Going against the interactional tide: The accomplishment of dialogic moments from a conversation analytic perspective

Abstract

This article addresses a vital concern in current society by showing what participants themselves may treat as ways to transcend their differences. Actors’ shared understanding has been of longstanding interest across the social sciences. Conversation analysis (CA) treats the procedural infrastructure of interaction as the basis for participants to manage intersubjectivity. The field of dialogue studies has made occasions in which people transform their relationship by discussing their differences, central to their research project, and called them “dialogic moments.” This study draws on CA to investigate “dialogic moments,” but now through the eyes of participants themselves. Using single-case analysis, we argue that such moments require participants to go against normative orientations in talk promoting social solidarity and progressivity, by soliciting differences to understand and transcend them. This “going against the interactional tide” may explain both why dialogue is difficult to achieve and why it is appreciated by participants as dialogue.

Light At The End Of The Tunnel? The Staging of Expertise During the COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign

“…Dialogue, in contrast to debate, explores routinely hidden moralities, i.e., that what people deem important, in relationships, in life, as a person -and brings them to the surface for discussion (cf. Durnová, 2019;van Burgsteden & te Molder, 2022;van Burgsteden et al, 2022avan Burgsteden et al, , 2022b. Whereas debate can be useful in that it provides an overview of the different existing positions, the focus on defending one's own position hinders people's attempts to better understand and overcome their differences.…”

Expertise as a domain in interaction

“…On the one hand, for example, expert testimonies in court may be utilized for challenging the lay vision surrounding the course of the events (Goodwin, 1994). On the other hand, lay people may challenge experts, either concerning their inferences and implications (van Burgsteden and te Molder, 2019) or the local relevance of their knowledge and expertise (Wynne, 1992, 1996). On the whole, ‘science becomes controversial as soon as it touches on the question “how to live”’ (Versteeg, 2018: 28).…”