CIICPD 2023

Direct speech and dialogue Rarely, short, rather indirect speech Emotionality and expressivity More distanced emotional involvement, hardly any expressive depictions Justification of narrative worthiness Relevance of certain biographical stages or themes for the entire biography Evaluative activities Retrospective-categorising, from the result, can be local or related to larger contexts Listener-related function Communication of processed events and experiences Dealing with tension Tension build-up less with regard to individual event elements, but rather to the biographical relevance 3.2 Positioning of Self and Others In addition to the categories of scenic-episodic and reporting narratives, we will focus for the analysis of our corpus also on the representation of the positioning of the self and the other according to Giaxoglu and Georgakopoulou (2022), as well as Bamberg (2012). Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann describe positioning as “that aspect of speech acts by which interactants assign themselves social positions and identities” (2004, p. 196). In the context of intercultural communication, self- and other-positioning is of particular interest. The question to be asked is whether the narrators use cultural categories for positioning and, if so, which ones. Correspondingly, it should be examined if these categories are defined in relation to each other and if they are negotiated. Finally, traces of negotiation of inner conflicts that characterise critical situations should be sought in the autobiographical fragments. Giaxolou and Georgakopoulou (2022, p. 241) refer to Bamberg (2012, pp. 104–105), who assumes that self-representation and positioning are primarily characterised by the negotiation of the following dilemmas: a) constancy and change: how one’s sense of self balances moment to moment on a continuum of no change at all to radical change. b) uniqueness and conformity: how tellers negotiate the degree of their sameness to or difference from others; and c) agency and construction: how tellers navigate their sense of self as actor or undergoer on a continuum of low versus high agency. 12 These categories are complemented by questions about critical intercultural categories such as ethnicisation, culturalisation, stereotyping and othering. In addition, the terms limited ethnicisation and limited culturalisation are also used as they indicate that the act of ascribing cultural ethnicity has only the function of orientation (as a part of the orientation) and is not used to explain behaviour or attitudes. Source: Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann (2004, pp. 156–157)

12 Translated by the authors.

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