Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T21:19:51.586Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Stance-taking and participation framework in museum commenting platforms: On subjects, objects, authors, and principals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2019

Chaim Noy  and
Michal Hamo
Chaim Noy*
Affiliation:
Bar Ilan University, Israel
Michal Hamo
Affiliation:
Netanya Academic College, Israel
*
Address for correspondence: Chaim Noy, School of Communication, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 5290002, Israel[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The realization of subjectivity through language use is a key concern of sociolinguistic research. We argue for examining it by juxtaposing Goffman's participation framework and Du Bois’ stance triangle. We focus on museums’ commenting platforms as ‘stance-rich’ media (Du Bois 2007:151) by examining the communicative affordances of a visitor book at the Florida Holocaust Museum and analyzing museumgoers’ texts (3,064). These texts are homogeneous in their morally indignant evaluation of the Holocaust and their alignment with the museum, but heterogeneous in positioning and participation framework. Museumgoers’ texts are highly responsive to the setting and previous discourses of the museum and include patterns of shared authorship and principalship. These patterns allow museumgoers to construct shared, institutionally mandated, subjectivities while maintaining personal commitment. These findings contribute to our understanding of the construction of subjectivity as inherently dialogic, and as involving the purposeful use of a multiplicity of contextual resources. (Participation framework, stance triangle, repetitions, principalship, commitment, Holocaust, museums, visitor books)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , April 2019 , pp. 285 - 308
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Andermann, Jens, & Arnold-de Simine, Silke (2012). Introduction: Memory, community and the new museum. Theory, Culture & Society 29(1):3–13.Google Scholar
Barton, David, & Lee, Carmen (2013). Language online: Investigating digital texts and practices. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary; Skapoulli, Elena; Barnwell, Brendan; & Janie Lee, Jung-Eun (2011). Entextualized humor in the formation of scientist identities among US undergraduates. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 42(3):177–92.Google Scholar
Davies, Bronwyn, & Harré, Rom (1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 20(1):43–63.Google Scholar
Dori-Hacohen, Gonen (2017). Creative resonance and misalignment stance: Achieving distance in one Hebrew interaction. Functions of Language 24(1):16–40.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. (2007). The stance triangle. In Englebretson, 139–82.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W., & Kärkkäinen, Elise (2012). Taking a stance on emotion: Affect, sequence, and intersubjectivity in dialogic interaction. Text & Talk 32(4):433–51.Google Scholar
Englebretson, Robert (ed.) (2007). Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1961). Role distance. In Goffman, Erving, Encounters: Two studies in the sociology of interaction, 85–152. Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merrill Company.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1981). Footing. In Goffman, Erving, Forms of talk, 124–59. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles (2007a). Participation, stance and affect in the organization of activities. Discourse & Society 18(1):53–73.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles (2007b). Interactive footing. In Holt, Elizabeth & Clift, Rebecca (eds.), Reporting talk: Reported speech in interaction, 16–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles, & Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (2004). Participation. In Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), A companion to linguistic anthropology, 222–44. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (1990). He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization among Black children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Gruber, Helmut (2017). Quoting and retweeting as communicative practices in computer mediated discourse. Discourse, Context & Media 20:1–9.Google Scholar
Hamo, Michal (2015). ‘I have nothing to do but agree’: Affiliative meta-discursive follow-ups as a resource for the reciprocal positioning of journalists, experts and politicians-as-experts in television news. In Weizman, Elda & Fetzer, Anita (eds.), Follow-ups in political discourse: Explorations across contexts and discourse domains, 57–80. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Heath, Christian, & Lehn, Dirk vom (2008). Configuring ‘interactivity’: Enhancing engagement in science centres and museums. Social Studies of Science 38(1):63–91.Google Scholar
Herring, Susan C. (2001). Computer-mediated discourse. In Schiffrin, Deborah, Tannen, Deborah, & Hamilton, Heidi E. (eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis, 612–34. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean (ed.) (1995/2013). Museum, media, message. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith (1996). Shadow conversations: The indeterminacy of participant roles. In Silverstein, Michael & Urban, Greg (eds.), Natural histories of discourse, 131–59. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Iwasaki, Shoichi, & Yap, Foong H. (eds.) (2015). Stance-marking and stance-taking in Asian languages. Journal of Pragmatics 83:1–9.Google Scholar
