The Presentations and Affiliation of events in story-telling: dreams, meta dream talk and the extra ordinary event

Story-telling in conversational discourse is often thought to coincide with small talk, indeed most research suggests it is part of small talk, such as the everyday doings in one’s life. However, there are other instances of interaction where speakers may use story-telling as a device to present experiences they have undergone. The data presented in this project provides for an analysis of a collection of instances of people recounting their dreams and existential experiences. These are both real life experiences in that it has impacted the way of participant’s everyday thinking of the world. Initial findings indicate it is the telling of the tale rather than the tale itself that will determine a hearer’s affiliation toward the telling of an event. However, before being able to demonstrate affiliations, hearers can be seen to be guided through the conversation realm, the story realm and the taleworld (Galloway Young 1987). This process demonstrates the importance of the jointness in using language (Clark 1996) by highlighting the joint activities speakers and hearers must undertake-not so much to share common ground, as to create it. However, the presentation of a tale also affects the hearers affiliation in that the participant is expected to believe the story no matter how extra ordinary the tale. The truth of the tale, something the hearers can never access, does not matter as much as what the hearers choose to believe. This, I argue, can be seen through an application of Goffman’s frame analysis (Goffman 1979). Some of the research questions this paper addresses include the following: Why do people tell people their dreams? How does a teller get their hearer to affiliate to their tale? How do they present an unusual story? What are the conversational realms and how do tellers transport their hearers there? The data collected are from natural talk in natural settings where speakers are telling tales of dreams, unusual experiences or other extra ordinary recountings. They were all transcribed using conversation analytic conventions. Findings indicate that each story is a joint activity, even those that show signs of disaffiliation. Often, hearers will not contest a tale because of the way a speaker has framed it. This is related to the way in which a speaker has chosen to present their tale and whether it has allowed their hearers to question their telling. Adams, E. and Goffman, E. (1979). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 39(4), p.601. Briggs, C. (1987). Katharine Galloway Young, Taleworlds and storyrealms: The phenomenology of narrative. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987. Pp. xiv + 268. Language in Society, 20(02), p.279. Clark, H. (1996). Using language. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.