s utterances. That is, she displays acceptance of Mike’s claims.
Claims to Professionalism and Superior Knowledge
Mike makes claims to knowledge of what Elaine will get, wants, or does not want (e.g., Lines 49, 55, 71). This works to script what she should want and need as imperatives, with the reflexive inference that Elaine lacks possession of the right aspirations. This, in turn, issues Elaine—and her brief—with a potential credibility problem (Silverman, 2007 ), bilaterally constructing Mike as the owner of a more appropriate “brief”: the positions are thus reversed.
According to Andrew Brown and his coworker, one of the ways in which people display professionalism is through making claims to knowledge and expertise, which is an obvious enough notion. Perhaps less obvious is their argument that these kinds of claims work reflexively to “…position relevant others as naïve, neophytes, amateur and inexpert” (2011: 86). Arguably, at this point in the conversation, this is precisely the identity to which Elaine orients with her acquiescent minimal utterances (e.g., “yeah”: Lines 51, 54). By contrast, Elaine’s speech mirrors (Lines 14, 67, 79) do something more than this. This partial echoing—in three places—of Mike’s preceding utterance, and mostly almost simultaneously with his talk, suggests that Elaine is resisting the “unknowledgeable” role being formulated into being by Mike. Working together, the minimal acquiescence and the speech mirrors display not just agreement (Abell and Stokoe, 2001) but also corroboration. Elaine is not just accepting the other’s claims as trustworthy (as noted earlier), but she is invoking a position of experience (Rautajoki, 2012), which is in contrast to the role construction that Mike orients to. This reveals the moment-by-moment delicate identity negotiation work.
It is further suggested that Mike’s claims to superior knowledge serve as the warrant for his displays of concern for his client’s reputation, which invokes the potential of a risk. The progenitor of this risk is the fact that it is Elaine, and not Mike, who will be present at the crucial forthcoming meeting with partners to discuss the stand. Having made these positions of authority and its opposite live concerns, what does Mike do with them? The next part of the analysis demonstrates how this role construction is crucial to accomplishing the action of “creating a script”—in effect, conjuring a position that Elaine is to adopt at the future partners’ meeting.
14.3.2 Formulating a Script for the Client
What is it about this extract that suggests that what Mike is doing is conjuring a “script” for what Elaine should say at the future partners’ meeting? Toward the end of the extract, Mike makes an explicit statement of what she will need to do in respect of the partners (Lines 74–75): “(you) say, look, well …,” which Elaine receipts with a minimal affirmative. Completing the narrative, Mike invokes the further weight of evidence against “loads of screens,” which again, Elaine’s echo in Line 79, serves to corroborate, with the latter working so effectively that Elaine immediately follows this with an appeal, with its subject (“computer screen”) uttered almost subvocally as if working to hide its presence. It is also the case that Elaine’s turn (Lines 79–82) serves as the first indication of a “brief” being shared: the Director’s specific requirements. The point made here is that the prior actions in the extract are all carefully choreographed to this point and designed to make public all of the reasons and arguments for why Elaine should adopt a particular stance with the partners and what she should say. This can be unpacked.
A comparison of Lines 17–19 and 71–73 shows how the latter repeats almost exactly the former. The earlier utterance is interrupted by Elaine, but the repeat serves to complete it. As the scene setter for this action, Mike orients to the necessity of bringing the “problem” into sharp focus—making it real—with vivid accounting, which works to factualize his claims (Lines 3–10, 12–13: Edwards and Potter, 1992 ). Note, for instance, that the word “problem” is missing from Elaine’s inaugural question (Line 2), although its presence can be heard in Mike’s responding audible intake of breath. Elaine positively receipts and partly echoes Mike’s utterance (Line 14), scripting consensus, and alignment with his stance (Schegloff, 1997), and even making an explicit claim to similar opinions (Lines 16: “… that’s what I think too aswell”). To all intents, Mike’s persuasion work has succeeded and trust is invoked—at least, on her part in respect of the contractor’s experience and know how.
Vivid Accounting
Vivid accounting or description is one of Derek Edwards and Jonathan Potter’s discursive fact construction formulations. People typically construct vivid, richly detailed accounts or descriptions of objects, events, people, and so forth, which give the impression of firsthand witnessing or of perceptual reexperience. This has the reflexive effect of scripting the speaker as possessing good skills of observation and their account as being authentic and accurate.
