Alexander2020
| Alexander2020 | |
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| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Alexander2020 |
| Author(s) | Marc Alexander, Elizabeth Stokoe |
| Title | Characterological Formulations of Persons in Neighbourhood Complaint Sequences |
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| Tag(s) | Characterological formulations, complaints, conversation analysis, discursive psychology, environmental health, institutions, mediation, neighbourhood disputes, service provision, EMCA |
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| Year | 2020 |
| Language | English |
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| Journal | Qualitative Research in Psychology |
| Volume | 17 |
| Number | 3 |
| Pages | 413–429 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1080/14780887.2020.1725950 |
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Abstract
This article shows how speakers mobilise characterological formulations of people and, particularly, `types' of persons, in social action. We extend previous work in discursive psychology, in which notions of self or others' identity have been well-studied as categorial practices, by focusing specifically on the occasioned use of `[descriptor] person' formulations which index the characteristics of people. Drawing on a British corpus of 315 telephone calls about neighbour problems (e.g., noise, verbal abuse) to environmental health and mediation services, we show that callers build in-situ descriptions of self and neighbour for the practical activity of complaining or defending against accusations \textendash as types of people that are, for instance, reasonable (e.g., `I'm an extremely tolerant person'), in contrast to their neighbours' shortcomings (e.g., `he's a rather obnoxious person'). Our findings demonstrate that psychological predicates of self and other, indexed through characterological formulations, are recipient designed (i.e., formulated to display an orientation to co-present others) in ways that shape the institutional relevance for service provision. We conclude that, like many other aspects of the psychological thesaurus, `character types' are not just the preserve of psychologists but also a routine resource for ordinary social interaction.
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