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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1121

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

Involvement in monologues

Authors: Frobenius, Maximiliane
Submitted by: Frobenius, Maximiliane (Universität des Saarlandes, Germany)

This paper reports research on the creation of involvement in video blogs (vlogs) through the use of strategies borrowed from other genres and adapted to the monologue situation.

Vlogs represent asynchronous, spoken, computer-mediated communication (CMC). They consist of video footage produced and edited by the vlogger him- or herself, and later uploaded to a video hosting site. The videos usually feature the vlogger talking into the camera or talking about objects being filmed. While there are vlogs that show two or more speakers interacting, this research is only concerned with those passages that are monologic.

Some researchers have pointed out that the production of a monologue is based on speakers’ experience of dialogic talk-in-interaction: Haviland (2007) writes “interaction is a compelling model for talk, even apparently monologic talk” (p. 150). Similarly, Schegloff (1987) claims that “speech exchange systems, and their turn-taking organizations, are the product of transformations or modifications of the one for conversation, which is the primordial organization for talk-in-interaction” (p. 222). This forms the basis of my assumption that the monologues featured in vlogs display characteristics typical of conversational data.

One such characteristic is the creation of involvement. Involvement is understood as describing both listening and speaking in conversation as active participation, where both include traces and elements of the other (Tannen 1989: 12). In vlogs, interaction takes place not immediately, but via other channels, e.g. written comments or email messages, once the video has been uploaded. Thus the creation of involvement is used as a means to inspire communication through other channels. Vloggers must apply strategies to accomplish that. The strategies in question include repetition, (constructed) dialogue and imagery (Tannen 1989). The aims of this paper are to identify common involvement strategies in vlogs, state whether they are borrowed from other genres or unique to vlogging, and describe how they are adapted to the vlog context.

I hope to contribute to our understanding of the vlogging community and its linguistic practices. Lange (2007) characterizes its members as sharing “a commitment to video as a crucial means of expressing and understanding issues that the video blogger wishes to share” (no pages). So even though vlogs represent monologues, they are used as means of interpersonal exchange. My research aims at revealing interactional elements in a genre that depends on one speaker only.

References:

Haviland, John B.  2007.  Master Speakers, Master Gesturers: a string quartet master class. In Susan D. Duncan, Elena T. Levy, & Justine Cassell (eds.), Gesture and the Dynamic Dimension of Language: Essays in honor of David McNeill, 147- 72. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Lange, Patricia. 2007. “The Vulnerable Video Blogger: Promoting Social Change through Intimacy,” The Scholar and Feminist Online, 5(2).

Schegloff, Emanuel. 1987. Between macro and micro: Contexts and other connections. In Jeffrey C. Alexander, Bernhard Giesen, Richard Münch & Neil J. Smelser (eds.), The Micro-Macro Link, 207–234. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Tannen, Deborah. 1989. Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge: CUP.