Othering in gossip: 'you go out, you have a laugh and you can pull, ok but

Jaworski, Adam and Coupland, Justine 2005. Othering in gossip: 'you go out, you have a laugh and you can pull, ok but. Language in Society 34 (5) , pp. 667-694. 10.1017/S0047404505050256

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Abstract

It has been claimed that gossip allows participants to negotiate aspects of group membership, and the inclusion and exclusion of others, by working out shared values. This article examines instances of gossipy storytelling among young friends during which participants negotiate self- and other-identities in particular ways. Participants are found to share judgments not only about others’ behavior but also about their own behavior through particular processes of othering. A range of discursive strategies place the characters in gossip-stories (even in the category called “self-gossip”) in marginalized, liminal, or uncertain social spaces. In the gossipy talk episodes examined, social “transgression” might be oriented to as a serious matter and thus pejorated, or oriented to in a playful key and thus celebrated. This ambiguity – “Do we disapprove or approve, of this ‘bad’behavior?” – means that in negotiating the identity status of “gossipees” liminality is constant. It is argued that othering, as an emergent category, along with the particular discursive strategies that achieve it, is an aspect of gossip that deserves further attention.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Additional Information:	Publisher’s copyright requirements: “All contributors retain the right to post the definitive version of the contribution as published at Cambridge Journals Online (in PDF or HTML form) in the Institutional Repository of the institution in which they worked at the time the paper was first submitted, or (for appropriate journals) in PubMed Central or UK PubMed Central, no sooner than one year after first publication of the paper in the journal, subject to file availability and provided the posting includes a prominent statement of the full bibliographical details, a copyright notice in the name of the copyright holder (Cambridge University Press or the sponsoring Society, as appropriate), and a link to the online edition of the journal at Cambridge Journals Online. Inclusion of this definitive version after one year in Institutional Repositories outside of the institution in which the contributor worked at the time the paper was first submitted will be subject to the additional permission of Cambridge University Press (not to be unreasonably withheld). See: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/forAuthors?page=copyright
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	0047-4045
Last Modified:	04 May 2023 18:38
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/3641

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