Doing being knowledgeable': a conversation and analytic account of student self-deprecation

This paper takes a conversation analytic approach to investigating student self-deprecation in relation to face (Goffman, 1967) and identity construction (Dickerson, 2000). The data are taken from 12 hours of audio recordings of undergraduate university seminar discussions over a six-week period. More specifically, I explore how participants orientate to epistemic authority (Heritage & Raymond, 2005). First, I analyse three types of self-deprecation: head act, post-positioned minor act, and pre-positioned minor act self- deprecation, with a focus on the preference for agreement (Sacks, 1987). Next, I analyse the lecturer’s response to student self-deprecation with discussion centred around the collaborative nature of face. Finally, I focus on the student’s acknowledgement of the lecturer’s response. This enables an analysis of the overall sequential patterns surrounding student self-deprecation: 1) self-deprecation, 2) response, 3) acknowledgement. Finally, a discussion of how these sequences impact on face and identity construction will be considered. While it may seem that this paper is specifically about the performance of undergraduate student 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.