Doing being a student: the role of self-deprecations in the analysis of face and identity construction in undergraduate university seminar discussions

Inspired by Benwell & Stokoe’s study of university students resisting academic tasks and identity (Benwell & Stokoe, 2010), this paper uses Conversation Analysis to analyse data from audio recordings of two groups of undergraduate university seminar discussions over a six-week period, to investigate self-deprecations. More specifically, the focus is of the role of self- deprecations in the analysis of face (Goffman, 1967) and identity construction in undergraduate university seminar discussions. I am interested in how self- deprecations are structured, with a focus on the preference for agreement (Sacks, 2006), and how they are responded to – both by other students as well as the seminar tutor. Here, I will centre my discussion on preferred turn shapes (Pomerantz, 1984) and the notions of affirmation versus confirmation. Other themes will include aspects of politeness (Brown & Levinson, 2006) such as positive politeness, and how they interact with displays of epistemic authority (Heritage & Robinson, 2005). I am interested in how the number of self- deprecations change throughout the duration of the module and, if the structure of these assessments does change, how it is that they do. Finally, this paper is also concerned with how any such change affects a response in next position. While it may seem that this paper is specifically about the performance of undergraduate students qua undergraduate students, the results have a potentially wider impact in problematising and subsequently being able to begin to explicate the nature of what it might mean to ‘do being knowledgeable’ within a learning environment. Benwell, B. Stokoe, E. L. (2010) University Students Resisting Academic Identity. In: Griffiths, P. Merrison, A. J., Bloomer, A. (2010) Language in use: a reader. London. Routledge. pp. 82-97. Brown, P. Levinson, S. C. (2006) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. In: Coupland, N. Jaworski, A. (2006) The discourse reader. London. Routledge. pp. 311-323. Goffman, E. (1967). On Face Work. In: Interaction Ritual. Goffman, E. (1972) London. Allen Lane. pp. 5-45. Heritage, J. Raymond, G. (2005) The Terms of Agreement: Indexing Epistemic Authority and Subordination in Talk-in-Interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly. 68 (1) pp. 15-38. Pomerantz, A (1984) Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of preferred/dispreferred turnshapes. In: Atkinson, J. Maxwell and Heritage, J. (1984) Structures of Social Action. Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. pp. 57- 101. Sacks, H (2006) On the Preference for Agreement and Contiguity in Sequences in Conversation. In: Drew, P. and Heritage, J (Ed.) Conversation Analysis: Volume 2. Sage. London. pp. 27-43.