Jaffe, Alexandra (2009). Introduction: The sociolinguistics of stance. In Jaffe, Alexandra (ed.), Stance: Sociolinguistic perspectives, 3–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman (1957/1990). Shifters and verbal categories. In Waugh, Linda R. & Monville-Burston, Monique (eds.), On language, 386–92. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara (ed.) (1994). Repetition in discourse. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Kärkkäinen, Elise (2006). Stance taking in conversation: From subjectivity to intersubjectivity. Text & Talk 26(6):699–731.Google Scholar
Kärkkäinen, Elise (2012). I thought it was very interesting: Conversational formats for taking a stance. Journal of Pragmatics 44:2194–210.Google Scholar
Katriel, Tamar (1997). Performing the past: A study of Israeli settlement museums. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Kiesling, Scott F. (2011). Stance in context: Affect, alignment and investment in the analysis of stancetaking. Paper presented at the iMean 2 conference, Bristol, UK.Google Scholar
Knell, Simon J. (ed.) (2004). Museums and the future of collecting. 2nd edn. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Kockelman, Paul (2004). Stance and subjectivity. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14(2):127–50.Google Scholar
Labov, William, & Waletzky, Joshua (1967/1997). Narrative analysis. Journal of Narrative and Life History 7(1–4):3–38.Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen (1988). Putting linguistics on a proper footing: Explorations in Goffman's concepts of participation. In Drew, Paul & Wootton, Anthony J. (eds.), Erving Goffman: Exploring the interaction order, 161–227. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Luke, Timothy (2002). Museum politics: Power plays at the exhibition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Sharon (2005). Accessing audiences: Visiting visitor books. Museum and Society 3(3):119–36.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Sharon (ed.) (2006). A companion to museum studies. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Myers, Greg (2010). Discourse of blogs and wikis. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Noy, Chaim (2009). ‘I WAS HERE!’: Addressivity structures and inscribing practices as indexical resources. Discourse Studies 11(4):421–40.Google Scholar
Noy, Chaim (2015). Thank you for dying for our country: Commemorative texts and performances in Jerusalem. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Noy, Chaim (2016). Participatory media new and old: Semiotics and affordances of museum media. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 33(4):308–23.Google Scholar
Noy, Chaim (2017a). Participatory media and discourse in heritage museums: Co-constructing the public sphere? Communication, Culture & Critique 10(2):280–301.Google Scholar
Noy, Chaim (2017b). Memory, media, and museum audience's discourse of remembering. Critical Discourse Studies 15(1):19–38.Google Scholar
Russo, Angelina, & Watkins, Jerry (2007). Digital cultural communication: Audience and remediation. In Cameron, Fiona & Kenderdine, Sarah (eds.), Theorizing digital cultural heritage: A critical discourse, 149–64. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Scollon, Ron (1995). Plagiarism and ideology: Identity in intercultural discourse. Language in Society 24(1):1–28.Google Scholar
Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie, & Aijmer, Karin (2007). The semantic field of modal certainty: A corpus-based study of English adverbs. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Stamou, Anastasia G., & Paraskevolpoulos, Stephanos (2003). Ecotourism experiences in visitors’ books of a Greek reserve: A critical discourse analysis perspective. Sociologia Ruralis 43(1):34–55.Google Scholar
Taha, Maisa C. (2017). Shadow subjects: A category of analysis for empathic stancetaking. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 27(2):190–209.Google Scholar
Tanaka, Lidia (2009). Communicative stances in Japanese interviews: Gender differences in formal interactions. Language & Communication 29:366–82.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah (1984). Conversational style: Analyzing talk among friends. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah (1989). Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, Gregory A. (2016). Temporality, stance ownership, and the constitution of subjectivity. Language & Communication 46:31–41.Google Scholar
Thornborrow, Joanna (2001). Authenticating talk: Building public identities in audience participation broadcasting. Discourse Studies 3(4):459–79.Google Scholar
Thornborrow, Joanna (2015). The discourse of public participation media: From talk show to twitter. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Thumim, Nancy (2009). ‘Everyone has a story to tell’: Mediation and self-representation in two UK institutions. International Journal of Cultural Studies 12:617–68.Google Scholar
Thumim, Nancy (2010). Self-representation in museums: Therapy or democracy? Critical Discourse Studies 7(4):291–304.Google Scholar
Vukovic, Milica (2014). Strong epistemic modality in parliamentary discourse. Open Linguistics 1(1):37–52.Google Scholar
Wortham, Stanton, & Reyes, Angela (2015). Discourse analysis beyond the speech event. London: Routledge.Google Scholar