Mike’s continued escalation of the problem (Lines 17–19) invoking the mental state of “what you want” infers that what Elaine thinks “aswell” is insufficient to ward off risk. So, while Mike works to script himself as trustworthy, he reflexively formulates Elaine as being the opposite. Her interruption (Lines 20–24), spoken quite rapidly, can he heard as an attempt to downgrade and reclaim the escalating problem. Turns of talk typically demonstrate the speaker’s sense of the previous turn (Potter, 1998a ): here, Elaine orients to discomfort with the contractor’s problem escalation actions and also arguably his formulation of what she can and cannot do. In other words, is Mike “overegging” the scale of the problem? She works up a careful stamp of ownership (Lines 20–21: “… we want it to be a ….”), with the company’s name repeated as the owner of the stand. In this way, she conjures a mitigating circumstance (Abell and Stokoe, 2001) for the potential problem: it can be managed (“we can kind of get away with,” Line 23), which downgrades its seriousness.
In thus recharacterizing the nature of the problem, Elaine attempts to reclaim the floor. In response, Mike prefaces his utterance with the particle “well” (Line 25), shown to signal the insufficiency of the previous turn (Wood and Kroger, 2000), conjuring Elaine’s account as an insufficient strategy and as the source of risk, potentially to reputation. Also, in otherwise explicitly avoiding orienting to Elaine’s account (starting in Line 25, he offers a factual description of the stand and its features), he compounds the potential credibility problems (Silverman, 2007) of her strategy. Thus, a potential tension is created with the scale of the invoked problem, its ownership, as well as strategies for dealing with it made live issues. This interaction works up the two sides of an argument, which need to be resolved. Recall Robin Wooffitt’s (2005) reasoning that arguments cannot be resolved through reference to the facts, as it is the facts that are in question. Someone has to give way.
Subsequently, Mike issues all of the reasons and arguments for why his client should adopt a particular stance with the partners, using a number of key rhetorical resources. These have the effect of working up the factual and persuasive status of his account, reflexively orienting to his claimed position of knowledgeable expert with a concern for reputation—that is, self and account as authentic and therefore trustworthy, immune from self-interest. The description of the stand, for instance, begun in Line 25, serves as a form of empiricist accounting, which Derek Edwards and his coworker (1992) explain as constructing a constrained neutral record of events. He also uses three-part listing in two places, shown to be effective in persuasion discourse (Edwards and Potter): (Lines 46–47) “too many screens,” “too many people,” “too complicated,” and (Lines 64–66) “too crowded,” “people aren’t going to get the message,” and “it’s going to be four different names up there.” Additionally, he uses a contrast marker (Lines 45–46), with the “ummm” serving to mark the end of concessionary material (what Elaine can have), and the direction of his advice in avoiding “too many screens.”
However, the most powerful warrant for his claimed position (Line 55–57) comes with the invoking of past experience with this same client with similar problems to those predicted here. Mike scripts privileged access to knowledge (Willig, 2003), which he does delicately and with attention to avoiding specific allocation of blame. As the only actor able to invoke this previous experience, how can it be disputed? The meaning of this previous experience as being problematical is not made explicit, but rather is worked up in shared meaning through the familiar use of the phrase “too many people.” What this clever utterance accomplishes is an unbalancing of the facts in his favor. What is also implied is that the client did not heed his advice on this previous occasion.
Now Mike moves to complete his scripting work, with the earlier contingent status of the problem hardened to predictable fact and with Elaine displaying fully shared consensus through her echo in Line 67. Note how this works as indirectly reported speech of imaginary future stand visitors: it is not just what she thinks, or what Mike says, but what other people will problematize.
With these moves, the trajectory of the discourse is shown to lead to a repeat of Mike’s earlier warnings, this time encased in an explicit “script” for Elaine to use at her partners’ meeting. Again, the anticipated position norms of “client” and “contractor” are blurred.
14.3.3 Influencing Effects of “the Script”
From this point on, part 1 of the meeting largely follows expected norms for a meeting of this type, with a far more equivalent, interactional, and collaborative sharing of ideas and options. Nonetheless, the “script” worked up by Mike continues to influence the direction of the discourse. He twice explicitly reissues the problem, the first reiterating the theme of “clear message,” with its opposite leading to people simply walking past the stand. The last few lines of this exchange are included here as they generate an account that is directly contradicted by the third participant when he joins the meeting. The claims invoked in Extract 2 are not just contradicted, but are shown to be wholly wrong. As becomes clear when the third participant joins, Elaine has omitted to pass on one vital piece of knowledge:
Note how the company’s name is made the dominant subject of this transaction, with the name scripted as the “big attractor,” that visitors will “know who they are.” This idea is cocreated by both participants, with both working up what imaginary exhibition visitors will think (Lines 146–148) with the client referred to in the third person. Like “reported speech,” this has the effect of rendering accounts vivid and dramatic (Wood and Kroger, 2000) but here also done objectively (“they” rather than “we”). What is cocreated here is an imaginary version of future events, scripted as authentic and mutually understood.
