Interpersonal Issues in Expressing Lay Knowledge

Abstract

This article examines lay knowledge about causes of infertility. We use discursive psychology to analyse semi-structured interviews with purposively sampled Malawians with a fertility problem. We observe that respondents deny knowledge of causes, sometimes emphatically, but this co-occurs with descriptions of potential causes. We show that these respondents thereby address problematic interpersonal issues: namely that one is not entitled to medical knowledge and that negative inferences that may be drawn about someone who knows particular causes of infertility. These findings shed new light on previous observations, and have implications for the study of lay knowledge.

‘You must know what you mean when you say that’: the morality of knowledge claims about ADHD in radio phone‐ins

“…Existing literature has shown that speakers employ claims of insufficient knowledge to escape the terms set by a prior turn, while technically providing an answer (e.g. De Kok and Widdicombe , Iversen , Keevallik ). We argue that declining to provide a description – in this case, of the child's problematic behaviour – can in itself be regarded as a claim to insufficient knowledge, and that it has similar consequences for the speaker's alignment.…”

“…Iversen () demonstrates how children may employ claims of no epistemic access to create moral distance between themselves and their abusive fathers. A similar pursuit of moral distance can be found in a study by De Kok and Widdicombe (). It shows how Malawians with fertility problems deny having knowledge of possible causes, thereby orienting to the fact that knowing these causes – including abortions or STDs – might suggest that the speaker had personal experience with them.…”

Sensitizing Questions: A Method to Facilitate Analyzing the Meaning of an Utterance

“…Accordingly, many analyses of discourse begin with a question such as 'what is this participant doing here?' (Pomerantz & Fehr, 1997;de Kok & Widdicombe, 2010) or 'why this (utterance/phrase/action) now?' (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998 Illustration: Returning to Mrs Smithson, is the utterance 'I have to go to work' a response to the husband saying 'pass me the baby wipes'?…”

“How do you know?”: everyday negotiations of expert authority

“…Iversen (2013) demonstrates how children may employ claims of no epistemic access to create moral distance between themselves and their abusive fathers. A similar pursuit of moral distance can be found in a study by de Kok and Widdicombe (2010). It shows how Malawians with fertility problems deny having knowledge of possible causes, thereby orienting to the fact that knowing these causes -including abortions or STDsmight suggest that the speaker had personal experience with them.…”

“…We used a discursive psychological perspective (Edwards, 1997;Edwards & Potter, 1992;Potter, 1996) to explore the interactional features of the LTYB idiom. Discursive psychology is strongly rooted in conversation analysis (Sacks, 1992) but focuses in particular on how participants practically manage psychological issues such as motive, intent, and identity (see, for example, de Kok & Widdicombe, 2010;Horton-Salway, 2001;Peel et al, 2005;te Molder, 2015). A discursive psychological analysis studies what participants achieve using a particular utterance -in this case, the idiomatic expression LTYB -at a specific moment in the conversation.…”