Sterponi2003

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Sterponi2003
BibType ARTICLE
Key Sterponi2003
Author(s) Laura Sterponi
Title Account episodes in family discourse: the making of morality in everyday interaction
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, accountability, agency, family discourse, moral positioning, practices of morality, responsibility
Publisher
Year 2003
Language English
City
Month
Journal Discourse Studies
Volume 5
Number 1
Pages 79–100
URL Link
DOI 10.1177/14614456030050010401
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This article investigates account episodes in Italian family dinner conversations and illustrates how sequential patterns and participation are organized in terms of preferences indexical of moral ideology and moral order. Accounts have been mostly examined as speech acts abstracted from embedding sequential environment; this article shows that different design features of the priming move in account episodes retrospectively define different aspects of a situation as problematic and prospectively activate the relevance for distinctive remedial moves. On an ideological level, narrative elicitations as priming moves and accounts as remedial moves index a moral perspective that promotes moral reasoning and thus the negotiation of norms. In addition, such moves realize a practice of morality that tends to be inquisitory vs condemnatory, offering the benefit of the doubt prior to guilt allocation. In conclusion, the discursive mechanics of accountability constitutes a medium for reproduction of, and innovation in, the moral order.

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