By the time that the third participant joins in, Mike and Elaine have completed discussions on the stand’s brief, with the key features and requirements worked up as a mutually agreed business. The closing stages of the meeting are signaled by Elaine’s summation of the core requirements and a move to trivia such as the organization of dishes of confectionary. The third participant comes with something of a “bombshell.”
14.4 “SEASONED EXHIBITIONISTS” AND BOMBSHELLS
Recall that the primary purpose of the meeting is to share knowledge so that knowledge of the client’s requirements can be “matched” by knowledge of exhibition work with the objective of realizing a successful exhibition presence. So far, Elaine and Mike have negotiated a set of criteria for the exhibition stand, with the interactional trajectory (Wooffitt, 2007 ) shown to be heavily influenced by Mike. It has been shown how he works to effectively reverse the entitlements of the categories “client” and “contractor,” such that the knowledge transaction work is driven by him. They have also mutually invoked reputation, trust, authenticity, and epistemic rights as live issues. Peter now enters the meeting. He is introduced by Elaine as “Peter,” “our Services Director” who is “very heavily involved” in the event, a description that Peter confirms. Elaine initiates a review of the discussions thus far. During the course of the next sequential interaction, it is shown how Peter explicitly scripts his position as highly experienced in stand work, just prior to sharing knowledge of a novel circumstance, which serves both as a “bombshell” in the light of previous discussions and which brings to light a breach of client–contractor etiquette.
Category Entitlement
Categories such as “client” or “mother,” “father,” or “business manager” invoke particular meanings and consequences for speakers. Category entitlements refer to the characteristics and understood meanings of a given category. As such, the authenticity of an account can be justified—warranted—by the entitlements of the category membership that the speaker scripts in their discourse. For example, categories come loaded with certain types of knowledge or expertise that a person claiming membership of a particular category is understood and expected to have.
14.4.1 Shifting the Position of Authority
The first part of the review is largely a two-part interaction between Peter and Elaine, with Elaine doing the describing of the “arrived-at” solution for screens and Peter contributing minimal continuers, comments, and suggestions. The dynamics start to change when Peter asks Mike to “give an indication of what the whole space will be like,” with the subsequent interactions predominantly involving Peter and Mike only. Mike’s discourse, once again, becomes impregnated with directives toward what “you’ve got,” what “you’re gonna have,” what “you’re gonna want,” and what “you can’t have.” Extract 3 displays what happens as he moves through a list of mundane features such as doors, storage space, and charging laptops:
This is the first time that Peter scripts himself as possessing knowledge relevant to the topic under discussion. He interrupts Mike’s listing of features with a double receipt (“yeah, yeah,” Line 555), with its suggestion of “OK, I know all this,” and then gives tonal and descriptive emphasis to the volume of his experience using an extreme case formulation, “huge” (Line 556), which works up indisputable fact (Edwards and Potter, 1992 ) as authentic. His orienting to experience bilaterally works as a warrant for his interruption of the other speaker. That is, he explicitly establishes his position as knowledgeable such that Mike does not need to continue with his line of detail, hence the interruption. This is precisely how Mike displays his understanding of Peter’s action in that he forgoes any further listing. Note the spontaneous matching laughter by Peter and Elaine, which works collaboratively to accomplish alignment and affiliation (Wooffitt and Allistone, 2005). Interestingly, while Elaine works to upgrade (Potter, 1998a) the claimed stance made by Peter (Line 557), he continues to talk over her, invoking a sense of her claim being unnecessary. The upshot is that Mike orients to this change in positioning by reformulating Peter’s claims with the explicit category title “seasoned exhibitionist” (Line 558) with all of the rights, themes, and images—its context—that this normatively invokes (Silverman, 2007).
During meeting part 1, Mike is shown to work up his rights to direct the discourse trajectory, warranted by his expertise and experience (epistemic superiority: Clifton, 2012b)—his authority. Now he has a rival, in so much as he is now not the only one present with such epistemic entitlements. Also note how he neatly conjures the category (Abell and Stokoe, 2001) of “seasoned exhibitionist” as being the joint ownership of both himself and Peter in the scripting of “aswell,” affiliating Peter’s position to his own. Peter’s overtalked response (Line 559) both receipts and scripts category recognition (Peräkylä, 2005) with Mike. Thus, both work interactionally to cocreate status for each other to the notable exclusion of Elaine. The upshot is that from this point on, Elaine is largely sidelined until Peter leaves. These discursive actions place Peter in the position of a dual status: client with a warrant to be heard as a decision-maker and as experienced exhibitor with rights to all of the understood entitlements of that category (Edwards and Potter, 1992). What transpires next would not have had the same trajectory and impact if it were not for this dual status.
14.4.2 Issuing a Bombshell and Working to Save Face
Immediately before Extract 4, Peter has raised the subject of the client’s partner companies, triggering the other two to rehearse their previous discussions on the need to avoid confusing messages, with imaginary visitors once again called upon through indirect reported speech by Elaine. Peter interrupts Mike with his utterance in Line 655, dropping the “bombshell.” There is a fifth brand to be displayed (“Acme Jobs”), and moreover, Peter constructs this brand as having more “attractor” power than the company’s own name. Contrast this with the contents of Extract 2. In a subsequent utterance, Peter goes as far as to work up a contrast between exhibition visitors’ reactions: while they will “register with Acme Jobs” as they “wander past,” their eyes will “glide over” the company’s name. Extract 4 thus highlights a breach in client–contractor etiquette in that Elaine has omitted the “Acme Jobs” aspect from her earlier (attempted) brief-giving and consequently both she and Mike have just invested their previous discourse in a false set of stocks. Consequently, while Elaine is seen to have not given an “authentic” brief, Mike, in spite of his prior knowledge of the client’s stands, is now understood to have persuaded Elaine to the potentially false belief that the client’s name will be the attractor for visitors. How this is dealt with by Peter is intriguing.
A first point to note is the absence of any utterance from Mike during Extract 4. Elaine’s “stage whisper” (Line 657) can be assumed to be directed at Mike, but is immediately and vociferously denied by Peter, the four-repeat of “no” scripting denial as an extreme case formulation, as undeniable. Moreover, Peter’s interruption of Elaine in Line 661 renders her about-to-be-asked question as irrelevant, which has the effect of working to sideline the rest of her turns in this extract (minimal continuers in Lines 665 and 670; corroborating echo in Line 667) as equally unnecessary to the business of Peter at this point.
What is interesting about this interaction is the contrast between Peter’s utterances in Lines 661–664 and his conjuring of “gravity” in Line 671. In the former part, Peter first scripts “I was think…“ and “I was thinking…”: according to Jackie Abell and her coworker (2001), such phrases can serve to signal that what follows may not necessarily be fact. Robin Wooffitt (2005), on the other hand, proposes that “‘I think’ formulations of knowledge claims are rooted in social activities” (117): he convincingly argues that such cognitive phrases are designed to do delicate interactional work, orientating to social norms, and face-saving. In contrast, Paul Chilton (2004) suggests such phrases work as explicit opinion markers indicating further expansion to come. The expanded opinion slot that follows scripts a contingency (“… if you’re … [then] I would say …”). These two resources working together here suggest a delicate avoidance of a face-threatening act. According to Brown and Levison’s theory of politeness (1987; as cited in Benwell and Stokoe, 2012), speakers attempt to preserve their self and others’ esteem or “face” (see also Myers’ 1989 study of scientists use of positive and negative politeness to redress face-threatening acts). In other words, Peter is orienting to, and quietly brushing to one side, the previous discourse acts by Mike and Elaine, which are now shown to have been uninformed. All are off the hook, while Peter formulates his requirement for the Acme Jobs logo to be the same size (or close to it) of the company’s logo as a suggestion.
This interpretation of Peter’s delicate orienting to face-saving can be seen in the light of his subsequent account in Lines 668–671. This account serves as a warrant for the foregoing “suggestion”: putting the Acme Jobs logo into a prominent position on the stand will be a good thing because it is so recognizable to visitors. Then, he concretizes this with his account of how visitors will “gravitate” to the stand. Here, “gravitate” serves as scientific discourse with an evaluative inference (Hepburn and Wiggins, 2005) calling on scientific, and in the case of gravity, inevitable fact. According to Justin Charlebois (2010), scientific arguments are rhetorically strong because they refer to things that are unchangeable. In Derek Edwards and his coworker’s (1992) terms, this utterance would be classed as empiricist accounting, which, they argue, bolsters accounts as factual. As such, this phraseology is arguably a far more powerful account of future events than calling on indirectly reported thoughts of imaginary visitors.
Finally, note the use of the future tense modal “will” (Line 671), shown to be stronger than a standard (e.g., “should”) modal (Sneijder and te Molder, 2005). Peter delicately deals with a potential threat to face, both Mike’s and the client’s, and then formulates a strong warrant for adopting his suggested actions. Further, it is claimed that this strategy works because of his already established credentials as “seasoned exhibitionist” and that these actions invoke reputation in their mitigation work in respect of both contractor and client.
14.5 PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS
A few speculative observations can now be made about how positioning actions are shown to influence the course of knowledge sharing and how identity works relationally with trust, reputation, and authenticity. During the first part of the meeting, Mike drives both the agenda and its direction accomplished through conjuring epistemic superiority and experience, a discourse of persuasion, and invocation of trust, reputation, and authenticity. Risk is shown to be invoked by Mike, but, arguably, only as a rhetorical device to bolster his persuasion actions. But, in thus driving the agenda, the delivery of the brief—the actual requirements of the client—becomes somewhat lost, and it transpires that a significant requirement has been omitted. Mike’s stance, and its reflexive construction of Elaine as an amateur, has influenced how she has shared her knowledge of the brief.
However, this interpretation only has substance if Elaine was in fact in possession of the information about “Acme Jobs” in the first place: this is not made explicit in the discourse. Yet, it is claimed here that during the second meeting part, in orienting to the potential face-threatening act and in scripting Elaine’s turns as irrelevant (Extract 4), Peter orients to his understanding that she did possess this knowledge but failed to impart it. He effectively “wallpapers” over the issue and thus indexes concerns with reputation and authenticity. An alternative and potentially valid analysis suggests that Elaine may simply have been displaying reluctance—in not mentioning the “Acme Jobs” logo—to issue knowledge of a fifth logo in response to Mike’s persuasive rhetoric against such “clutter.”
During the course of the second part of the meeting, Peter and Mike collaboratively conjure the context and category of “seasoned exhibitionist” with mutual membership. This has the effect of recontextualizing Peter’s subsequent turns in the sequence. There is an irony here in that Peter, while claiming the rights and responsibilities of the category of seasoned exhibitionist, is a senior manager of the client firm and it is this same firm that Mike had earlier implied was responsible for a previous stand’s problem of having too many people. There is also the question of why Peter waited until some way into the meeting before making this explicit claim to knowledge. It is speculated that this is connected to lack of familiarity between contractor and client representatives, in that people do not tend to lay out credentials until it becomes necessary.
In issuing the “bombshell,” Peter takes full control over the direction of the knowledge sharing: he displays his power to manage the potentially face-threatening act consequential to the client–contractor etiquette breach. Then, he accounts for the change of plan, initially introduced as a suggestion, as a mandatory requirement. While, according to Mike’s arguments, this may add further risk in the potential for confusing and complicating messages, the particularly strong warrant that Peter issues for its adoption works to mediate this. In fact, if one follows Peter’s logic, it would not matter how many logos and so forth are on display because visitors’ eyes will “glide over” them in favor of the Acme Jobs one. While this is a formulation of opinion sharing, as his version of what will transpire, it is conjured as fact, common sense, and the product of what is tacitly known to happen at such events. Add to this Peter’s earlier positioning work, and this version of affairs is hard to deny. As Margaret Wetherell (2001) remarks, people speak from positions, which come loaded with inference and are consequential to rhetorical accomplishment.
Identity is shown to be relationally bound to matters of trust and risk, with a reprise of context such as authenticity and reputation seen in the previous analyses of trust and risk work.
Building positions of authority, expertise and trust are equally central to the business of sharing knowledge in the context of online discussion forums, and it is to this context that the investigations now turn in the following chapter.
FURTHER READING
- Antaki, C., Ardevol, E., Nunez, F. and Vayreda, A. (2006). “For she knows who she is:” managing accountability in online forum messages. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11, 114–132.
- Benwell, B. and Stokoe, E. (2012). Discourse and Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Davies, B. and Harre, R. (1990). Positioning: the discursive production of selves. Journal for the theory of social behaviour, 20, (1): 43–63.
- Myers, G. (1989). The pragmatics of politeness in scientific articles. Applied Linguistics, 10, (1): 1–35.
- Silverman, D. (2007). A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Qualitative Research. London: Sage.